Stefano Ferrari (00:00)
It was really the intention to give an equal platform to both Americans and Somali and really retell the story equally in the way that the events really happened.

Bradley Carpenter (00:16)
Hey everybody, happy Friday. This is The Unscripted Files and I'm Madelyn Cunningham, a development producer in the industry, bringing you creative conversations with the minds behind your favorite form of entertainment. If you've ever watched a premium documentary on Netflix, Don't Fuck with Cats, The Man with a Thousand Kids, Hell Camp, American Nightmare, and now, Surviving Black Hawk Down, you've seen the work of my next guest. I honestly guys typically don't watch military

subject matter. But I knew as soon as I saw the first few frames in Surviving Black Hawk Down that this was going to be different and it is. The original movie came out in 2001 by Ridley Scott. It was a telling of events from a very American hero sort of POV. And 30 years later now we have a documentary

that has come out that is a telling of both sides of the story and what occurred on October 3rd, 1993 in Mogadishu. And it's incredibly raw and really stunning. And I'm really lucky that I got to chat with one of the cinematographers on the project about his work on all of these Netflix projects and focusing on this one specifically.

I do want to give a slight warning that this conversation does have themes of war, PTSD, and suicide. but it really is a beautiful conversation about the project and about how important it is to tell the right story now more than ever. So.

Without further ado, want to introduce you to Stefano Ferrari and this is our conversation. Thanks so much.

Madelyn (02:05)
Stefano, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Stefano Ferrari (02:08)
Very good. Thank you for having me, Madelyn.

Madelyn (02:11)
I'm so excited to have you. I absolutely devoured surviving Black Hawk Down this week when it came out. For over three hours, I could not tear my eyes away from the screen. I did not pick my phone up once. And I was so taken by the imagery. You know, it's a Ridley Scott project, so I know that we expect nothing less. it was so unbelievably elevated.

And the way that the subjects were captured was just really, really stunning. And as one of the DPs on the project, I'm just so excited that I get to talk with you about it.

Stefano Ferrari (02:45)
Thank so much. First of all, thank you for watching the show. I really appreciate it and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Madelyn (02:50)
Yeah, absolutely. So tell me, know, this happened in 1993. The narrative film by Ridley was done in 2001. It's now 2025. So when did you get brought onto this project? And did you know about the events of Black Hawk Down before being approached?

Stefano Ferrari (03:10)
So I knew, historically, I knew what happened. These are events that happened in 1993. I was four years old at the time. so I guess what I learned about the events, I learned through the film, really, and then doing my own research. I was approached very early on in the process by my director, Jack McInnes.

And, you know, when I heard the story, I had a few questions. You know, the first question is like, why are we telling this story now? What's the reason? Why is it relevant, you know, in 2025, where I feel like there is so many wars happening, do we need to rehash events that happened so long ago? And, you know, I think the...

pitch that my director gave me was quite convincing. It was really the intention to give an equal platform to both Americans and Somali and really retell the story equally in the way that the events really happened. My director is somebody that came from the observational documentaries. He did a film about Syrian refugees during the crisis of Syria and

crude where Syrians were going through the Greek islands and then moving in, you know, in the north of Europe. And so, you know, I really, I was really craving to work with somebody with that experience. Jack has an incredible eye as well. But I guess what really attracted me to the project was setting the record straight. I worked in the past on a film about PTSD and on the military.

And that was a quite interesting film in the sense that it all started, that film that was called Thank You for Your Service, directed by Tom Donahue, that film started with the premises that there are more soldiers dying of suicide than soldiers that are dying on the battlefield. And these came from a New York Times article by Nicholas Christoph. But that was quite eye-opening.

And ultimately, know, what surviving Black Hawk Down portrays is that in a war, there is no winners. There is only victims, you know, talking obviously about soldiers. And so that was very interesting for me. And anyway, I was brought in quite early in the project.

And so we started like these long conversations on how to portray the Americans and how to portray the Somali. And I think one of the first challenges was, you know, how can you keep audience engaged, especially, you know, English speaking audience when one side speaks English, the other side.

doesn't speak English and speaks a language that you barely heard, a lot of people barely heard. And so that kind of might affect the way you cut the film and maybe you cut it in a way that it's slower to allow people to read subs. And so there was all these considerations that were going in. But again, I was lucky that I had.

both a production team and a director that were quite supportive initially in kind of developing the visual language and the right approach for the film.

Madelyn (06:47)
It's really incredible. What does your prep look like? So you get approached for this project. I mean, what's your first Google search after, Like, how are you educating yourself on the events, right? And then how are you also looking into the Somali culture? And then what visual references were really

utilized for you in sort of your prep work before getting in the field.

Stefano Ferrari (07:13)
Yeah, I guess in this film, it was slightly different, prep. My director had a very beautifully put together treatment. It was very visually well put together. Sometimes directors that, especially directors that comes from the Obstock world, they come more from a journalistic background, so their strengths, it's more in the words.

