PRISMA
“We shot for about 20 days, and I remember each of them vividly.
I felt like I was in a constant state of creative flow, deeply immersed in the work. It was exhilarating.”
About a week before the shoot was set to begin, I got a call from Sónia—one of the directors—asking if I was available to step in as Director of Photography. Their original DP had recently left the project for personal reasons, and I was essentially their last resort. Still, the chance to work with Sónia and Zé was immediately appealing. On top of that, the possibility of signing my name as DP on my first-ever fiction project was a powerful motivator in itself.
The team that came together was an absolute joy. The gaffer and the 1st AC joined the project at a critical moment and brought an incredible level of dedication and love for the craft. Their commitment and presence were invaluable—I genuinely couldn’t have done it without them by my side.
Because of this narrative approach, each episode, or chapter, had the freedom to develop its own distinct visual language. This opened up an exciting creative space for us as a team: one day we might lean into an organic, handheld style that captured the raw, spontaneous energy of a scene, while on another day, we’d experiment with static, durational shots that invited a different kind of contemplation. We could play with zooms, wide angles, or tightly framed close-ups, all within the same framework of a single day in the story.
We shot for about 20 days, and I remember each of them vividly. I felt like I was in a constant state of creative flow, deeply immersed in the work. It was exhilarating.
This constant shift in visual grammar required us to be both flexible and intentional in our choices—embracing the challenge of tailoring the style to the perspective of each character, while ensuring that the visual approach always served the emotional and narrative core of the episode. It was a rewarding, at times demanding, process that deepened our engagement with the material and, ultimately, the series as a whole.
This constant shift in visual grammar required us to be both flexible and intentional in our choices—embracing the challenge of tailoring the style to the perspective of each character, while ensuring that the visual approach always served the emotional and narrative core of the episode. It was a rewarding, at times demanding, process that deepened our engagement with the material and, ultimately, the series as a whole.
At the same time, working in black and white helped us navigate the practical limitations of our small budget. It gave us more flexibility to manage challenges around locations, art direction, costumes, and lighting. Instead of being constrained by the imperfections or inconsistencies in these areas, the monochrome palette helped unify the visuals, creating a cohesive identity for the series.
Ultimately, shooting in black and white freed us to focus more on the storytelling itself, on the emotions, the characters, and the narrative arc without getting caught up in details that might have distracted from the essence of the story.