Before Netflix greenlit docuseries like Wild Wild Country and Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, the streaming giant gave the green light to its first ever original documentary series, Chef’s Table, in 2015.
Popular among foodies and non-foodies alike, the Emmy-nominated series is known for profiling world-renowned chefs while simultaneously pulling back the curtain on their kitchens for the benefit of viewers.
One of that show’s executive producers, Matthew Weaver (who also produced Jiro Dreams of Sushi), is one of the creative forces behind a new docuseries called Home that was released on Apple TV today. Departing to nine locations around the globe — including Hong Kong, Bali, Malibu and Maine — the series gives viewers a never-before-seen glimpse inside the world’s most inventive homes while also profiling the innovative architects who dreamt them up.
Immersive and attention-grabbing, the show is similar to Chef’s Table in that it doesn’t require an intimate knowledge of the subject matter to appreciate the stories being told. According to executive producer Doug Pray, who also directed two of the show’s episodes, that was by design.
“It was not meant to be Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. It wasn’t Cribs and it wasn’t necessarily just a do-it-yourself kind of home show,” Pray tells InsideHook. “Those are great and entertaining, but this is a totally different genre. It was more of this notion about powerful ideas envisioned in a home that people could aspire to. Whether the homes are expensive or not was less the point. It’s about a home. It’s about a person. No, it’s about the person and the home or vice versa, and how the two are tied together.”
Pray, who also produced The Defiant Ones for HBO, points out that most of the episodes highlight a problem or issue that served as the inspiration for why the builder made certain choices and decisions with the construction of their home.
“I like how the episodes take you into the problem they had and then try to figure out,” he says. “What the hell did they do about it, and where did they get this idea? … The biggest challenge of the show was to make sure those stories, from problem to inspiration to execution, told an actual human story with a beginning, middle and end, and all its ups and downs — not just some success story.”
Shot with high-powered cameras and a litany of technical lenses, the production value and cinematography level of Home are both sky high.
“The basic goal was just extremely high quality but without it becoming sort of antiseptic or like a commercial,” Pray says. “It’s not just about making the homes seem beautiful. It’s still a documentary. We want to feel like we’re inside the homes, living with the family. It isn’t just a showroom kind of show. Like here’s this beautiful empty room. Nobody lives in it, but isn’t it pretty? It’s more, this is how we live in this space. … There’s a lot of showy, beautiful cinematography in it, but the goal was always to feel that it’s still human.”
Shot over the course of around 10 days, each episode of the show has an instrumental soundtrack from a different composer.
“The music creates a different environment for each one,” says Pray. “One of my favorite parts of filmmaking is working with composers and making the sound come together. There are a lot of just really, really fascinating composers. Apple is actually putting out a soundtrack, too.”
The timing of Apple’s release of Home — i.e., a period when most people are stuck in their own for the foreseeable future — is not lost on Pray.
“It’s fascinating,” he says. “I hope it gives viewers a chance to escape a little bit around the world and also, since they have time now, to do what I was saying earlier. I don’t want people to look at it and say, ‘Oh, we’ll never have that. Or we don’t have that exact money or we’re not in the woods of Sweden or we’re not in an apartment in Hong Kong.’ Instead, I hope they can take some idea from the show and say, ‘We could do that one thing.’ Every little bit like that makes life better.”
The show’s first episode, “Naturhus,” profiles engineer Anders Solvarm and his desire to build a nature-friendly home inside a super-sized greenhouse for his family in Sweden. Enjoy a clip below.
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