Madelyn (07:29)
Mm.

Stefano Ferrari (07:43)
not per se the pictures. But Jack had the ability to have a very clear vision.

Basically, what I did, I was shooting in Antwerp. was shooting a Netflix show in Antwerp. And then I took a flight and I went to London to meet with the production team at RSA and with Jack. That's the moment where really the juices are flowing and there is no talking about budget yet.

And so it's like there is the good times, exactly. Where there is very much a lot of freedom to think, okay, this is what we could do. when I was on my flight coming back home to New York, for some reason, I felt like the American soldiers

Madelyn (08:10)
Right? The good times.

Stefano Ferrari (08:30)
I don't know, had this feeling that I wanted solitude around them. I wanted stillness in portraying their interviews. person, I didn't want to implement their interviews with B-roll or introduction of characters. I just wanted to find them. And this is something that kind of steers away a bit from the way I like to shoot things.

the juxtaposition of stillness of 2025 compared to the craziness that happened on the battlefield would really portray both situation. Today's world dealing with memories and dealing with some of them dealt with very strong PTSD, for example, and the world that you experience at war. There was one soldier that once told me that

there is no chance that if you spend even few seconds on the battlefield that you wouldn't suffer of some kind of PTSD. So it's like somehow for somebody that has never experienced the battlefield, it would be very hard to understand what these people go through on both sides. And so there is an element of empathy that we needed to explore and kind of shed away a little bit

the bias that you might have regarding soldiers being, you know, these killing machines and this was for the Americans. But for the Somali people instead, wanted, you know, if you ever been to Africa, Africa is a beautiful country. It's a country full of colors, full of vitality. And Somalia is, you know, the landscape is...

It's just incredible. The coast is beautiful. But it's a country that has been really shattered by war for years and years. to this day, there is still war and civil war. And the situation is quite dramatic. But when I met the Somali characters, they were all smiling. They were all happy. They were all friendly. And somehow, really wanted to... Me and my director, wanted to capture that.

not to feel like the darkness that would have been easier to associate them with, if you know what I mean. And so these were the first kind of consideration.

Madelyn (11:01)
Mm-hmm.

choice to portray the soldiers in solitude and in loneliness was so interesting because it was such a stark contrast to the frenetic nature of the re-cre and the actual events. it made it so clear while they all experienced this together,

how they're all on their own dealing with this in a diner in a bar, in their office, in a remote cabin. And it really drove home how they're all dealing with this very singular experience by themselves.

And then in Somali, it's color, it's movement, it's fabric in the wind, it's in a car. It was a very different portrayal of that community and that life than what we typically see. And you can even see in the archival back when they were covering the events of Black Hawk Down, what the American media chose to show of the Somali communities.

And so I think that just early on making those choices, you really felt it.

Stefano Ferrari (12:15)
That's really great to hear. I can't tell you how much time we spent looking at locations and trying to find the right location. Especially when it comes to location, at least my approach is not to impose a location on a character. You don't want to be distracted by the location. You want to have a feeling about it.

I'm not here to judge anybody's work, sometimes you do see something that might feel a bit okay, a bit on the nose. And I just really wanna try to stay away because ultimately, think our job as cinematographers, I think, is to make these stories immersive,

the moment they're aware of things, that's where you lose them. It's like they want to be really in the story and immersing into it. And, know, because that's possibly the only way they will get the message, the ultimate message that you want to send them. You know, I remember like we shot in Atlanta for the American dates and, and

And locations were quite far apart, but we said, it doesn't matter, we're just going to travel that long because we thought that the cabin was right for the Delta Force guy. We thought that the diner gave a sense of that character and the bar for Randy. so it's kind of a bit of a variety of what, yeah, so maybe.

somebody who could consider a bit cliche, know, the diner is still very American and the bar might feel very American. But I think that he felt right. So I hope we accomplish something good there.

Madelyn (14:05)
Honestly, when I saw it, I mean, I had so many thoughts. And one was that I could see these people anywhere in a bar and a diner and never know what they had gone through. you you don't look at people and know. And it's so wild what every human is sort of living with.

Stefano Ferrari (14:28)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's very, you know, that goes back to what we were saying. I mean, these people are not, you know, they've been trained to be killing machine like these, you know, the American soldiers are probably the most effective and the most, you know, precise shooters in the world. And, you know, and they get trained in a specific way. But then what happens is that they don't get retrained for

coming back to real life. And so then you're kind of dealing with all the aftermath, not only of the battlefield, but of the training you've been going through.

Madelyn (14:56)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

So your location scouting, but also when you meet the person, are you changing your mind? Are you changing your approach? Like how much does them and their energy and their sort of what you know they're contributing to the narrative, does that shift your approach at all?

