Imagine a forensic psychologist, a neuroscientist and a behavioural scientist, conducting tests and interviews with con artists to yield compelling results and offer advice on preventing deception or falling into deceitful practices. Of course, such a research endeavour does not exist, and therefore we decided to create one.
Creating a fictional environment where a team of academics could experiment and develop a captivating popular science program was incredibly thrilling. Every detail, from the location to the production design, from the transportation schedule to the filming itself, was crucial in meeting our aesthetic and content standards. Having prior experience working on popular science programs, we were well aware of the challenges in translating complex science for television audiences. Scientists often lament how their work gets distilled into bite-sized portions, while we, the creators of these tidbits, are often frustrated by the scientists’ poor communication skills.
Each con artist was invited to Amsterdam for only four consecutive days, during which we captured the footage necessary for each 52-minute episode. As filmmakers, the greatest challenge was our role as passive observers, recording interactions between the scientists (Kerry Daynes, Mark Frank and Moran Cerf) and con artists without imposing our own narrative or drama. Since we started principal photography just a few months after Covid, the pandemic offered even more challenges which we gladly would have preferred to avoid.
We decided to construct various rooms within a studio setting. These included a lab room for conducting tests, an interview room for in-depth interviews with con artists, a meeting room for conducting evaluations between the scientists and a memory room for reviewing recorded or archived material to better understand the psychology and history of the con artists. To break free from the studio’s confines, we also planned outdoor shoots in the institute’s garden, which added further challenges to our already tight schedule. Additionally, we arranged for extensive filming at a wonderful museum south of the city Utrecht.
Enamoured by its slightly brutalist architecture, designed by Anne Holtrop, we secured permission from the museum to shoot crucial scenes there. Our art department meticulously recreated the building’s monumental design. To enhance the fictional concept, we decided to film exterior shots in Iceland to imbue the series with a majestic and otherworldly ambiance.
The resulting project, unveiled in December 2022, is undoubtedly the most ground-breaking endeavour we’ve undertaken, perhaps the epitome of suspension of disbelief. It’s intriguing how this concept hasn’t been explored in documentary filmmaking, as if the mere presence of a camera capturing so-called reality doesn’t already blur the lines between fact and fiction. Viewers either embraced the interactions between scientists and con artists or dismissed the premise and ceased watching. We were delighted when the series was nominated for an Emmy award.
