‘Imminent Injury’ Didn’t Stop Cinematographer Randall Einhorn While Working on ‘The Office’
On the surface, Survivor and The Office don’t seem like they have a lot in common. One is a reality competition series, the other is a scripted mock documentary. However, both shows share similar cinematography thanks to Randall Einhorn. Find out how his work on Survivor inspired The Office, which later inspired the critically-acclaimed series Abbott Elementary.
‘Survivor’ cinematographer made ‘The Office’ feel more authentic
Before joining the team working behind the scenes to create The Office, Randall Einhorn worked on shows like Survivor. “I thought heavily a lot about what the attitude of the documentarians [was],” Einhorn said in Andy Greene’s book The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s. “They cannot be ahead of the action. They have to be slightly behind the action of what the audience is seeing.”
Fellow cinematographer Matt Sohn had a similar experience filming action shows like Cops. Because The Office was a mock documentary, the subjects only sometimes knew they were being filmed. Sohn and Einhorn’s experience filming reality shows as Survivor and Cops allowed The Office to be very authentic.
“The genius of Greg Daniels is the fact that he hired the guys that shot Survivor,” director Paul Feig added in Greene’s book. “He hired an actual documentary crew … knowing that they knew how to follow the action and when to zoom.”
Filming ‘The Office’ occasionally got intense for the cinematographers
While it wasn’t always necessary, Einhorn would go above and beyond to get the perfect shot for a scene. “People don’t realize that Randall and Matt would dive across the table knowing that not only was an injury imminent,” Jim Halpert actor John Krasinski recalled on Brian Baumgartner’s podcast The Office Deep Dive. “But that the take would only be 0.2 seconds because the camera would smash to the ground. That moment would feel so much more alive.”
Einhorn was willing to do whatever it took to get the best shot, even if that meant filming inside a sinking car. In the episode where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) drive a car into a lake, Einhorn was in the back seat. He insisted the scene be filmed with him in the car, as Jenna Fischer explained on the Office Ladies podcast.
“He said at first they discussed just filming it on lipstick cameras that were in the visors,” Fisher recalled. “We’ve seen them do that before. But Randall felt very strongly that it should be shot using the handheld camera from the back seat. So he kind of fought for that.”
Now, filming tactics from ‘The Office’ and ‘Survivor’ are inspiring shows like ‘Abbott Elementary’
Just like The Office was inspired by Survivor’s filming style, The Office’s filming style is inspiring new shows. Today, Einhorn works as a director and executive producer on the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary. The mock-documentary series follows teachers in an underfunded elementary school.
In an interview with Gold Derby, Einhorn mentioned using some of the cinematography techniques he learned on The Office for Abbott Elementary. “I think shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation have certainly laid a lot of groundwork for viewers’ understanding what they’re watching,” he told the outlet. Aside from using the talking heads The Office made popular in Abbott Elementary, Einhorn employs other tactics like “backing up [and] getting away,” which is when the mockumentary crew spies on a character who is unaware that they’re on camera — something Survivor and The Office fans have seen many times.
Watch every episode of The Office on Peacock.