Stefano Ferrari (15:23)
So, what happens is that a director or sometimes it's the producer that goes out on a pre...

interview trip where you go and try and gain access to the characters.

So then when I come on the project, there is usually a scripting place where I do get a sense of the characters, okay? So I can get a sense that Dave Deamer, the guy that is in the diner, it's more of a tough guy, know, somebody that has this kind of armor around him and, you know, the story that he's gonna tell. So I'm already kind of getting a sense of, you know, how I would like.

Madelyn (15:41)
I

Mm-hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (16:05)
to shoot him, would like to light him, the kind of location that I want. so like, there is really a big study that comes before.

This to say though, that as documentarians, we should never forget that, you know, stuff might happen especially because the schedule of these shows is like usually principal photography is no longer than 30 days, you know. And before documentaries, you could shoot for years and then figure out the film in the edit room.

But that's not the case. You're very much in a drama schedule where you don't figure out the film in the edit. When you go in the edit, you need to know exactly what are your arches in the film. How's act one, act two, act three, how the pace of the story would be. Then obviously you might find other things and you might discover things that you didn't expect in the interviews. But it's a quite controlled process.

Madelyn (16:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (17:06)
that sometimes

might feel a bit cagey,

Madelyn (17:11)
there was a lot of really interesting choices in framing. Every person, you made different decisions.

Can you walk me through your thought process there?

Stefano Ferrari (17:23)
Yeah.

Yeah. You know, you mentioned before what kind of decision you make on the goal in the moment. you know, what usually happens is that obviously I lied, pre-lie, depending on how much time we have on location. And then I ask the characters to sit down and I ask my directors to start talking to him. You just want to try and understand the mannerism that they have. You know, some characters are very still.

Some characters are very, you know, they might act very cool when they're not in front of the camera, but then when they sit down with two cameras pretty much close to them, you know, it gets quite intimidating. So your mannerism change. So it's like, I usually like to have the character to sit down. My excuse is that I just need to check lighting. It's not per se for that. I just want to see how they move.

Madelyn (18:12)
Hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (18:22)
with the character of Dave, the moment he sat down, he kept looking down a lot. He kept looking, you know, he said it was never like looking and making eye contact with my director. And so it was a lot of times looking down and somehow we had this feeling that at some point in the interview that Armour would...

Madelyn (18:28)
Mm.

Hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (18:43)
fall and you would really get to see the person behind it, which happened. And with characters like the fighter in the car, you know, somebody that, you know, his first encounter with American militia happened inside a car and that's kind of what changes mind about the pretty much the occupation of the American troops and...

and his job today is working a lot in the car, so we felt it was more appropriate to have him in there. for the sake of honesty, I want to say we weren't allowed to go to Somalia.

Madelyn (19:21)
Hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (19:22)
In

Somalia, you can't walk in at this point for how terrible the situation is these days, And so we had to shoot in Kenya. Kenya pretty much shares the same coast with Somalia. It's right south of Somalia. So it's quite similar.

Madelyn (19:31)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

So you brought your subjects over. Wow, okay.

Stefano Ferrari (19:47)
And Kenya is predominantly, no, actually, I don't want to say predominantly, like it's half Muslim, half Christian, know, people look quite different from Somali people. Somali people have quite distinctive look. And this, for example, if we want to create a parallelism with the film, the drama film, the Surviving Black Hawk Down, this was one of the issues that the film wasn't able to tackle because a lot of the extras,

Madelyn (20:02)
Yes.

Stefano Ferrari (20:17)
weren't Somali. so that was one of the criticisms that not only the Somali people were portrayed as a bit, you know, these plotters, know, savages that are there to kill the good guys, but they weren't not even Somali people. so what, since we couldn't go into Somalia, we decided to find

Madelyn (20:32)
Mm-hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (20:40)
in Kenya, we shot in Malindi, which is on the coast, and find this area that is called Mambrui, and it's an area that is predominantly Muslim.

It wasn't easy to find the right ones. But the color choice, the decision to shoot Sayeeda, one of the women with quite colorful background. Yeah, exactly. And so it's a challenge because on these shows you need to have lighting continuity for over seven, eight hours. And so shooting outside sometimes might be scary, but...

Madelyn (21:01)
Gorgeous. The textiles. So pretty.

Stefano Ferrari (21:19)
We just felt it was right and we had the support to allow for that. so I think it, yeah, it worked out ultimately. But I think our thoughts was we need to portray this character like they are in real life. We cannot impose some dark visuals onto them. It would have been so easy to just shoot some light through a crack of a window and make everything dark and dramatic.

But that's not really how they are, you know. And so it would have been a misinterpreted, yeah, it would have been just wrong to see them in that kind of light.

Madelyn (21:59)
That's so interesting.

How did you, I want to know the recreations in this were unbelievable.

How did that influence your work with these portraits and interviews?

