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# Cinematography Breakdown: Bringing Cisco’s Cybersecurity Story to Life
- URL: https://www.thelibrary.studio/cinematography-breakdown-bringing-ciscos-cybersecurity-story-to-life/
- Published: 2025-02-03T15:20:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-25T15:21:22.000Z
- Author: Matthew Q. Nelson

I received a call from the Animal Farm team asking if I was interested in working with them on a documentary-style project for Cisco. Naturally, I said yes. Over the next several months and many pre-production meetings, we landed on a visual direction for the project and started planning for the shoot days at the Cisco headquarters in San Jose.

*\[Reel - No Audio\]*

Since I knew the story would focus on cybersecurity, I utilized a lot of quadrant framing and shot the interviews using an EyeDirect during production. My role was to direct the on-set production and serve as the director of photography. We worked with a great crew in San Jose, California, and Raleigh, North Carolina. The crew mentioned how helpful it was that I mocked up a lighting and camera diagram prior to production so everyone was on the same page.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/0e/de/0edec9ed-b7b4-4e72-8b9d-5055f05719d2/content/images/2026/09/65428a91d6e5f42dc74fb526_Lighting-Diagram-May-4.JPEG)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/0e/de/0edec9ed-b7b4-4e72-8b9d-5055f05719d2/content/images/2026/09/65429003757026e9602926a4_IMG_3101.jpeg)

Noah—the Creative Director for the project and founder of Animal Farm—conducted pre-interviews, wrote the scripts, and conducted all the interviews on set. I utilized a Hudson Spider Redback (with a Mozzie silver umbrella) as the key light for all the interviews, and we recorded the dialogue using a Sennheiser 8050 microphone.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/0e/de/0edec9ed-b7b4-4e72-8b9d-5055f05719d2/content/images/2026/09/65429072c2727c06c92df2e7_IMG_6591.jpeg)

The team at Rebel Sun in San Jose designed a rig so I could get overhead shots of a desk and webcam. Brandon and I dove through menus to get a signal out of the Canon C500 Mk II for the Teradek and client monitors. In the monitor setup, Noah (Left - Creative Director/Founder, Animal Farm) and David (Right - Principal, Sans Serif) made sure everything was looking just right.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/0e/de/0edec9ed-b7b4-4e72-8b9d-5055f05719d2/content/images/2026/09/6542915f2d812f48c9ffd303_IMG_3374.jpeg)

The Animal Farm team handled all the post-production and brought me on to color the film. This production was so much fun to work on! You can read more about the project and see a short cut of the film on the Sans Serif website.

*A production of Sans Serif x Animal Farm.*

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/0e/de/0edec9ed-b7b4-4e72-8b9d-5055f05719d2/content/images/2026/09/654294fae831754bd96bd1a7_Cisco-DR.jpg)