Background

Catfish: The TV Show premiered on November 12, 2012, based on the 2010 documentary film 'Catfish.'

I joined the Catfish team in 2018, initially working alongside the crew during on-location shoots and providing remote support to the post-production team. My role involved assisting the Director of Photography, maintaining image quality, capturing scenes, and ensuring the safe delivery of media for post-production.

The onset of the pandemic brought significant changes to our production methods. We were among the first shows to adapt to remote shooting, enabling us to continue production during this uncertain period.

Problem

In 2020, the pandemic hit and we were faced with not being able to shoot any new episodes for Catfish the TV show. I was approached by the Executive Producer, Showrunner, and Director of Photography to help them figure out ways to shoot remotely.

Solution

After months of trial and error, we found a system that worked for our show to shoot remotely and safely during the pandemic. We shot over 15+ episodes within the first couple of months, and resulting in working on other shows such as Celebrity Game Face, Iconic TLC, Haircut Night in America, & Groom Along.

Challenges

In a leadership role, I address both technical issues and production requirements, effectively articulating the technical demands, all while working under firm time constraints with our talent. I fostered collaboration among the camera team, production team, and post-production team, thus ensuring the timely acquisition of essential content from our talent and the smooth progression of our daily shoots.

We encountered several challenges, including:

• Collaboratively developing a filming kit for distribution to our talent and devising streamlined processes for remote kit setup assistance.

• Efficiently addressing issues with our kits, including troubleshooting internet connectivity problems during remote shooting and resolving compatibility issues among various software components.

• Ensuring the secure remote storage of media assets and their subsequent upload to our cloud server.

If you’d like to learn more about the projects we completed, please contact me at hikadilee@gmail.com.