Boldly Going Through The Black Mirror

Late last Spring, I was sent on a mission to explore strange new worlds by Roy Henry at Netflix, blasting into space with none other than Charlie Brooker to dock with the hotly anticipated Black Mirror Season 7.

Or at least, we boldly went to Shepperton Studios to shoot the writer on set, alongside Series Producer Jessica Rhoades.

Into Infinity & Beyond

The season finale is the series’ first ever sequel, returning to fan favourite USS Callister, in an episode entitled, USS Callister: Into Infinity.

Set aboard a Star-Trek like spaceship, the ship’s bridge was a truly incredible set, built to be shot in full 360, with a bank of flatscreens outside the ‘viewing window’ which allowed a handy technician to bring up any galaxy, planet or constellation you might fancy on his Ipad.

White dwarf a bit to the left? No problems…..

With all the practical lights of the ship set and controls functioning, but without any of the other filming lighting, my challenge was to marry low level LED displays and bulbs with location flash lighting to create slick portraits that captured the atmosphere of the set, while making Charlie and Jessica look a million space credits.

I mixed in blue and gold gel colours to accentuate the tones of the set lighting, and our 45 minutes shooting was a total blast.

No sane adult can really resist playing Captain Kirk or Uhuru if they get the chance, so it was easy to get them both relaxed and enjoying a few moments away from filming on other stages for the episode.

Matt Brewin then supplied a lovely edit, ramping up the JJ ABrams Sci-Fi lens flare factor.

A Bridge Quite Far

Beaming onto a screen near you…

With the series just out in April 2025, the images have been popping up in press coverage worldwide, including the Guardian What’s On section cover and the BBC News page, so we clearly did something right!

On Shoot