Accustomed to lensing stylish interviews for television documentaries—including Netflix's new series, Worn Stories, about the emotional attachment people have to their clothing—freelance cinematographer and director of photography Alan Jacobsen has been on a bit of a learning curve the last year or two thanks to a collaboration with Outlier.org, an online education platform.
Outlier founder and CEO Aaron Rasmussen explained to Jacobsen that he wanted all online lectures to share a distinctive, elegant, high-end feel.
"He described it to me by saying, 'When they see a course from Outlier, or an advertisement for Outlier, they should immediately know that it's Outlier just by the way it looks,'" Jacobsen says. "They were leading with the visual quality, which was great to me, because I'm usually fighting to prioritize the visual quality of an interview."
Upon learning that Outlier's mission is to make high-quality college education accessible while reducing student debt burden, Jacobsen felt the proposed project would be a good match for his skills.
Rasmussen had done his homework before approaching Jacobsen. Not only did his research show that students respond better to online courses that look good, it revealed a couple of factors he wanted incorporated in each shoot.
First, Rasmussen insisted on using darker visuals when many online universities simply record classes using static cameras in brightly lit lecture halls.
"The science determined that a lot of students will watch these lectures on their laptops at night, maybe on the couch, so it would be easier on the eyes if things weren't so glaringly bright," Jacobsen says. "Darker is more soothing to look at, and you can look at it longer because it's not as tiring on the eyes.
"Outlier has studied circadian rhythms and light. Science will tell you that a lot of blue light late at night—when students are studying—is not good because it interrupts your brain's circadian cycle. All of our shots are pretty dark, and there are a lot of warm tones. Not a lot of blue light."
The camera angle was another thing Jacobsen had to keep in mind. Rasmussen explained to him that that because most babies are held so they're looking at the left side of their mother's face, adults are naturally drawn to the left sides of faces.
"We have two cameras. One is a forward-facing camera, with the professor speaking right to the students with an Eyedirect or a Teleprompter, looking right at the lens. Then there's a second camera off to the side, framed to allow graphics so if the professor is talking about a set of data, they can superimpose that data onto this wider shot. Aaron said that the side shot always needs to be looking at the left side of the professor's face."
The first course Jacobsen shot was Calculus. It set a high bar for subsequent courses.
"They had scheduled a lot of prep time, and it was a studio-based setup," Jacobsen says. "There was a soundstage. They build a set and pre-rigged the lighting, and finely tuned everything on the built set."
That allowed time to "audition" backgrounds, tones, and refine the overall look.
"Because we had the time to try different things, I think we were able to make it a little bolder," he says. "The lighting is elegant in the sense that we're creating a very flattering soft light on professors. Lit like a television drama with some pretty deep shadows, there's a lot of contrast and really rich skin tones."
Intro to Psychology was next. The catch? This time they wanted lectures shot in real-world environments.
"Real locations may look fantastic—the person is going to look good, the backlight is good, and the architecture is great," Jacobsen says, "but over the professor's shoulder there's a switch on the wall. Or a doorknob. Or a certain asymmetry in the architecture that you wouldn't notice if you weren't framing it so carefully.
"That was the eternal struggle, trying to port that high-quality, very particular look into these random locations. But I think we did a good job. We did a lot of with curtains."
The next challenge arrived with the pandemic.
"We had to pivot to a totally different model," Jacobsen says.
Cameras and lighting equipment—even set dressings—were shipped to professors' homes, and Jacobsen had to teach them, remotely, how to set everything up and film themselves.
"We had to make this very high-end look happen via FedEx and Zoom," Jacobsen quips. "I would spend a week on Zoom calls trying to take these civilian professors and turn them into cinematographers."
If nothing else, the experience gave Jacobsen a greater appreciation for what professors do.
Once people began adapting to COVID protocols, local cinematographers were hired to film the professors under Jacobsen's direction.
Onsite or remotely, the goal is to shoot 15-plus hours of content with a single set-up.
"It's a lot of work setting everything up, but then I sit back and watch to make sure everything is looking good. These shoots are a real pleasure to do in between my other projects," says Jacobsen, who typically works on multiple projects at once.
He's looking forward to shooting a couple more courses this summer.
"It's a privilege to bring high-end television and feature skills into online education," he says, "It's been great to see this company trying to up the game."
Stream Worn Stories on Netflix now.
Check out online courses at Outlier.org
