USA – Blackmagic Design today announced that the new vertical unscripted series “Legal Queens” was captured using the Blackmagic Camera app. Led by Showrunner Eric Gardner, the new docuseries was shot solely on iPhones, using the device’s small footprint and Blackmagic Camera for iOS to capture authentic moments and dramatic storylines.
“Legal Queens” follows a team of attorneys led by top CNN legal analyst Neama Rahmani at a Los Angeles based law firm, West Coast Trial Lawyers, as they handle headline making cases and courtroom drama, while also navigating their professional and personal relationships. The first season of the series takes place over 80 episodes, each running between one and three minutes, crafted for ideal vertical viewing.
With a long tenure in unscripted programs, ranging from reality competitions such as “Survivor” to workplace shows like “Below Deck” and ensemble driven dramas such as “Shahs of Sunset,” Gardner wanted to take a new approach for the vertical series. Production would focus on having the smallest footprint possible.
“When you shoot a reality series, the cast gets fascinated by the big cameras and all the lights and people with walkie talkies. It changes their performance. I’ve learned that if you want to capture someone’s story when they are not on camera, you need to be small,” Gardner noted. “So, for ‘Legal Queens’ I wanted our setup to be as small as possible, which meant using iPhones and Blackmagic Camera.”
The season was shot over 19 days, including interviews, with a crew of only eight using mostly a run and gun approach, which allowed production to avoid costly dolly and drone shots. The filmmakers’ fly on the wall approach allowed for a smaller crew and less equipment, but most importantly, it also allowed production to authentically capture the high paced legal drama without disrupting the law firm’s day to day work.
Gardner detailed, “For a long time, I’ve been fascinated by small footprint documentary filmmaking. I think a small crew can capture authentic moments that the larger shows can’t. I spent many years experimenting with filming around cast members with producer cams with great results. This opportunity allowed me to put my theories to practice.”
“When you make a documentary series, it is important that the ‘hand of the producer’ is hidden. Additionally, for a project like this that occurs in a workplace, we needed to be able to follow the cast while they work, and we couldn’t disrupt the business of the law firm. The Blackmagic Camera app is an invisible software solution that replaces a lot of hardware that is hard to hide.”
“We wanted the show to look like a premium follow doc, but we needed to follow the lives of the cast spontaneously, so we had to be able to move quickly and didn’t have time to pre light,” Gardner said. “We were in offices next to windows, dark restaurants, and outside in harsh sunlight. The Blackmagic Camera app helped so much with exposure controls, so we could see faces against bright backgrounds and see details through windows and in bright sunlight. This was especially important since we’re very proud of having a diverse cast, which meant having lots of different skintones being shot against light backgrounds. The app allowed us to control the white balance, contrast and exposure even while dealing with challenging lighting situations on the fly, so we could keep skintones rich and consistent.”
The crew purposefully kept the rest of the camera kit as simple as possible. “No one looked twice at us; we looked like bloggers by design. I used the most inexpensive, unobtrusive cage and accessories that I could find. We were so run and gun that I didn’t want to invest in anything that I couldn’t lose. The real power was in the phone and the Blackmagic Camera app; everything else was disposable,” Gardner noted. “With the right expertise and the Blackmagic Camera app, you have one of the most sophisticated production tools in the world. It turns a ubiquitous device into a powerful production tool, and we couldn’t have made this series without it. You can’t shoot professionally on a phone without Blackmagic Design.”
Gardner credits his partner Maria Alexandria Beech with getting the project off the ground and pivoting the format to a vertical series. ““Legal Queens” was originally developed as a horizontal series, so it needed to be reimagined slightly for the vertical space. We found that leaning more into interviews and intimate moments allowed us to tell stories differently than we would if this was a horizontal series,” he noted. “We wanted to do what was best for our project, but that required a lot of outside the box thinking and that is something Maria is great at.”
“What really sets “Legal Queens” apart is the fact that it is revolutionary and commercial at the same time. A casual viewer will be entertained without consciously realizing that they are seeing something that has never been shown before. This is Maria’s great gift: the ability to tell a radical story in an accessible way.”
Gardner concluded by giving advice to other filmmakers who are considering vertical projects: “Embrace whatever format you shoot on. Think of it as fine art. Van Gogh created paintings that were both vertical and horizontal. The aspect ratio doesn’t define the story; the story defines the aspect ratio. Embrace whatever format you have and use it as a strength. Never let it define you as a storyteller.”
“Legal Queens” is now streaming on the vertical streaming platform Chera TV.
