Cinematographer David Becheri transforms trains into moving sets, capturing the authentic stories, emotions and everyday journeys of passengers across Italy for Amazon Prime Documentary, shot on the URSA Cine 12K LF.
Shot on a compressed schedule, Andata e Ritorno was produced for Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato and is now available on Amazon Prime Video in Italy.
Directors Elena de Rosa and Roberto Campagna of Gruppo Creativo Multimedia had first proposed a television concept to Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato built around dialect, Made in Italy and the railway world. That version did not move ahead, but months later the team was invited to reshape the idea as a documentary.
However, rather than focus on Trenitalia’s infrastructure or services, the film follows the people who use the network every day. “We never wanted to confine the story to what happens on the train,” Campagna said. “The idea was to follow each protagonist into the places that shape their lives, whether that was work, training or composing music, so the journey became only one part of a wider story.”
For the on board sequences, Trenitalia provided a dedicated carriage, allowing the crew to work without disrupting regular commuters. The contributors were real passengers, found through a social media casting process.
“Once we identified the stories, we had to adapt them for the big screen while keeping their experiences intact,” Campagna added.
Ready for departure
Becheri initially considered a smaller cinema camera package for the documentary, but testing pushed him towards the URSA Cine 12K LF.
“Most days started very early in the morning and ran late,” he said. “We had to be on the platform and ready to board before the train arrived. Sometimes that meant stepping on with the camera already rolling, finding the shot as we went, working around passengers and narrow corridors, then getting off and carrying on with the characters in their daily lives.”
The decision came down to how the camera behaved on the shoulder.
“In testing, I realised that going too light was not actually helping us,” Becheri said. “For this kind of work, especially when shooting off the shoulder, the URSA Cine 12K offered better balance and greater stability. “It was easier to control and quicker to switch from a shoulder mounted configuration to a handheld setup.”
He built the camera around the Blackmagic URSA Cine Shoulder Mount Kit and URSA Cine EVF, supported by an EasyRig for the longer shooting days. A five-inch monitor was mounted directly on the camera so Campagna could stay close to the camera and see the image during the more dynamic scenes.
“The viewfinder was intuitive and precise in tight spaces, while the monitor on the grip allowed Roberto to check the image,” Becheri said. “That saved us from having to constantly adjust the setup when moving between shoulder and handheld work.”
The package also included a Teradek wireless transmitter for video assist and a remote follow focus system. “It gave us reliable video assist and remote focus without compromising the mobility of the camera,” he added.
Window light
Much of Andata e Ritorno was shot in trains and private locations, where Becheri had little chance of influencing the natural light and no room for a conventional lighting package. “Since it was impossible to carry a bulky lighting rig with us, my approach was based on shaping the available natural light,” he said.
The URSA Cine 12K LF was paired with Angénieux EZ 1 and EZ 2 zooms in large format configuration. Their overlapping focal ranges helped Becheri move from the tight spaces of the train to more open locations without slowing the shoot.
He also studied the route in advance, looking at how the light would shift through windows as the train passed trees, buildings and open landscapes. Subjects were often placed near the window and backlit against the carriage, with white bounce used to to compensate for the wide dynamic range.
“The world outside the window was several stops brighter than the interior,” Becheri said. “I chose to slightly underexpose the subjects to retain highlight detail. The camera’s dynamic range allowed me to keep skin tones well exposed while preserving the detail outside the windows.”
The RGBW sensor helped when the contrast changed quickly. “The highlights rolled off more softly, and the shadows held together without clipping abruptly,” he said.
Becheri kept the lenses around T3, using the camera’s internal NDs as the light shifted. For smaller adjustments, he added a Tiffen 0.3 IR ND in the matte box.
“That let me keep the exposure where I wanted it without changing the aperture,” he said.
The same thinking carried into the exterior scenes. At sunrise and sunset, Becheri often worked at ISO 800, allowing the exposure to move rather than correcting every change in the light.
In Yakuba’s scene by the sea, the frame had to hold color in the sky, reflections on the water and detail in his skin. “For me, the point is to make an imperfect exposure feel photographic,” Becheri said.
The sea sequence was shot at 50fps, giving the dive a slower, more suspended quality. In the fencing hall with Gaia, lit largely by soft natural light, the camera captured the sweat and texture of her skin without making the image feel overworked.
“I wanted Andata e Ritorno to have a cinematic feel, but not a perfect one,” Becheri said. “Fluctuations in color temperature, overexposures and uncompensated contrasts were left in the image. The URSA Cine 12K allowed me to preserve the spontaneity of the moments without interrupting what was happening.”
Set to Post
The team shot in 8K Blackmagic RAW 5:1, partly to give post-production room for reframing and stabilization. “Shooting in 8K gave us enough headroom for reframing and stabilization, especially since we were handheld on a constantly moving set,” Becheri said. “We could also downscale to 4K without cropping, keeping the same field of view and using the full-frame RGBW sensor area.”
Franchini was already working through the material before the shoot had wrapped. The camera recorded H.264 proxies alongside the original raw files, allowing him to start organizing scenes in DaVinci Resolve as new footage arrived. Where production had a solid connection, material was pushed to Blackmagic Cloud from the camera over its 10G Ethernet port.
“In that kind of schedule, the cloud workflow allowed us to start editing while we were still shooting,” Franchini said. “It kept set and post-production close, and helped us move much faster.”
According to the production report, the documentary was shot over 22 days across ten regions and around 2,000 kilometres of train travel. The shoot generated 12 terabytes of footage, with material offloaded to a 32TB LaCie Big Dock drive and duplicated for backup.
The final deliverables included a 4K DCI Flat DCP alongside a 2K DCP for wider theatrical compatibility.
