Case Study

Venus Williams Found Me Through a Grandparents Day Video

A video I made for a school's Grandparents Day found its way to Venus Williams. A few weeks later I was filming at her house in Jupiter: the court, the kitchen, and a dog named Harry.

Client: Venus Williams
Industry: Lifestyle & Sports
Year: 2020

In 2020 I got a call from a manager on Venus Williams’ team.

Venus had come across one of my videos, liked it, and wanted to make something with the same feeling.

My first question was the obvious one. Which video?

The opening

The one that reached her

It was Shabbos Ima.

A short film I’d made for a school’s Grandparents Day.

Of everything I had ever put out, that was the one that traveled. Not a commercial. Not a brand film. A small piece made for a room of grandparents in a school hall, and somehow it had gotten far enough from that room to reach one of the greatest tennis players who has ever lived.

The idea

The quote was the quote

Her team described what they wanted. Filming at her home in Jupiter, gardening and cooking, lifestyle moments, some fitness, and time on the court.

Then they asked for a number.

I gave them the number I would have given anyone for that production.

I’ve tried to hold that line the whole way through. What someone gets from me shouldn’t depend on how well known they are. If the project is real and the budget works, you get the same attention and the same standard. Pricing a job by the name attached to it is a decision about the client. Pricing it by the work is a decision about the work.

They accepted, and I drove to Jupiter.

At the house

A day at the house

I brought my friend David: a VFX artist and editor, and the person I want on a day like that.

Venus Williams mid step-up during a home workout in her garage gym, her small grey dog standing on the step in front of her

Harry was in almost every setup. Not placed there, not wrangled. Just present, the way a dog is in a house where it lives. He ended up in the workout, on the bed, and underfoot on the way to the court.

Venus Williams holding her small grey dog close on a bed in soft window light

Venus Williams reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman in a hanging chair in the garden

Between setups she read. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, in a hanging chair in the garden. I did not stage that and I would not have thought to.

Venus Williams sitting on an outdoor sofa holding her small white dog, herb plants beside her

By the end of the day Harry had been in more setups than anyone except Venus.

It wasn’t a production. There was no crew village, no marks on the floor, no one managing the room. It was a house with people in it, and the day became the thing the films were supposed to be about: unhurried, warm, ordinary.

We filmed her gardening, picking what she was about to cook, making shakes, putting vegetables on the grill. We filmed around the house with her dog. We filmed workouts. We filmed her reading outside.

There was no narrative to manufacture. The point was the side of her that nobody associates with walking onto Centre Court.

Bearded man in a backwards cap beside a tripod-mounted camera, crew filming outdoors behind him

Bearded man in a backwards cap beside a tripod-mounted camera rig on a poolside deck

Chapter 04

Harry, the kitchen, and everyone else

Not all of it was tennis, and none of it was a brand shoot. The rest of the day was just her life: the dog, the kitchen, her mom and her closest friends.

Venus Williams picking basil from a window planter box, a watering can in her other hand

It started in the garden. Herbs cut from a window box a few steps from the kitchen, which is the sort of detail you cannot fake and do not have to light.

Venus Williams talking with a woman across the counter of a covered outdoor kitchen

Two pairs of hands halving an avocado on a wooden board in an outdoor kitchen

The outdoor kitchen did most of the work for me. Open on every side, green behind it, one direction of soft light all afternoon. I shot most of this handheld and close.

Asparagus spears turned with tongs on a hot grill

Olive oil poured over a plate of guacamole, with a Salt Bae image composited into the frame as a joke

And then somebody dropped a Salt Bae into the edit over the olive oil, because nothing about this part of the day was supposed to be serious.

Venus Williams laughing with three women around a table of potted herbs in the garden

Four people potting herbs and seedlings at a long outdoor table under a covered patio

The afternoon finished with her mom and her friends around a table potting herbs. No setup, no marks, nobody performing. Those are almost always the frames that end up carrying a piece.

Venus Williams looking down and laughing mid-conversation in a grey hooded top

That is the part I did not expect to be filming. I came for a tennis piece and spent half the day in a kitchen with her family, which is a much harder thing to be trusted with.

On the court

Then we went to the court

You don’t spend a day filming Venus Williams without eventually bringing out the rackets.

Venus Williams airborne mid-swing on the tennis court, racket and ball caught in the same frame

Then she started hitting, and the day changed. You do not really register how hard a professional strikes a ball until you are behind a camera trying to keep it in frame.

Venus Williams striking the ball on a hazy backlit tennis court, leg extended through the shot

The light went hazy and low toward the end and I stopped directing anything. Some of the best frames of the whole day came out of that last twenty minutes.

Venus Williams at the net with her coach and a hitting partner, a basket of balls on the court

Her coach and a hitting partner ran the drills; my job was to stay out of the way and keep the camera where the ball was going to be. That is harder than it sounds when the ball is leaving at that speed.

Venus Williams driving a two-handed backhand, the ball flattening against her strings

Venus Williams airborne through a forehand on a hazy backlit court, both feet off the ground

Venus Williams on her home court in a white top, bougainvillea flowering behind the fence

Between sets she was completely relaxed. All of the intensity in these frames is switched on for the shot and switched off the second it is over, which is its own kind of professionalism.

A tennis coach doubled over on the court after taking a ball, a frame from the comedy short

And then there is this one, from the comedy short, her coach taking a ball and going down for the bit. He was a very good sport about it.

She is also, it turns out, extremely fun to film. Between setups I shot this: a short cinematic piece of her moving on the court, cut slow so you can actually see what a serve looks like when it comes off a racket like hers.

Watch the film

Venus Williams cinematic showcase short

We also shot a comedy bit. The premise is simple: she hits a ball hard enough to flatten her coach, apologises, offers to try softer next time, and helps him back up. She committed to it completely, which is the only reason it works.

Watch the film

Comedy short with Venus Williams

We went out with her coach and made a completely different kind of thing. A piece about court etiquette, including what it costs you to smash a racket. Some comedy, one where she hits a ball hard enough to apparently take her coach off his feet.

And then we stopped being funny and just filmed what she does.

Slow motion. Ball striking. Footwork. The movement.

I had spent the day filming someone at home, and then she walked onto a court and became the other thing.

Bearded man holding a furry boom microphone on a tennis court beside a camera tripod

Watch the film

Court etiquette film with Venus Williams

What I learned

What it actually taught me

By 2020 Venus Williams had seven Grand Slam singles titles, four Olympic golds, and had been the first African American woman to reach World No. 1 in the Open Era.

None of that was in the room. In the room she was making a shake with a friend and hanging out with her dog.

But that isn’t the part I’ve kept.

The part I’ve kept is that I couldn’t have engineered any of it. Shabbos Ima wasn’t made for reach. It wasn’t a spec piece, it wasn’t aimed at anyone, and it certainly wasn’t made because I thought the right person might see it. It was a small job for a school that I cared about and tried to make properly.

Then it traveled.

That was six years ago, and the internet has gotten a lot louder since. Almost everything now is built to be distributed: cut for the algorithm, shaped for the feed, optimised before it’s finished. Which is exactly why I think the lesson holds harder now than it did then. The work that moves is almost never the work engineered to move. It’s the specific thing, made for actual people, that turns out to be legible to strangers precisely because it wasn’t trying to be.

You have no idea who is watching. The small project you take seriously this month is the one that puts you somewhere you couldn’t have planned for.

(More on that in Stop Making More Content.)

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The film