During the 1960s, a tight-knit group of progressive nuns in Hollywood discarded their habits and gleefully oversaw a radical women’s college grounded in social activism.

DP Emily Topper

Drawing from a trove of great archival material, including exclusive, never-before-seen interviews with several subjects who have passed away, Rebel Hearts tells the story of these nuns who made waves in the Catholic Church and eventually had to break away and start an independent community.

It was directed by Pedro Kos, with new footage shot by cinematographer Emily Topper, and it was edited by Kos, Erin Barnett, Yaniv Elani and Ondine Rarey using Avid Media Composer. To find out more about the shoot, we spoke to Topper about her process on the documentary film.

How early did you get involved on this film?
I started working on this film after Pedro Kos came on board as director, around 2017, although I was not the cinematographer on every shoot. Many of the original interviews in the movie were shot over the past 20 years on a variety of formats by DP Clay Westervelt working with Shawnee Isaac Smith.

Emily Topper shooting footage

How did you work with the director?
Pedro and I have been working together for several years, so we just built on that. We share a sensibility and have a shorthand for talking through scenes.

Can you talk about doing camera tests, and what did you end up shooting on and why?
We didn’t do any camera tests. Pedro and (producer) Judy Korin were going for a very simple, low-key, natural style, so we just kept things simple and mainly talked about the story needs and character dynamics before each scene.

We shot on Canon C300 Mark II for its size and low cost. We had to have a minimal amount of gear to stay nimble and low-profile so as to be intimate and non-intrusive with our subjects.

Can you talk lenses and lighting?
We shot on Canon L series lenses (zooms and primes) because they are affordable and because I could be very self-sufficient while working with them, keeping three of them on my person at a time in various bags strapped around my torso.

We did minimal lighting. Maybe we had one Kino Diva light for an interview, but we always used it in a way that would be very discreet.

Are there some scenes that stick out as challenging?
The main challenge was earning the trust of the community and shooting scenes with them in a way that did not interrupt their life too much.

During the course of the shoot, they faced some painful challenges — members passing away, a natural disaster — and I think it was a tough time to have a documentary crew in the mix. We had to keep a very low profile for many scenes.

Director Pedro Kos

How did you work with the colorist? Was it all remote?
Luke Cahill was the colorist, and grading was done entirely remotely. Even for an initial in-person session to set looks, Pedro was in the theater at Different by Design, and Luke was in his home studio working remotely. Luke used Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve.

For the remaining color sessions, producer Judy Korin worked remotely in real time with Luke via a SetStream feed on an iPad Pro. Final color sessions and approvals were all done remotely because of the increasingly concerning COVID situation in Los Angeles.

Any tips for young cinematographers working on docs?
If you want to shoot intimate, verité scenes, work on having a very streamlined approach that lets you be very self-sufficient while shooting. It’s important to have everything you need on you at all times so you don’t have to interrupt a scene too much to swap a lens or change a battery. Also, use fast prime lenses as often as possible.