From the outside looking in, Matt Ball has one of the best gigs in this business. Steady work is of course the goal, but Ball has become the go-to cinematographer for one of the industry’s most appetizing genres: food-related docuseries. This year Ball earned his second Emmy nomination for his work on Tucci in Italy, with fan-loved host and actor Stanley Tucci.
“There’s so much to enjoy about it,” he says about the series. “I absolutely love Italy. The food, the people, the weather, everything. And then working with the people we work with, the whole team, they’re so lovely. It’s just a joyous experience. No complaints.”
Ball started working with Tucci and Co. on the original CNN series, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, as a camera operator and was asked to join the Tucci in Italy series as their cinematographer when they found a new network home.
Gold Derby spoke with Ball over Zoom about his Emmy-nominated episode, “Le Marche,” what he loved most about filming there and how much of the featured food he actually gets to sample.
Gold Derby: What was your approach, on the ground? Can you walk us through the mechanics, the logistics of that?
Matt Ball: The idea for the show and for us returning to Italy was to avoid the really populated touristy areas, to get off the beaten path. So beforehand, we’d have a team of researchers and producers who would find the stories, talk them through with Stanley, [executive producer] Lottie Birmingham, the people at the BBC, Nat Geo, and then that would be whittled down into the stories we would then go and shoot. We’d go to fly out for 10 days in each particular region and shoot everything we had to do there. It was all planned really well. They didn’t involve me so much in that stage.
Do you mean 10 days of shooting per episode? Or 10 days on location per episode?
I think it was 10 days with our kind of travel out day and then we would shoot. Because a lot of the places we were going were quite remote, it would take quite a long time to get there. We could have a two, three-hour drive in the morning from our hotel to go to wherever we’re going to shoot and then the same, back. So I think with our travel, I think it was like nine, 10 days, including our travel days in and out of the country.
What made you decide to submit the episode, “Le Marche?”
Le Marche, so I really liked the region, it’s really beautiful, very coastal. No Brits or Americans really go there. It’s very much a destination place for Italians. I just found shooting along that coastline was just stunningly beautiful, I loved it. I thought the whole region had a beauty to it. I mean, Italy, we could have submitted any region really, but I particularly enjoyed being in Le Marche.
Is it fair to assume craft service is better in that experience than other places?
Yeah. And we don’t stop at any kind of gas station to pick up a sandwich on the road. We get pretty well-fed everywhere we go. It’s really good. We go to amazing places, whether it be Michelin-starred restaurants or visit a family that has been cooking a traditional meal, we get to try it and it’s always pretty delicious. It’s always amazing.
What’s your favorite kind of challenge, related to the series?
I would say trying to maintain a kind of flow and the authenticity of the show. We realize that we’re not working with presenters and these are normal people just going about their regular day. We don’t want to manipulate them in order to perform for us. Trying to set everything up to make it as natural for the contributor as possible is what makes it kind of challenging. It makes it enjoyable, but it means that some days we’ll be in this really small, cramped little kitchen because that’s where this person may make this food. We don’t want to take them out of that environment and make it feel unnatural to them. So trying to keep everything as genuine and as authentic as possible, it’s a challenge, but it’s an enjoyable challenge. We prioritize the authenticity of the contributor over everything else. And then we work everything else into that.
Do you ever get to hear feedback from the people who are featured?
I’ve been back to a few restaurants where it’s kind of changed their lives having been on the show, the restaurant just gets booked for months in advance. A few restaurants where people have been overwhelmed and thrilled with the kind of reception the show gets because then everybody wants to go where Stanley eats something fantastic.
Is there anything particular from this season or that episode that you got to try that you would recommend to others, or something that surprised you?
Yeah, there was, I can’t remember what episode it was, but we had this kind of spaghetti, which we called buffala, buffala, buffala, which used three different types of buffalo milk and then buffalo mozzarella into this spaghetti, which was just amazing. It was just so delicious. That was really nice. I can’t remember. I mean, it’s just so much good food. It all kind of blends into one happy memory.
Did you absorb any Italian and are there more adventures with you and the Tucci group in the future?
So probably one of the biggest regrets is that I didn’t learn any Italian. If I’d known I was doing it for so long, I probably would have had lessons, but I didn’t. So yeah, that’s a huge regret because I have spent so long in Italy that I think I would have been, well, a long way from fluent, but would have been better than I am. So yeah, I really regret not doing that.
And yeah, we are doing more things together. We’re in the midst of shooting a new series now around Great Britain, because Stan lives in the U.K., and has done for some time with his family. And so now we’re doing a show.
This article and video are presented by National Geographic.