👩📹Meet Mimi Shiffman, Deep Look’s New Producer! (Patreon)

Hi Deep Peeps! We have a new producer on our team who we’d like you to meet. We hope you enjoy finding out more about Mimi!    

How’d you get here? 

Last year I was a producer for PBS Digital’s show Overview. I hear that in early conversations about that show folks would say, ‘It’ll be like Deep Look, but with drones.’ So naturally, when this role became available in my own backyard (I was already living in San Francisco), several people let me know and I won the proverbial job lottery and landed here!  

I haven’t always been a science journalist though. Before joining the PBS Digital family I made hundreds of stories over more than a decade as a producer, director of photography and/or editor. 

I’ve filmed lemurs finger painting (a favorite pastime of the amazing Duke Lemur Center inhabitants), stayed awake for 36 hours while I trailed the first person with dwarfism to complete an Ironman (shout out to John Young, aka "The Hammer") and got to interview the late, great Anthony Bourdain. 

What's your favorite Deep Look video so far? 

How cruel to make me pick just one! I like to think of Deep Look less by episode and more by perspective…  

Growing up I was fascinated by the floodplains just outside of my hometown of Davis, CA. The Yolo Bypass has different seasonal personalities, adapting to the floodwaters that make it glistening and deep one month and nearly dry the next. I never gave much thought to what was transpiring in the soil.    

After watching the episode on tadpole shrimp (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2xnX...), I can’t stop thinking about the resilient little creatures that live in soil just waiting for the flood to come and revive them.  I’ve loved watching a silkworm spin a web, exploring the contents of owl pellets, getting up-close access to a kissing bug, a honeypot ant, a vinegaroon…and many more. 

(Here is a playlist of Mimi’s favorite Deep Look videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd...)  

What’s the best part of being a Deep Look producer?    

My favorite part of this job is chasing what drives people. Already in this role I’ve been able to speak with dozens of scientists who are super passionate about their work.  

I love how that passion is translated into every single episode of the show. The show helps remind me of the incredible interconnected web of life that we’re a part of.

Mimi out on a shoot for PBS.