A Netflix documentary series in association with Archewell Productions, a Violet Films + Grain Media production, made in partnership with the Invictus Games Foundation.
Director: Orlando von Einsiedel
Producer: Joanna Natasegara
Director of Photography: Franklin Dow
Cinematographers: Richard Jephcote, Wouter Boes, Vanessa Carr, Blaine Dunkley, Ollie Kenchington, Thomas Maitland, Adam Morris Philp, Serhiy Stetsenko, Keoni TeTawa Bowthorpe, Constantin Alexandru
Production Companies: Archewell Productions · Violet Films · Grain Media
NETFLIX Entertainment
06 April 2021
Global United States
Heart Of Invictus, A New Docu-series From Oscarⓡ-winning Documentarians Orlando Von Einsiedel And Joanna Natasegara, Will Reveal The Human Stories And Resilient Spirit Behind The Invictus Games
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (April 6, 2021) – Archewell Productions, in partnership with The Invictus Games Foundation, today announced its first Netflix series. Heart of Invictus, from the OscarⓇ-winning team of director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara (The White Helmets, Virunga, Evelyn), will follow a group of extraordinary competitors from around the globe, all service members who have suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses on their road to the Invictus Games The Hague 2020, now set to take place in 2022.
The multi-episode series will join the competitors as they train, and along the way reveal powerful stories of resilience and hope. The series will also follow the organizers as they work to prepare for the Games, postponed until next Spring, and as they partner with each nation’s team to support their competitors over the coming year.
“Since the very first Invictus Games back in 2014, we knew that each competitor would contribute in their own exceptional way to a mosaic of resilience, determination, and resolve. This series will give communities around the world a window into the moving and uplifting stories of these competitors on their path to the Netherlands next year. As Archewell Productions’ first series with Netflix, in partnership with the Invictus Games Foundation, I couldn’t be more excited for the journey ahead or prouder of the Invictus community for continuously inspiring global healing, human potential and continued service,” said Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, Co-Founder of Archewell Productions and Patron of The Invictus Games Foundation.
Elizabeth Unger's Tigre Gente follows Marcos Uzquiano, director of Bolivia's Madidi National Park, as he works his way undercover into the jaguar poaching network, while Hong Kong journalist Laurel Chor traces the trade in fangs, skulls, and pelts to its buyers in China.
As 2nd Unit DP, I flew the aerials over La Paz, Madidi, and the Bolivian Amazon and operated much of the gimbal work. I also brought on Alex Pollini for the time-lapses, and together we shot the film's opening, hiking up a mountain at 4 a.m. to catch first light breaking over the clouds.
One of my favorite moments was a shaman's ceremony on a moonless night. There was no light to expose by, and we only had what we'd carried in, so we hung a white sheet in the canopy, clipped two small LEDs to it, and lit the whole ceremony with that. It's the kind of problem-solving I love about documentary work.
Honors
World Premiere — Tribeca Festival 2021
American Cinematographer Award — Salem Film Fest 2022
Shared Earth Foundation Award for Advocacy — Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
Pare Lorentz Award, Honorable Mention — International Documentary Association
Press: American Cinematographer, "Tracking Poachers in Tigre Gente," September 2022
Directed By: Elizabeth Unger
Producers: Elizabeth Unger & Joanna Natasegara
Executive Producers: Kate Brooks, Marjon Javadi, Violet Feng & Minah Worley
Director of Photography: Eddie Roqueta
2nd Unit Director of Photography & Aerials: Blaine Dunkley
Wildlife Cinematography: Cristian Dimitrius
Time-Lapse Cinematography: Alex Pollini
Editors: Jill Schweitzer & Alistair Shurman
Two films for the second season of In Pursuit of Wellness, the award-winning series BBC StoryWorks produces for the Global Wellness Institute. The series has drawn over 3 million page views on BBC.com and 20 million video views.
The first took us to Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, the home base of the Transcendental Meditation movement, where Dr. Tony Nader, a Harvard- and MIT-trained neuroscientist and head of the TM organizations worldwide, shares the practice and the research behind it.
The second was shot at a hospital in Rhode Island in the wake of COVID, following nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers learning TM to manage the stress of their jobs through the David Lynch Foundation's Heal the Healers program.
Directed By: Jessica Burgess
Director of Photography: Blaine Dunkley
Production: Little Animals Pictures
Agency: BBC StoryWorks
All Images Shot & Graded by Blaine Dunkley: Cinematographer and FAA Part 107 Certified Drone Operator.
Aerial work across documentary, narrative, and music. See the full aerial page →
Winner — Best Documentary Short, RiverRun International Film Festival 2024 (Academy Award qualifying)
Official Selection — Big Sky Documentary Film Festival 2024 · Mountainfilm 2024 · Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Iranian-American filmmaker Andy Sarjahani and his childhood friend Bubba Samuels grew up together in Pope County, Arkansas. Over the years, they bonded over their love for dogs and adventuring in the hills, woods, and creeks of their native Ozarks.