Stefano Ferrari (22:09)
in general, is, the way I approach films, I tend to look at them with a single visual language. I think the reason I am...

tendency of shooting the documentary, looking very documentary, shooting the interviews that feels, you know, very much like terrestrial TV. Nothing wrong with that. But, know, more BBC, Channel 4, PBS kind of interviewing style. And then like Hollywood style recreation. And I think that creates a bit of a separation, if you know what I mean. and I, it's jarring, exactly.

Madelyn (22:49)
It's jarring. Mm-hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (22:52)
And

I think what happens is that a lot of times recreation are tricky in the sense that they could really help the narrative move forward. But sometimes it feels like, okay, the character is saying this thing, okay, now I need to show it in recreation. It becomes kind of like spoon feeding the audience very quickly.

Madelyn (22:57)
Mm-hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (23:15)
You gotta be very careful to decide when is that I'm cutting to recreation? Why do I need to recreate this moment? Is he bringing the narrative forward or I'm just fulfilling my audience? Because it's very important, think especially on these films, that you treat your audience with respect. That you understand that they will understand what you mean without you needing to show it. So when it came to the recreation, obviously,

Madelyn (23:34)
Mm.

Stefano Ferrari (23:43)
there was this initial consideration that we wanted to bring the audience on that battlefield. We wanted them to feel what it means to be on that battlefield.

I think it was the contrast that we were very interested in, the contrast of the experience of war and battlefield and the contrast of the life today and seeing the resilience of the Somali people, seeing how the American soldiers are dealing with their demons.

they were kids when in 1993, they were 18, 19, 20, 22. And they were losing people that they consider family. How do you deal with that? You know, when you come back home, how do you explain the people you love and people that love you and that you're not the same person?

I think it's a quite dramatic aftermath for both sides. And it's a disservice to say that the Somali were savages, bloodthirsty animals, because that's not the reality of things. And it's also not the reality of things to say that the Americans were all there with the conviction that, yeah, yeah, we're the Americans, we need to go and win

Madelyn (24:38)
Absolutely.

Stefano Ferrari (24:58)
Because these people are following orders. They want to protect their country, but they're following orders. And they're seeing death as the Somali and experiencing loss. Anyway, so we really wanted to experience that contrast in the filmmaking. And I think the drama team has done an incredible job in portraying that.

Madelyn (25:00)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

It was really incredible. you you mentioned that you were drawn to this project because you really felt like

30 years later, there was an opportunity to tell both sides and set the record straight. When the original movie, you know, Black Hawk Down came out, it was, in a post-9-11 world, in a post-9-11 America where where we're the heroes in every story.

How important was it to set the record straight on something that happened so long ago? And how does it apply to us today?

Stefano Ferrari (25:46)
That's a very good question and I hope I'll be able to answer it in the right way. But I think I can speak for myself, right? And I can say why now? I think setting the record straight as documentarians is fundamental. Telling the real events, telling what happened on that day to service, you know, the...

Madelyn (25:48)
Ha

Stefano Ferrari (26:13)
the stories of the Americans, the people, the Americans that lost their lives fighting, and for the Somali and the tragic events that then they experienced and they're still experiencing today. I think what Hollywood...

does, it's giving you great entertainment. I think a lot of stuff it's done for the sake of entertainment. I've enjoyed the film. The film was when I watched it, I don't remember criticizing the film. It's a high octane, beautifully shot. You know, you think as a director, as a director of photography, where do you start? I mean, it's, you know, in terms of blocking and in terms of

Filmmaking wise, it's like, wow, what a feat, what an incredible achievement. As documentarians, there is an element that is the truth and there is the emotion, the real emotion that comes out of these stories that has to be shown to people. When you see Ahmed V, the guy with the camera,

I think is the main guy of this series. just aside on like he studied English, like production, like paid for English lesson months before. So you could learn English because we thought it was very important for him to be able to speak in English because

Madelyn (27:29)
My god.

Wow.

Stefano Ferrari (27:48)
It kind of killed that barrier of the subtitles, if you know what I mean. It's like when you hear really from his voice addressing to you in a language that you understand, it's much more powerful.

Madelyn (27:52)
Yes.

So he learned,

he was taking English lessons before filming. Wow, wow.

Stefano Ferrari (28:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

So the commitment and the willingness, know, I want, I need to tell my story. And to me, it's like, as a, know, an Italian living in New York and, know, trying to make it in the industry. It's like, what an incredible opportunity to be able to give a platform to somebody that wasn't able to share that story for so many years. And now it is.

And even if the English might be broken, but that emotion, that emotional channel, it was wide open and it was extremely, extremely effective. And I didn't see the images that he shot until I met with him. And the stuff that these people saw, it's mean, unbearable. Obviously on Netflix, we can't show.

most of the stuff that he did shoot and about.

The level of empathy that he had for the Americans, the level of empathy and love that he had for his country, it's quite remarkable. And I think it's so important to your stories like this. American intervention, Madelyn, it hasn't happened just in 1993 in Mogadishu. It has happened later on. What happened in Mogadishu was the reason why Americans didn't intervene.

