Project Category: Premium Content Streaming, Documentary
About: MasterClass offers members online courses taught by accomplished professionals in their field. This series, Talking Shop, is part of their first foray into entertainment media and features MasterClass teachers telling the stories of the visionaries who influenced them. This episode tells the story of J.R.R. Tolkien as recounted by author Neil Gaiman.
Position: Producer - Story
I was on this project from pre-pro to delivery. As a team we crafted the story and beats to pursue after a creative call with Neil. After interviewing him on location, the team came back with over 8 hours of footage for a 45 minute episode. Neil Gaiman is a soundbite machine, and of course, an amazing story teller. It was really hard to cut out so much good footage, and I spent a lot of time crafting his story on timelines in Premiere for our editor. I wanted to get at the nuances of his story that he maybe wasn't even aware of, to connect all of the dots in an unexpected and satisfying way. I also did archival sourcing and we were even allowed to license some LOTR footage. This episode was fun and heart warming, and it was a pleasure to watch all 8 hours of the footage.
Production Secret: Show what you know.
In sourcing imagery for Neil's episode, I wanted it to be as mystical and awe-inspiring as his language. As he described a world he created, I thought of this incredible valley in Switzerland that I was scheduled to explore the following month: Lauterbrunnen. As you may know, this is also said to be the region that inspired JRR Tolkien's world building. In my head I imagined a drone shot flying through the valley and around one of many waterfalls coming off of the steep Alpine cliffs. Once I found that footage, I needed another almost opposite shot. As it turns out, about six months prior, I had visited Iceland where I traveled with an Icelandic Mountain Guide who also happened to be a landscape photographer. I reached out to him for footage, and he dug up some incredible shots from the Icelandic highlands that had yet to see the edit bay. We licensed his perfect and previously unreleased footage for the episode. For me, being able to incorporate what I learn and who I meet from my travels into my work is a joy that I think adds dynamic, unique touches to my projects.
