Over the last month, our team worked hard preparing to film the three-part series, Private Eyes, and we were able to film the first episode to use as a “proof of concept” for the project. The show creators (Willa Cohn, Katie Baker, and Sean Wada), spent a lot of time together creating and perfecting the scripts, which went through several re-writes before filming began. To homogenize three scripts written by three different people into one story, the showrunners advised each other with their personal writing strengths. Will advised on the old-style dialogue while Sean advised on the film-noir tone and Katie matched the characterization through each story. The overlap of creativity made sure all the scripts aligned tonally while still being distinct.  

The director (Willa Cohn) and the actresses (Neveah Booker, Christine Murphy Davidson) worked together to create the full backstory of the characters, incorporating meaningful moments in the lives of the actors into the emotion of the story. By connecting the actress’ experience of a hard divorce with the cool and calculated exterior of her character, the performance gained a greater depth and context. The production designer (Kelsey Buneta) and the showrunners (Will, Katie, & Sean), created a visual collage of the scene to isolate the most essential props and set design elements. To allude to the character’s financial struggles, Kelsey chose to create custom props to match the time period and to control the wear and tear. For the character’s nameplate (an important prop to introduce the lead), the production designer created several different versions with her wood-burning pen and paints until she and the directors agreed that it was just right. 

 While filming Part One of Private Eyes, the team worked together like a well-oiled machine, and there was much creative problem-solving done by all as we struggled to finish on schedule. While working on this project, the group had a lot of opportunities to try things we had never done before, so we’ve needed to support each other through the unknown.  Lighting is an especially tricky business, as it must look consistent but be moved with each different shot. We ran into problems trying to cast a shadow perfectly onto our actress’ eyes without getting the shadow of the camera in frame. We spent far too long puzzling it out, until our director of photography (Brandon Tellez-Diaz) had the final solution: to lean the actress back in her chair at an angle while someone supported it underneath. His out-of-the-box thinking saved the day and taught us all a new dimension of the frame. While we still have much to do before we can even begin doing all the other stuff we must do, the broad range of experiences and inspiration within our crew has proven that we are more than capable to take it on.