Madelyn (29:31)
Right.

Stefano Ferrari (29:40)
during the Rwanda genocide. So it had massive historical implication afterwards. But you know, American intervention then you added in the Afghanistan war, you know, you mentioned 9-11, know, Iraq and, you know, so it's, I think, and what's happening, you know, now between Israel and Gaza, you know.

I mean, it's quite relevant and the parallels are quite easy to be drawn, if you know what I mean.

Madelyn (30:10)
Absolutely,

as someone who creates documentaries and pitches them, we get the why now question a lot, especially with historical things. Everyone wants modern day sort of contemporary storytelling. And it's unbelievable how relevant this is. I mean, can look at American intervention. the white savior complex. I mean, there's just so many ways that this speaks to

Our perception being the heroes and sort of being a part of the narrative. the archival that was captured by this gentleman was unbelievable. His commitment to capturing it, even as it was happening to his own community.

was unbelievable. And it absolutely made this series.

And I kind of, couldn't believe that that was available. he specifically is so critical to the story. What's the story there?

Stefano Ferrari (31:10)
this film was brought by our producer Jamali. Jamali is a quite famous figure in Africa because he's the BBC correspondent for Africa and he's a Somali citizen. He was born in Somalia and now he lives in London.

And he knew this guy, knew Ahmed Five. And what happens is that when you bring a show and you pitch a show to, as I'm sure you know, to a production company, you need to have some sort of access. You know, it's like, the questions are not just why now, why do you want it, which is fundamental, probably the principal question, why do you want to this story now?

But who do you have access to? It's the second question. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that kind of ties back to what we were saying before. It's like, telling the story now? It's like, well, if you do have something to add, if you do have, finally, the ability to show that footage of what happened on the ground that day, it's quite powerful.

Madelyn (31:58)
Yeah. And what new information?

Stefano Ferrari (32:23)
And so yeah, Jamal was the person that put us in touch with all the Somali people and Somali survivors and gave us access. And he did such an incredible job also in kind of instruct us on, you know, in telling us more about the Somali culture. you know, so when we were on set, it was pretty much not only our producer, but it was an incredible consultant because, you know, our intention, mine and Jack's, director,

Madelyn (32:30)
Wow.

Stefano Ferrari (32:53)
was to portray Somali people in the way that they deserve to be portrayed.

Madelyn (32:59)
when you're sitting down with someone and you're working with the director and you're dealing with sensitive subject matter and intense subject matter and emotional subject matter, what is your process there?

Stefano Ferrari (33:12)
Yeah, well, there are two aspects to this. There is a technical aspects and there is more a human aspect. So in terms of human aspect, like I always make sure that I introduce myself to the characters. I make sure that, you know, they get, you know, comfortable with me

I think it's very important to create that connection initially. But then when it comes to the technical aspect of things, especially on this film, So we shot the film in large format. And the reason why we wanted to shoot large format,

we wanted a sense of intimacy, especially in the close-ups. We wanted the ability to really focus on the characters. When you shoot 2-3-5, when you shoot the wide aspect ratio, when you're taking close-ups, you're forced to be slightly further away from characters,

But pushing further away, means that the amount of stuff that is in focus behind of the character might be bigger. And we wanted to create that sense of intimacy with the character. Also, what I do, I'm not a massive fan of long lens. What that means is that I don't usually shoot my close-ups on.

100mm being further back. Usually my cameras are quite close to the characters. And this means that my director or the person that is interviewing the characters is quite close to them as well. And this avoids what, you know, kind of having the characters, you know, projecting and you don't want that. You want them to have a very normal conversation.

Madelyn (34:40)
Mm.

Hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (35:00)
with the interviewer. so creating that intimacy, that relationship between the distance of the camera, the distance of the director with the audience creates kind of that sense of closeness that I really crave in the interviews. Also because you can really tell when you push so far away with the lens and you go long and all of a sudden the background is a bit of a mosh and you don't really know where the character is situated.

So I kind of have an approach that feels a more drama approach than per se documentary.

Madelyn (35:36)
It's an interesting approach, I think subjects in general, when the camera's far away, you want to feel like you have to broadcast. And it does create sort of us and them when it comes to you and the crew.

Stefano Ferrari (35:49)
Yeah, if we want to get cheesy, you know, they say that the eyes are the windows to the soul.

There was a moment with Dave Timmer, the guy in the diner, where my director asked him a question. And the question, if I remember correctly, was related more regarding the Clinton action of you kind of, know, retrieved the troops and, you know, basically having lost all these people for what reason?

