Museum Secrets brings the ROM’s curatorial spaces to life

Prior to the broadcast of Museum Secrets: Inside the ROM this Thursday January 20 (that’s tomorrow!), at 10 PM ET/PT on History Television Canada, take a behind the scenes look at creating the episode at Canada’s largest museum of culture, archeology and natural history.

Director Q&A: Museum Secrets: Inside the ROM

An interview with Kenton Vaughan

Amanda: You filmed your own documentary about the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) transformation and the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. What was it like directing Museum Secrets at the ROM?

Kenton:
The ROM was a perfect museum to begin shooting Museum Secrets.

This was the first episode created in the Museum Secrets series, even though it is airing as episode three. The ROM staff were great in giving us access to the objects. I developed a level of trust with them and we spent a lot of days shooting, trying things out, figuring out the lighting and how the camera was going to move and how we would represent the mystery.

I worked with cinematographer Chris Romeike and we developed a sense of darkness at the Museum…

Amanda: How exactly did you approach the creation of mystery and allure?

Kenton:
I have to give a lot of credit to Chris Romeike who is very skilled and has a great eye for creating those tracking shots and creating interesting lighting in an almost a low-tech way. When we did the story about the bulldog, we were in back spaces and we lifted up lights by hand and moved them around to give an X-Files feel to the scene. It gives you a torch light kind of feel. We tried not to have too many static shots. We were fortunate because we got to shoot in the back of house behind the galleries. In the galleries everything is behind glass, it’s pristine, whereas behind the scenes, the objects are right there. Some of the spaces are new, white and clinical looking, with storage cabinets that roll around, and others have old wooden Victorian drawers.

In a lot of instances, the curatorial spaces are far more interesting than the galleries. It wasn’t just the gallery spaces that the public usually sees, but it was the opportunity to go behind the spaces that I think really helped the show a lot.

Amanda: What was the most challenging moment during the production of Museum Secrets: Inside the ROM?

Kenton:
Shooting in the dinosaur gallery. It’s so packed with dinosaurs that it’s very difficult to film in there. It’s not like you can move the dinosaurs around to make space.

You can’t get a wide shot of the barosaurus.

It’s so big that there’s only one place in the gallery where you could put the camera to get a shoot of the barosaurus, but there’s actually another dinosaur in that same spot. So what we did is we used a crane to track along the barosaurus. I would love it if you could just set the camera down to show the expanse of the barosaurus, but it’s just not possible in that gallery.

It works great for the visitors, but it makes directors and cinematographers pull their hair out.

Amanda: Was there a moment that blew your mind at the ROM?

Kenton:
One of the most heart-rending moments was filming the baby mummies and seeing them. I had just become a father within days of filming that, so for me it was a very moving to see those baby mummies and to consider what those short lives had been like. As teacher and Egyptologist Gayle Gibson said, this was an act of love that we’re seeing. It is not just a piece of history, it was actually parental love being expressed.

Museum Secrets: Inside the ROM premieres tomorrow, Thursday January 20, at 10pm ET/PT on History Television (Canada).

Visit the episode page on our website the night of the broadcast for web-exclusive video and interactive features connected to each of the objects connected to the stories we explore in the episode.