Making the Transition from Unscripted to Narrative curated by Kenny Niernberg, SOC and Gretchen Warthen, SOC with interviews from: Stephen Coleman, Pauline Edwards, Kenny Niernberg, Gretchen Warthen, Sarah Levy, Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, Lauren Peele, Alan Pierce, Vanessa Joy Smith, Matt Valentine, Mande Whitaker This year the SOC created and are producing a number of online video series that offer insights into the role and craft of the camera operator. These videos are available to view on the SOC website (see link at bottom of article). One of the series, Making the Transition from Unscripted to Narrative, is a four-part series that features camera operators who have successfully moved from careers in unscripted, reality and documentary to scripted episodic television and narrative feature films. Operators in the series have worked as full-time operators on Captain Marvel, Shameless, Insecure, Chicago Fire, Little Fires Everywhere, Snowfall, The Rookie, Mayans, Gotham, Succession, GLOW, Entourage, The Office, Parks & Rec, and more. Gretchen and I worked to curate and create this article to extend on the goal of the video series—which is to explore and share information about the value that an unscripted operator can bring to a narrative setting. All of these discussions aim to offer insights and information through sharing our own personal experiences in the narrative world. While we briefly focus on our path to narrative, our main message is to emphasize that unscripted operators have learned skills and techniques from countless hours of unscripted work that can be a major asset to any narrative production. In addition to the videos, we also want to explain various narrative terms and share with you more of our stories. Our own successes, and our pitfalls and mistakes, so you can be aware of them when you get a scripted opportunity. We’ve also want to share thoughts on the various relationships on set and how they can differ to that of unscripted sets. Ultimately, we feel that if a stigma of “reality operator” exists, it’s our
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commitement to simply label us all “camera operators." In this article the series operators explain what they think unscripted operators bring to the set as well as any stories, tips or advice they have to offer. Here are their contributions below.
KENNY NIERNBERG, SOC
Photo by Merie Wallace
Unscripted Credits: Food Network: Beat Bobby Flay Lifetime: Project Runway NBC: Making It
Scripted Credits: HBO: Insecure ABC: The Rookie NBC: Better Late Than Never
Camera Operator: What does an unscripted operator bring to the narrative world? Our instincts and our ability to follow story are some of the most valuable assets we can bring into the narrative world. I’ve found that more and more projects are allowing actors to have some free-
SOCIETY OF CAMERA OPERATORS · SOC.ORG