And that was really the moment where the armor fell for him. And I remember he kind of started looking into camera again, and we were shooting a low angle shot and he was pretty much looking down and you could see in his eyes that something was changing. And I remember I operate the camera, the closeup. And I remember getting this feeling and you know, and I swear to God, I'm being truthful and I'm not exaggerating. You really feel.

kind of a vibration that something is changing in the character. And it was extremely powerful. And I was so glad that we were shooting in the way we were shooting, not only the low angle, but that we were so close to the character that we could read into his eyes, that we could read that moment very well. Because that really create the connection between character and audience. And if we would have been so far apart, I don't think we would have

gotten that connection. And I think ultimately that was fundamental to, know, convey the idea that, you know, no matter how tough you might play, there is a man and somebody that suffered, you know, immensely behind it, behind the tough guy. I was, you know, again, it was glad, maybe you can call it an happy accident, but I can tell you, like, we thought so much about the way

we wanted to shoot this character that we thought, okay, we did something good today.

Madelyn (37:51)
And you could feel it. It translated, absolutely, 100%. What was your, for this project, What was something you're just never going to forget?

Stefano Ferrari (37:58)
think it was this one, you know, and I think, you know, apart the beauty of seeing the resilience of the Somali character, mean, honestly, Ahmed five was incredibly honest with, with his interview. I felt like, you know, like, how lucky are we that this is our job, you know, being able to

to tell such stories. but having the opportunity of being in that moment, in that room on the other side of the world with this character that otherwise I would have never had the chance to meet. I mean,

It's pretty, pretty lucky moment. But I think the Dave Timmer moment, was quite amazing because it was unexpected. You know, this guy five minutes before he was telling us like how he was trying to figure out how he could kill the Somali prisoner and kind of get away with that. You know, and then all of a sudden you see that, okay, this guy has a soul as well.

Madelyn (39:04)
It's one of the reasons I loved the project so much. I mean, you've also done a lot of other unbelievable investigative projects as well. Looks like, I mean, you and Netflix hand in hand right now, you've got, Don't Fuck with Cats, American Nightmare, Hell Camp, The Man with a Thousand Kids.

Stefano Ferrari (39:13)
Thanks.

Yes.

Madelyn (39:28)
I mean, these are big, twisty, some global stories. And each of the projects has a very distinct tone. like when you look at Don't Fuck With Cats and the very sort of like.

digital internet nature of it and the sleuthy sort of nature of it. Then you go to American Nightmare, Hell Camp, the man with a thousand kids, which felt cold and clinical and creepy. Like how are you sort of tailoring to each of these projects? Like talk to me about that.

Stefano Ferrari (40:04)
Yeah,

I think ultimately that I found the best recipe to be everything starts from the story. I realized early in my career that when I was coming onto a project with kind of preconceived ideas, you know, this is how I do things, this is my style, you know, I'm more on a naturalistic, I'm not very theatrical kind of cinematographer.

you know, my lighting is of a certain kind. I only shoot with certain lenses. That I realized that my projects were looking all the same. I said, okay, there is something wrong here. at that point I felt I wasn't serving the story properly.

When it came to Don't With Cats, that was the first time a director reached out to me for a documentary and showing me a script. Never heard of that method. So I, wait, we're shooting a documentary and then like, what is this script about? And when I read that show, it's like,

Madelyn (40:53)
Okay.

Stefano Ferrari (41:02)
You know, it was the final project there, edited with all the twists and turns, with all the sleuthing and you know. And I said, wow, I mean, is dream come true for me. You have the flexibility of a documentary. You're telling real stories, but I know the story and so I can craft the visual language based on the story. I don't need to imagine. I know what I'm getting.

Madelyn (41:05)
All right.

Right, you know what you're getting.

Stefano Ferrari (41:28)
And so I think in general, when it came to Don't With Cats or American Nightmare or A Man With A Thousand Kids or the MH370, Vatican Girl, know, all these Netflix shows, like they all have differences in terms of, you know, of the way the story has to be told. Otherwise, you just do a massive disservice to the story.

to yourself and to the audience.

The first thing I do is I go and print the script. Like it's very hard for me to read on a computer. I'm a paper guy, very old school. Okay. I go and print the script and this allows me to start writing on it. And I start like, you know, and I need to stop myself. Sometimes I go into shot listing on the first read. that's something that, you know, if you're listening to me,

Madelyn (42:00)
Okay, yeah. You're a paper guy. Yeah, yeah,

Sure.

Stefano Ferrari (42:24)
as a cinematographer, just don't do it. Because it takes a lot of energy out and it takes a lot of the focus out of the story. Understand the story first. Get what the director is trying to do. Because ultimately you're serving the director's vision. Not to say that your vision doesn't matter as a cinematographer. Your vision matters very much as long as it's informed by the vision of the director.

you're brought onto a project because of you. You're not just hands, you're also the brain. And so the director wants to have a soundboard, wants to hear your thoughts, wants to hear if you would do things differently. But I think ultimately everything start from starting the story, the script, the characters, get a sense of the location. I remember on Black Hawk Down,

I didn't go, the first thing I did was trying and look at local photographers, even amateur photographers from Somalia, because I wanted to get a sense about Somali people were portraying their land. I didn't want to go themselves, you know?

