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Benji Lanpher l Cinematographer

@benjilanpher

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🎥 Emmy-winning cinematographer
🌎 Filming the strange & extraordinary
🎞️ BTS of how the shots get made
🎬 Ali G • Monsters of God · The Man Will Burn

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We done spent a few years filming this one… out of my nearly 10yrs filming with Sacha, this may be the craziest of them all! Ali G, we back in the theaters October 23rd! 🖖🏽 @official.ali.g

#AliGWhoIzI #AliG taken in Staines, United Kingdom by @benjilanpher

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a month ago

Hey, you slithery little snakes! Let’s keep this new project each month going…

Here’s another series I’m excited to share, the trilogy to Tiger King and Chimp Crazy, it’s the reptiles’ turn: Monsters of God!

It’s been a five year project that I’ve been DPing, capturing the stories of the Indiana Jones,’ the real Scarface, drug smugglers, and exotic animal kingpins, all while taking our team to some incredibly fascinating, usually dangerous, reptilicious places. There are a thousand stories to share, many you’ll get see soon, but for now please check out the trailer for Monsters of God, a new 5 part series premiering on @hbo August 6th! 🐍

It’s a Cold Blooded World #MonstersOfGod taken in The Snake Pit by @benjilanpher

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3 months ago

I’ve been holding onto a lot of secrets for a long time, some of which I’m finally able to talk about, now that all 5eps of Monsters of God has aired. This is a really special one that I feel incredibly fortunate to be part of.

On January 1st, 2025 I was staying at @turtlesarentslow house in Ojai for my birthday. We partied so hard that night we may have rattled a nearby egg, because the next morning, something incredibly special was about to enter the world…

On January 2nd James asked that I come back up to the @turtleconservancy to set up cameras and capture what could be the birth of one of the rarest tortoises and rarest reptiles on Earth, the ploughshare tortoise. The Ploughshare, is one of the worlds most critically endangered reptiles and is extremely hard to breed in captivity. The turtle conservancy has been trying for nearly 14 years, this was the first successful breeding of a ploughshare tortoise at Turtle Conservancy, and according to the TC, and the first significant conservation breeding outside of Madagascar.

I feel truly honored to have been there to witness and capture this historic moment… This was the first of 25.

#PloughshareTortoise
#Tortoise
#ReptilesOfInstagram
#WildlifeConservation
#RareAnimals taken in Turtle Conservancy by @benjilanpher

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a month ago

Filming Monsters of God got dangerous many times and not just because of the reptiles. This is one of the most dangerous men we ever went looking for.

For over 10 years, Eric had been chasing one interview: Anson Wong.

Anson Wong was regarded by U.S. Fish & Wildlife as one of the world’s most significant international wildlife traffickers and exotic animal smuggling kingpins in the world. His criminal operation involved protected and endangered reptiles, including some of the rarest animals on Earth. He’s considered the Pablo Escobar of wildlife trafficking and he hadnt been seen in 15-20yrs after being captured during “Operation Chameleon,” and had never done an interview.

Our journey started in Vietnam, then through Singapore, Eric went through Thailand, while in Indonesia just outside of Jakarta we ended up at a secret zoo that was a real life Noah’s Ark, it had animals that were extinct in the wild 🤯 also the place I almost got a finger taken off by a tiger.

We finally landed in Malaysia where Anson surprisingly answered our phone call and agreed to meet Eric at our hotel (not seen in the series). We didn’t know if he would show or if he did, this would be it. So we rented hotel rooms across the street and I outfitted the city block with hidden cameras pointed at the hotel entrance hoping for his arrival. Cameras were rigged in hotel windows, bushes, a van parked in the hotel entrance, and button cams... Unbelievably he showed up to meet Eric while james and I peered through the bushes on the 3rd level of a hotel across the street with the bush cam. They went to lunch while we patiently watched the tracker we placed on Eric hoping he would return safely.

Eric returned and what happened next was even more unreal, Anson invited us to his home tucked deep in the Malaysian mountains for the next 3 days to interview him for the very first time. For the rest of the story you’ll just have to watch the series on @hbo taken in Malaysia by @benjilanpher

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2 days ago

What’s this, some never before seens of behind the scenes from filming The Man Will Burn!? Didn’t make it out this year, but spent the last 5 filming the series with some of the best friends, having the best of time of our film career lives out there at Burning Man. It wasnt always easy, but it was always fun… and I’ll seize any opportunity to professionally work pantless. What a dream to bring this to @hbo ❤️‍🔥 taken in Burning Man by @benjilanpher

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17 days ago

Best read in your worst David Attenborough voice…

Tonight, five years of chasing the world’s most dangerous reptiles comes to an end. Monsters of God finale airs tonight on @hbo! A small crew of us traveled the country and parts of the world capturing the incredible stories of the underworld of exotic reptile smuggling and the people/animals involved. As you could imagine, that put us in to some peculiar positions which lends itself to the title of the series, and overall an adventure that at time felt like we were playing Indiana Jones.

