PONIES - TV Series

P.O.N.I.E.S. is an eight-part Cold War espionage thriller set in Moscow, 1977. Produced by NBCUniversal for Peacock, the series is created and showrun by David Iserson, and written and directed by Susanna Fogel. It stars Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson. Inside the closed world of the U.S. Embassy, two women dismissed as “persons of no interest” are drawn into a covert landscape of surveillance, deception and shifting loyalties after their husbands die under suspicious circumstances. As suspicion tightens and every conversation feels monitored, the series explores how ordinary people are forced into extraordinary situations—where trust becomes the most dangerous currency.

The visual language is rooted in a distinctly 1970s sensibility—colourful, textured and slightly off-kilter, while remaining intimate and naturalistic. Compositions lean into symmetry inspired by Soviet architecture, contrasted with recurring frames-within-frames that suggest constant observation. The result is an image that feels controlled yet quietly oppressive, balancing institutional rigidity with human warmth and emotional proximity.

Shot in Budapest on the Sony VENICE 2 in large-format 6K, the series blends precision with flexibility—pairing Panavision PanaSpeed full frame primes and FF Angénieux zooms to move seamlessly between composed, graphic framing and more reactive, character-driven coverage. Camera movement is restrained and deliberate, using slow zooms and tracks to build tension, shifting to a more immediate handheld approach when the story demands intimacy.