Philly D.A., which premiered at this year’s Sundance, is a docuseries that follows radical civil rights attorney Larry Krasner as he leads a group of activists attempting to end mass incarceration by taking over the district attorney’s office in Philadelphia.
Philly D.A. filmmakers (L-R) Ted Passon, Nicole Salazar and Yoni Brook.
“We spent three years filming Krasner’s team trying to reinvent the system,” explains Yoni Brook, who co-directed the project with Ted Passon. “Most films about political candidates end on election night. For us, that’s when the real story began. What kind of change is really possible?”
The other challenge, according to Brook, was figuring out how to make a legal drama thriller without shooting inside a courtroom, because filming in courtrooms is banned in Pennsylvania. “We decided to use this restriction to our creative advantage,” he explains. “There are so many courtroom dramas, but we had never seen a policy drama. Those behind-closed-doors meetings are crucial to understanding how the system of mass incarceration works in the United States. This meant we had to make the meetings inside a DAs office exciting and immersive, which often meant shooting with super-long lenses (even when only a few feet from characters) and keeping our lenses right at our character’s eye level, even for hours of shooting.”
Yoni Brook shooting inside Krasner’s offices.
Because of these shooting constraints, Brook knew he needed a small crew in order to get access into DA’s offices, police cars and other private situations, and that meant the need to wear a few different hats. “I was not only the DP but the co-director, embedded into scenes where our entire crew was two people.”
Let’s find out more from Brook…
What were some of the most challenging parts of the project?
I wanted to put our audience in the seats of the most powerful people in the justice system: the prosecutors. They operate behind closed doors, and our cinematography was an opportunity to pierce that bubble. As an observational docuseries, this project involved shooting nearly a thousand hours of intense meetings. Our scenes unfolded in ugly conference rooms with no opportunity to change the lighting.
To create a feeling of intimacy, I rested the camera on my hip pouch during long meetings to be at the same eye level as the people gathered around the conference tables. It was essential for me and co-creators Ted Passon and Nicole Salazar, who often operated sound, to be in creative sync while being completely silent. That meant often just using eye movement and tracking the boom mic.
For our cityscape scenes that showcase Philadelphia, I wanted to stay away from drones and instead used vintage telephoto zooms to achieve the deep focus of a classic observational documentaries, like Streetwise and The War Room.
With a small crew and limited space, what did you end up shooting with?
We shot on Canon C300 Mark II and did a few exterior sequences on the Red Gemini. We needed a camera system that was high-quality enough to make dingy fluorescent lighting look good without being super-heavy. I was often hand-holding for eight hours a day for over 500 shoot days. No EZ rigs or camera support, except for my trusty hip pouch, which was ideal for resting the camera on while filming at eye level for people sitting around conference tables.
Can you talk lenses and lighting?
It was all about minimalism. We often could not control lighting. I would try to turn off overhead lights that were hurting us and try to use windows when they were available, but that was secondary to not disturbing the scene. We shot everything with stock-still Canon EF lenses and vintage Canon zooms for exteriors.
How did you work with the colorist? Was it all remote?
We worked with Natacha Ikoli at Nice Dissolve. We worked remotely via Blackmagic Resolve, and it worked well, using color-calibrated monitors as well as iPads for reference. (Check out our interview with Ikoli from earlier in the year.)
Larry Krasner
Looking back on the film, would you have done anything different?
It’s hard for me to watch it because I still want to make changes. I would have loved to have gone deeper into the mechanics of the DA’s office and judicial system — the people who are out of public view — the security guards, maintenance engineers, paralegals, the career civil servants and attorneys. We meet some of them in the docuseries, but I would love to explore more of the less-public side of public institutions.
Finally, any tips for young cinematographers?
Don’t try to “make a reel” to impress people with technical skills or exotic locations. Make work that you are passionate about and that reflects your values. Sharing that work will set you apart.