One of my favorite parts of filming this was the opportunity to take these macro glamour shots of some of the most beautiful, rare, and dangerous reptiles on Earth…

One of the best parts of filming Monsters of God was getting to see these reptiles in person, and then figuring out how to get the most macro detailed shots of them. Animals are always difficult to work with, reptiles are know different, maybe harder. Some are slow but most move quick, a few want to hide, then there’s the ones that want to bite, jump, or spit venom on you.

Green Iguana - Possibly the most basic reptile in this bunch and @turtlesarentslow least favorite but a good example of how cool even the most basic looks under the macroscope.

Jackson’s Chameleon - one of my personal favorites

It was fun traveling with a mobile setup that could be quickly assembled almost anywhere… Hot rooms, small tanks, pet stores, little hole in the wall places across Asia. For most of the detailed reptile shots in this series we used the @canonusa c500 paired with the @venuslaowa probe lens which allows you to get within millimeters of the subject and keep it in focus, paired with a lighting setup big and small for every size reptile. The @aputure.lighting MC’s I used (sometimes clamped to the rails of the camera by the lens) to highlight and fill each subject to bring out the colors. - Your common house pest (me)

And if I was lucky sometimes a piece of cardboard or matte box to block any biters, or in this case a face mask from @tylernolantattoos for them spitters.

Spitting cobra

Felt like this one deserved his own caption… but if you can read, but you’re reading by @benjilanpher

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a month ago

Back to Florida we go for more Monsters of God BTS… Here we have a couple more close calls with some danger noodles, dipping my digits into a swamp puppy puddle, a couple of the most rare and venomous snakes in the world if you’ve got eyes for em, more normal things you see in Florida, and a bonus if you recognize the guy on the boatorcycle in the last slide! Enjoy 🐍

#Monstersofgod #hbo #hbodocs Slitherylilsnakes taken in Florida, USA by @benjilanpher

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a month ago

Spend enough time in Florida and you start doing Florida shit. Didn’t keep track, but say 30 or so trips to America’s great shaft for this series and I finally feel like I’m fitting in… or at least my mullet is. As promised, and with a lot more to come… Here’s some BTS of filming Monsters of God on @hbo ! Thanks to everyone watching our series, we appreciate you checking out our snakes on the big screen 💚

#Monstersofgod #hbo #hbodocs #Slitherylilsnake taken in Florida, USA by @benjilanpher

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a month ago

We done spent a few years filming this one… out of my nearly 10yrs filming with Sacha, this may be the craziest of them all! Ali G, we back in the theaters October 23rd! 🖖🏽 @official.ali.g

#AliGWhoIzI #AliG taken in Staines, United Kingdom by @benjilanpher

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a month ago

Monsters of God premiered on @hbo last week and we’re already on episode 2 of 5!

Trying something new here… I just went through all of my photos and videos from my 5yrs filming this series and there’s nearly 3800 of which I realized maybe I don’t share enough of this secret life I can’t typically talk or post about until the project comes out, for various reasons. So, I’ll be posting bts and stories for these projects I’ve shot as they air or have already aired. So here’s the first of many posts I’ll make after each episode of these shows… as long as I can keep up with two kids and nearly 0 free time.

I’ll elaborate more of how this all happened in the first place on another post… but for now, here’s a few shots from the opening sequence. The snake was shot on the @freeflysystems Wave camera at 422fps to a @venuslaowa probe 24mm lens at T8, we had been trying to get that shot for years. The gator eye, well from as far away as possible while luring it into our black drop and trying to get it to stay still… the most difficult part about working with animals aside from trying not to get bit or venom spit at you by these reptiles.

Hope you enjoy the show and these posts… because according to Mike Van Nostrand (slide 11), if I don’t make him and his family look good he’s gonna f’ me up 🐍

To clarify the “Ai content” above: Tried out Chat tonight to try sharpening an iPhone image of a snake, worked great. I guess the post detects that now and puts “Ai Content.”

#MonstersOfGod #HBO #hbodocs #reptiles Slitherylilsnake taken in The Snake Pit by @benjilanpher

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2 months ago

The boy is ✌🏼! A lot to be said for Jax and these last two years… here’s a few from the last 6 months that best describe him 💘 by @benjilanpher

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2 months ago

Reunited with @johnsummit last weekend for his lollapalooza takeover! It was his homecoming show and full circle moment from where it all began… special to see it all go down with such meticulous planning by the Summit team. It doesn’t get much better than his friends and family and of course his mom @brokertamara always in full body support! 🪩💥

Too good for reels… each clip has its own life on this one…

Thanks @evanssss for the shots! #johnsummit taken in Lollapalooza by @benjilanpher

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2 months ago