Madelyn (43:28)
Mmm.

Mm, themselves. Mm-hmm. And

not a journalist or someone from outside. Yeah.

Stefano Ferrari (43:46)
Yeah, exactly. Like you

don't want to have the kind of strangers. You want to have people that have been immersed in that reality. How do they portray that? And so I can tell you, like, if you were to go to my city, Rome, you would shoot the Colosseum in a way. And I would probably shoot the Colosseum in a different way. And, you know, I wanted to be informed about how people saw their land and saw

Madelyn (43:55)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (44:12)
And a lot of those pictures were extremely colorful. Anyway, just to finish on answering your question, it's the story. That's where you start. Because otherwise you would end up imposing yourself onto the story, on the vision of the director. And you would end up by doing that everything that you do that will all look the same. You know?

Madelyn (44:35)
Yeah, absolutely.

Can you think of like one of the biggest sort of challenges, technical or otherwise, that you've encountered on a project and like what your sort of approach is to problem solving?

Stefano Ferrari (44:50)
Time.

Madelyn (44:52)
Mmm, there it is.

Stefano Ferrari (44:53)
Never enough,

never enough time. You always wish there was a little bit more time. I think the way you tackle it, you know, I think it goes back to the school days, you know, in some way, like, you know, if you're smart, you really study well, and then you can go free and, know, at least in Italy, I don't know how it happens in America, we have a lot of

Madelyn (44:59)
Mm.

Ha ha.

Stefano Ferrari (45:23)
interrogations like exams. But I've always thought, study well, because that will prepare you for the unexpected. You don't want to be in a situation that you're like a deer in the headlights, that you don't know. As a cinematographer, you have to be a problem solver.

And so you wanna make sure that you know the ins and outs of the story, you have a good grasp of the craft, but then you also have to be open to what Conrad Hall, really famous cinematographer, used to say, it's the happy accident. You know, when things don't go the way you expected, maybe that's where the magic is hidden.

I think time, budgets, you know, I think no matter how much money you have, the ambition is like, directly proportional, like it's like, more money, more ambition. So the, you know, I was listening to this interview from the Nibin Neve, you know, when he was talking about Dune, you know,

Madelyn (46:25)
Love.

Stefano Ferrari (46:28)
and you hear him saying, yeah, we don't have enough money. That, okay,

Madelyn (46:33)
How is that possible? How? No,

Stefano Ferrari (46:34)
Yeah, exactly.

Madelyn (46:38)
So have you, know, how has your growth been from sort of early in your career to now in terms of like how you're able to make decisions on set and sort of be pretty decisive and trust your gut

Stefano Ferrari (46:51)
Well, the process has definitely been nonlinear. I can't say that it's been an ascent. It's an ascent, then go back to square one. I think you just need to be open to, ultimately to fail. There is no process that wouldn't include some failures.

Madelyn (46:54)
Mm.

Of course.

Stefano Ferrari (47:10)
I came to the realization of that later on, that being a perfectionist is not per se a great thing. And I consider myself a perfectionist. And this basically, you know, drives you to failure all the time or unhappiness all the time, you know.

Madelyn (47:17)
Hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (47:30)
I think a director, Mark, the director of Don't With Cats said, you know, Stefano, there is beauty in the imperfection as well.

I used to be extremely afraid of failing. but it's so important to find yourself in those situations.

And I think also the way you resolve things is that you need to understand that you can rely on your collaborators. Either it's your crew, either it's your director, either it's your execs. This is a teamwork. It's not all on you.

Madelyn (47:57)
creativity is so hard. We are our own worst critics. And when you compete with yourself, the bar just keeps moving. and there's so such an internal battle with creativity and with art

You've really had insights into some interesting corners of the world and of human behavior. So how has your perception of the world changed?

Stefano Ferrari (48:13)
Thanks.

Listen, I think humans are flawed. And human behavior is something that I've always been extremely interested in, kind of trying to dissecting, okay, who is this really?

But who's really behind the talk? And who's really this person? Obviously, having worked on true crime, know, I've seen the acts of certain human beings and you think, how is this possible?

you get to experience also resilience. sometimes I'm just amazed of the things that we do as human beings. And I tend to be positive regarding everything and everything that happens in the world.

And I think there is so much more to discover for me, you know, and I'm very excited about that.

Madelyn (49:14)
I

I do want to know what project has been the most rewarding for you,

Stefano Ferrari (49:18)
Well I think in some ways all the projects represented some kind of reward. Now to be fully honest, like the most tangible reward it's probably been Don't With Cats. And the reason being is because, you know, it was me, my director, my producer and my line producer on set. No first AC, no gaffer, no grip, nothing. It was the art group trying to figure out how to tell this story together.