After 9/11, an 18-year-old Andy must reconcile the identity he hid to assimilate as a boy, while Bubba takes a diverging path. In the years following, anti-Middle Eastern rhetoric from the community they grew up in fuels a journey of self-examination as Andy moves through life straddling a cultural fault line, attempting to reconcile his two worlds.
In Wild Hogs and Saffron, the two old friends reconnect in their native Ozarks for a wild hog hunt where unexpected conversations unfold that have a lasting impact on their friendship. Set against the backdrop of the natural world, masculine vulnerability within a traditionally hypermasculine space drives the story as the two men cross new thresholds attempting to make sense of a polarized world.
I followed Andy and Bubba through the hunt itself and then stayed close for the conversation that followed, two old friends talking across a political and cultural divide that had grown between them since childhood. The coverage had to move between the two: the physical, unpredictable work of the hunt, and the long, quiet exchange that the whole film turns on. Shot handheld on a Sony FX9 with G-series zooms and an Easyrig, a setup light enough to stay with them in the field and steady enough to hold the talk when it came.
Network — ITVS / PBS Independent Lens
Production — Big Sun Films
Director — Andy Sarjahani
Producer — Jennifer Samani
Director of Photography — Blaine Dunkley
Oxygen: In Progress features four powerhouse women making waves in their industries by innovating, connecting, and pushing creative boundaries.
Client - Oxygen Media / NBC Universal
Production Company - GoodBrother
Agency Producer - Sarah Goldszer
Directors - The Russell Brothers
DP - Blaine Dunkley
Gaffer - David McCabe Jr.
AC - Jaime Medrano
Client - Columbia Records/Good Morning Britain
EP - Steve Gottlieb/Content Video
Producer - Jessica Burgess
DP - Blaine Dunkley
Gaffer - Dan Hourihan
PA - West Lenz
“We sent Richard Arnold over to NYC to interview singing legend Celine Dion as she releases her first English-language album in six years. In a world exclusive full-length interview, Celine opens up about recording her album 'Courage' and her husband René, who passed away in 2016.”
The cell's natural pathway to disruption and one of the men, Dr. Craig Mello, who discovered it. Additionally, a large scale beekeeper thanks RNAI developed by Greenlight Biotech for saving his hundreds of colonies from CCD. These two films represent work that Little Animals Pictures Inc. made in collaboration with BBC Storyworks to illuminate the breakthroughs in medical science, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture of which RNAI is at the forefront.
Directed & Produced by Jess Burgess
Cinematography by Blaine Dunkley
On the eve of the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the state of reproductive rights in America are in a tenuous position. In a conference call with Refinery29, Dana Singiser, Planned Parenthood's vice president for public policy and government affairs, called 2016 “a watershed moment” for access to abortion care. Two major court cases before the Supreme Court, plus a presidential election, mean that 2016 has the potential to devastate a woman’s right to choose. “If the court allows these laws to go into effect, women could lose the right to have a safe, legal abortion in this country.”
Scab Vendor is a feature documentary about Jonathan Shaw, a legend of the tattoo world who reinvented himself as an underground novelist. Built from his personal archive — photographs, audio interviews with his famous parents, bandleader Artie Shaw and actress Doris Dowling, footage of him tattooing celebrities like Johnny Depp, and his motorcycle travels — the film follows his outlaw life, his addiction, and his eventual redemption through art and writing.
I shot most of the film's interviews across New York and New Jersey, along with Jonathan's book readings at The Slipper Room on the Lower East Side, on my RED Scarlet-W.
"Jonathan Shaw is the great nightmare anti-hero of the new age." — Iggy Pop
"Author, artist, connoisseur, madman, thug, pirate, villain, Buddha, sage, Satan, gypsy and most solid of brothers." — Johnny Depp
World Premiere — Warsaw International Film Festival 2022
Distributed by Dark Star Pictures
Featuring Jonathan Shaw, Johnny Depp, Iggy Pop & Jim Jarmusch
Directed By: Lucas de Barros & Mariana Thome
Written By: Jonathan Shaw
Producers: Enrique Aular, Lucas de Barros, Christian Jurgensen & Mariana Thome
Executive Producers: Sebastian Arrechedera & Juan Bernardo González
Cinematographers: Blaine Dunkley & Miguel Lindenberg
Editor: Grace Zahrah
Press: MSP Film Society
A short-documentary web-series for NBC Asian America that showcases narratives of immigrant sons and daughters who express their personal beliefs and cultural connections through the clothes they wear.
* 2018 NAMIC Vision Awards - Nominated Best "Lifestyle Series"
* 2018 Bushwick Film Festival - Official Selection
