Cinematographer Brendan McGinty shares his vision and human experience over “Hanging By A Wire”

Could you please Brendan, Introduce yourself ?

I am a London based Cinematographer who works across both Drama and Documentary.  

I began life as a stills photographer, moving initially to film motion, then across to digital acquisition and the world of Documentaries, although now I find myself constantly circling back round to use the tools and techniques of all three of these mediums together. The dynamic blending of these photographic worlds has created a series of groundbreaking and award-winning films. And it is within this mixed “Docudrama’ space that ‘Hanging By a Wire’ finds its vitality.

“Hanging by a wire” seems to be a beautiful and deep project, can you please tell us more about this touching real-life rescue thriller? 

‘Hanging By A Wire’ is an extraordinary film which tells the story of a real-life cable car collapse, and the dramatic rescue that followed. The moment I was approached by the award winning duo of director Mo Naqvi and producer Bilal Sami I was hooked. The archive footage of the event was mind-blowing, a group of schoolboys hanging a mile high from a damaged cable car in the remote mountain region of Battagram in Pakistan. We all understood from the get go that we both needed to both hold true to the inherent drama of this real situation, the life and death rescue of the boys set against the ticking clock of a single frayed cable, but also knew that we wanted to meet this documentary reality with all of the cinematic flair of a Hollywood action thriller. 

How did you actually get started on “Hanging by a wire”?

 Mo and Bilal reached out from the States in the months after the event and I can still recall sitting speechless as they played the extraordinary archive footage of the group of boys hanging on for dear life as their cable car swayed on a single frayed wire. They had seen my work on ‘Welcome To Earth’ whilst Bilal was working on ‘David Blaine: Do Not Attempt’ (both shows were produced for Disney). I was immediately hooked by Mo’s vision for the film, and I would do best to quote him: 

 “I grew up devouring ‘90s action thrillers, and with Hanging By A Wire we’re giving that white-knuckle rush a documentary backbone. Every frame is real. Six schoolboys, 900 feet in the air, a rescue clock ticking down and that authenticity makes the stakes soar… A real-life thriller set in the mountains of Pakistan where…an entire nation came together to pull off the impossible” 

 After our initial virtual meeting we started a slow but steady dialogue of thoughts, references and possible visual approaches. This approach was based in part on our cinematic aspirations for the film, largely founded on by the incredible archive footage of the event, but also on the wealth of rich recce material they had shot of the region and our key characters in it. There then followed two shoots in 2025, one more Documentary focused at the start of the year and a second more Drama focused towards the end. This was my first time working in Pakistan and I have fallen in love with the country; its beautiful locations, the extraordinary people we filmed with and the crew, studio and technical support we received in both Islamabad and Lahore.

Did you have specific artistic/visual guidelines? Did you have any constraints or specific requirements? 

We knew we wanted to stay true to the inherent drama of the event and the wealth of archive footage was always going to be our starting point and our constant grounding in reality. Mo was also keen to use the actual protagonists throughout. Moving from the lengthy set piece interviews which were our foundation, we unpacked events from each of their perspectives. Then taking these same people into our Drama environments proved quite magical, and extraordinarily cathartic for each of them. I knew we needed to represent this monumental story on a Large Format canvas, and would need to be on zoom lenses for large parts of it. My first and only choice for this was Angenieux, using the EZ set of 22-60mm and 45-135mm.

Regarding camera and lenses, do you usually have a go-to package? How did you make your choice for this specific project and which format did you go with? 

We knew from the get-go that there was the potential for an IMAX release, so with that in mind we framed on a Vistavision sized 1.9:1 aspect sensor. I chose Red’s V Raptor camera not least for its 8K resolution. But we also knew we wanted to preserve our rich colour space by shooting Raw. For our stabilised camera work we used an 8K Ronin 4D system. On our A-camera we primarily used the Angenieux zooms, occasionally dipping into some macro and fast aperture prime options. On the 4D gimbal we used a cinevised set of Nikkor AIS primes.

You mentioned using EZ lenses, how did you end-up choosing these zoom lenses? Is there anything you’d like to share about EZ zoom lenses? 

I have always used Angenieux zooms in the S-35 world and still have a set of Optimo zooms that I regularly use and love (the 45-120mm is exquisite) With the move to Large Format sensors I still had a need for quality zooms, particularly in the Documentary world where people and action move fast and unpredictably. I first used the EZs on ‘Welcome To Earth’ where I chose them as our main unit lenses across multiple operators. More recently I shot the Emmy awarded “Buy Now!” For Netflix almost entirely on the EZ zooms.  

The EZs keep the gentle and cinematic Angenieux portrait rendition that I love, whilst still being small enough to use for handheld work, which I tend to do a lot of. I particularly like the close focus on the EZ’s and at the 135mm end of the lens this produces very intimate moments and details. With these on the V-Raptor we could move from the wide angle majesty of the rugged Pakistani mountain landscapes to the close up detail of an eye, without losing the moment to a lens change. All this whilst keeping the gentle rendition of skintone, ensuring the resolution we needed to protect, and the flare quality I love, made my choice of Angenieux an easy one.

As a cinematographer but also as a person with the very human aspect of it, how would you qualify your experience over “Hanging by a wire”? 

 I really loved the experience of photographing ‘Hanging By A Wire.’ This film, produced by Everwonder and Mindhouse and distributed by Universal, was made outside of the traditional commissioning processes for say terrestrial or streamer Documentaries. This independence afforded Mo and Bilal complete authorial freedom to take the film in exactly the direction they wanted, and that they felt was best to hold true to the real life drama of the event. This complete freedom to make our film was exhilarating. And this exhilaration, combined with the humbling heroism of our protagonists, made for a very emotional journey for all of us. I am extremely proud of the film and am currently enjoying the process of taking the film through its grading process where we are gently fusing the worlds of documentary, archive, interview, landscape and drama.

Now, are you allowed to reveal what is the plan for this movie in terms of diffusion, do you have any release events, dates or platforms to mention ? 

 The film is being released by Universal but Everwonder and Mindhouse are also in talks with a couple of the streamers where it may find its eventual home. Excitingly it will premiere at the 2026 Sundance film festival. There is also talk of a potential IMAX release …

Would you have any interesting anecdotic story of “Hanging by a wire” to share with us? 

In the course of the film we put the actual protagonists (both the rescued boys and the heroic rescuers) back in a hanging cable cart and on a wire at night, albeit within the absolute safety of a carefully orchestrated film setting. It was extremely gratifying and rewarding to be told by all that they found the process extremely  cathartic, and to be so warmly thanked by everyone for so carefully telling their story. This careful re-staging of  their ordeal was very emotional for the entire crew. 

Lastly, what is the next step for yourself Brendan?

 I hope to get to Sundance to watch our film’s premiere of course! But at the moment I’m largely in pre-production for a narrative feature film to be shot in London next year.