The Look of Life

To aid its transition from radio to TV, This American Life’s crew enlisted Adam Beckman—a cinematographer who, in the early ‘90s, made over 80 music videos, including Radiohead’s “High and Dry,” the first three Green Day videos and Naughty By Nature’s hip-pop block-party jam, “OPP.” (Though Beckman confesses he isn’t exactly thrilled about some of this early work—“It can be kind of stomach-turning for me to be cited for those mediocre accomplishments.”)

For Beckman, signing on for This American Life meant forging into uncharted territory. But he and director Chris Wilcha gladly faced the daunting challenge of creating a fitting visual representation of a show that had already existed on radio for over a decade.

“I was always attracted to shooting This American Life,” Beckman says over coffee in New York, “because I was interested in finding the visual equivalent of what the show accomplishes aurally; I wanted it to look the way it sounds. The show has an understated elegance—it’s quiet, it’s observant, it’s benevolent toward its subjects. I was interested in how these traits could be adopted by the camera. So many mainstream documentaries lack ambition in their photography. Documentary filmmakers can be so cerebral in their approach to storytelling that they sometimes forget that it can also be a compelling visual experience.”