Madelyn (49:30)
Mm.

Stefano Ferrari (49:48)
working overtime, long hours. And it's a project that feels very much yours.

and then you know it comes out and it's like a massive massive hit and now all of a sudden that little thing that you were discussing with other four people in say in a hotel room in Vegas everybody knows about it

Madelyn (50:09)
What artists do you admire?

Stefano Ferrari (50:11)
too many but if I have to choose one single artist and You know, this is gonna it's not gonna be very rewarding to the audience, but it's probably my dad but that was a lighting designer and and I and you know, I started I started in this business pretty much working as an electrician in theater within and

it really, you know, while there is plenty of cinematographers, plenty of incredible photographers from Fan Ho and his use of lighting to William Eggleston to Roger Deakins, Ari Savides, there is so many. But the person that really infused in me the passion of lighting and shooting and telling stories is probably my dad.

And so, yeah, think that's really, I think that's, you know, ultimately, you know, I remember my dad telling me, Stefano, like, you really need to have a burning passion in you to be in this business. And if you have it, you know, that's great. If you don't, you're just not gonna survive in here. But I remember, like, the way he saw light, it was like a reason to live for my dad. I don't know if I'm there. I don't know if...

Madelyn (51:06)
That's great.

Stefano Ferrari (51:34)
That's my only reason for my existence lighting. But it's really, you know, gave me that bug, you you fuse me that kind of passion and a love for the craft. Yeah.

Madelyn (51:50)
That's lovely. I love that. I don't know how much you get to pay attention, but it's awards season right now. A lot of good movies out there. Anything you like that you've seen lately that really impressed you?

Stefano Ferrari (51:57)
Yeah.

Yes, I what Anora I thought was a great film. quite enjoyed it. Yeah. I think Sean Baker is incredible. You know, making things look so natural and effortless. And I really don't know how he does it. And, you know, it's such an incredible film. Simple story, you know, it's like the plot is not crazy. You know, it's like it's not...

Madelyn (52:09)
Just watched that again last night. So good.

Stefano Ferrari (52:30)
a twisty plot and it's not the plot, it's the characters and it's very much character driven and I love that. And I recently watched Nickle Boys. I Nico Boys was incredibly beautiful, extremely poetic. But I thought the way they shot the film, all in first person POV,

the way that it's done and then just, you know, the acting, I thought it was quite incredible, quite elegant.

Madelyn (52:57)
What are you excited about right now?

Stefano Ferrari (52:58)
Yeah, well, you know, I'm very excited. I'm prepping to new films. I'm shooting in Scotland in the Highlands, so I'm quite excited about the visuals of that film. And I think, honestly, the story might be as good as Don't With Cats. I think it's an incredible, incredible story. It doesn't always happen that you read a story and you think, okay, wow, this is incredible story with this female lead that is quite powerful. And so I'm quite...

Madelyn (53:08)
Mm-hmm.

Stefano Ferrari (53:28)
I have to say I'm quite excited about that. But in general, I think it's a quite exciting time to be working in docs, given also that the drama world has been struggling for the past two years due to the strikes and it's been hard, especially independent filmmaking. And so I'm quite excited to be in the world that I'm at. I think my hope is that as filmmakers, we wouldn't just

you know, kind of be content with numbers of audience, okay, how many people have watched my show, but I think it, my hope is that as filmmakers we'll be able to bring new voices, new ways to approach things because documentaries kind of allow such a wide spectrum of stories and storytime characters that I hope we don't get lazy, if you know what I mean.

And we kind of, I don't want the audience to feel okay. I feel we're reading the same book, just different characters. So it's like, it's my job, it's the job of my directors and the production companies to really choose the stories to tell. And I feel quite excited to work with the collaborators and the people that I have around me. And I feel quite lucky, honestly.

Madelyn (54:50)
That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for chatting. I encourage everyone to sit down and watch Surviving Black Hawk Down. It's really stunning and a timely film in kind of every sense of the word. So thank you so much. So excited for what you have going on in the future. And thank you for sharing your process and all of your stories with me.

Stefano Ferrari (55:15)
It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on board on this.

Madelyn (55:20)
Thanks.

Bradley Carpenter (55:27)
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Unscripted Files. That was a really, really rewarding conversation for me. It's always amazing to talk to people I admire and learn something more even about how I think of the world is just like such a gift.

We'll see you next Friday on The Unscripted Files. I have some great guests coming up. Again, feel free to follow us on Instagram and let me know if there's anyone you want to hear from, any process you're curious about. And I will do my best to get them on. Hope you guys have a great weekend. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time on The Unscripted Files.

Madelyn Cunningham (56:04)
The Unscripted Files is brought to you by Good Gravity Entertainment. Thank you to producer Bonnie Adams, Original Music by composer William Wright, Artwork by Lisa Schweikart, and Photography by Reid Schick.