Emmy-Nominated Producer Eric Gardner and His Team Reimagine Unscripted Production Using iPhone 15 Pro Max, Apple Log and Blackmagic Camera
LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, August 19, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Emmy-nominated television producer and showrunner Eric Gardner has spent much of his career making unscripted television with traditional production crews and camera systems. For his latest series, Legal Queens, Gardner and his team at Neighborhood Pictures took a different approach: the production was built around iPhone 15 Pro Max, Apple Log and Blackmagic Camera.
Blackmagic Design has featured Gardner and the Legal Queens production in a new article examining the workflow behind the 80-episode vertical docuseries.
Gardner, a six-time Emmy nominee for Survivor and former Executive Producer and Showrunner of Bravo’s Shahs of Sunset, approached the project not as mobile content, but as television built for a new screen.
Legal Queens centers on the lives of friends and co-workers at West Coast Trial Lawyers, the Los Angeles law firm co-founded by its president, Neama Rahmani. A Harvard Law School graduate at 22, Rahmani has become one of the country’s most recognizable legal experts, appearing regularly on ABC News, BBC, CNN, Fox News and other major news outlets. He has also built a massive social media audience, with approximately 2.7 million followers and 23.3 million likes on TikTok (@neamarahmani), where his takes on high-profile criminal cases regularly reach millions of viewers.
“The breakthrough for me was realizing that the iPhone didn’t have to be a compromise,” Gardner said. “Apple Log gave us an image we could take seriously into post, and Blackmagic Camera gave us the control I was accustomed to having with a professional camera. Suddenly we could build a very different kind of production around a device everyone already carries.”
Legal Queens was shot with three iPhone 15 Pro Max cameras using Blackmagic Camera, recording 4K Apple Log. Gardner worked with Director of Photography Christina Cervantes to maintain the multi-camera coverage and production discipline of traditional unscripted television within a much smaller camera footprint.
“For unscripted television, that changes things,” Gardner said. “The smaller the footprint becomes, the easier it is for people to stop thinking about the production and just live their lives. That’s where the best moments come from.”
For co-creator and Executive Producer María Alexandria Beech, the technology ultimately serves the storytelling. “The technology gave us the freedom to get closer to the cast and let scenes unfold naturally,” Beech said. “It became less about the equipment and more about the people and their stories.”
Blackmagic Camera also created the elements needed to move seamlessly from production into post, including proxies for the remote editorial workflow, allowing the production to maintain a lightweight footprint without sacrificing the requirements of a professional television workflow.
Gardner sees the project as part of a larger change in professional production.
“I’ve been through several major technology changes in television, from tape to nonlinear editing to file-based production,” Gardner said. “What interests me about the iPhone now is that we’re at another one of those moments. The technology is changing what a crew can be and where professional television can be made. I want to keep exploring that.”
Blackmagic Design published its feature on the Legal Queens production on August 14, 2026.
About Legal Queens
Legal Queens is an 80-episode vertical docuseries produced by Neighborhood Pictures, Inc. for CheraTV.
The series was created by Eric Gardner and María Alexandria Beech and features Liana Khachatryan, Jacqueline Moreira, Roberto Hernandez, Isabel Carmona, Cynthia Villanueva and Neama Rahmani of West Coast Trial Lawyers.
Eric Gardner, María Alexandria Beech, Rod Molina, Calvin Singh, Kylie Karson and Candace Mizga serve as Executive Producers. Faye Rosenbaum serves as Supervising Producer for Neighborhood Pictures, and Christina Cervantes is Director of Photography.
About Neighborhood Pictures
Neighborhood Pictures, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based production company founded by Eric Gardner and María Alexandria Beech, developing and producing scripted and unscripted projects across television, film and emerging platforms.
Gardner is a six-time Emmy nominee for Survivor and former Executive Producer and Showrunner of Bravo’s Shahs of Sunset, with credits across Bravo, NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, MTV, PBS, Discovery, E! and WE tv.
Beech is a playwright, screenwriter, director and producer whose work spans television, film and theater.
Faye Rosenbaum
Neighborhood Pictures
hey@neighborhoodpictures.us
Legal Queens Trailer
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability
for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this
article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
Media gallery
