Client Overview: The Met
SandenWolff has been a trusted collaborator with The Met since early 2021. The Met has engaged us on a range of projects from long form curator-led tour videos for more than 40 special exhibitions, to a collections-inspired multi-part series called Spotlight, to unique one-off films highlighting important acquisitions. We’ve also created films for massive long-term capital projects, like the renovation and rehanging of the European Paintings Department in 2023, the centennial of the American Wing in 2024, and the renovation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing for the Arts of Africa, the ancient Americas, and Oceania in 2025.
Selected Projects
Special Exhibition Tours
Sargent and Paris:
SandenWolff has produced more than 40 long form special exhibition tour films for The Met since 2021. In each film, we immerse in the scholarship of The Met's curators and their collaborators for an exciting and informative deep-dive into a selection of highlights from the exhibition. These longer videos (often between 20 and 30 minutes) are among The Met's most-viewed content on YouTube, each garnering tens of thousands of views, sometimes hundreds of thousands.
Recent favorites have included Sargent and Paris, Monstrous Beauty, The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, and Siena: the Rise of Painting.
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Director: Jonathan Sanden
Interviewer/Story Editor/Producer: Rachel Wolff
Cinematographers: Jonathan Sanden, Noah Therrien
Editor: Hannah Kaylor
Music: Noah Therrien and others
Recent Met Tour Films:
Monstrous Beauty
Siena: The Rise of Painting
Look Again - European Paintings 1300–1800
We created this long form tour of The Met’s completely renovated and reimagined European Paintings galleries in late 2023. Featuring an array of The Met’s curators from multiple departments, this is our longest but most popular film for The Met and has garnered more than 275K views on YouTube. The Met's curatorial team from the European Paintings department are joined by colleaugues and experts in other derpartments to discuss the reinstallaton and reimagining of the museum's world-class collecton of European paintings.
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Director: Jonathan Sanden
Interviewer/Story Editor/Producer: Rachel Wolff
Cinematographers: Jonathan Sanden, Noah Therrien
Editor: Hannah Kaylor
Music: Noah Therrien and others
Spotlight: Min Jin Lee on Antico’s Spinario
Video Episode 1 of 4: Novelist Min Jin Lee (Pachinko) muses on a delicate Renaissance bronze that embodies the pain of the creative process.
Additional Video Episodes:
Poet, translator, and librettist Sholeh Wolpé on adapting (and readapting) a storied Sufi epic for modern times.
Select Audio Episodes:
Episode 8 of 10: Countertenor Anthony Roth Constanzo and Met Musical Instruments Curator Jayson Kerr Dobney on the first grand piano and the world of early opera.
In 2022, The Met commissioned us to produce and direct a series called Spotlight featuring new perspectives on iconic works from the collection. The series included both video and audio episodes, all of which could be accessed in the galleries (via QR code) and online on the series hub. In each video episode, we worked closely with each subject and with the digital team at The Met to identify unexpected filming opportunities both inside the museum and beyond.
For the audio episodes, SW Creative Director Rachel Wolff moderated and story-edited a series of dialogues between Met curators and outside expert interlocutors.
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Interviewer/Story Editor/Producer: Rachel Wolff
Cinematographers: Jonathan Sanden, Noah Therrien
Editors: Stephen Parnigoni, Jonathan Sanden
Assistant Editor: Hannah Kaylor
Music: Noah Therrien and others
Archaeologists Vinzenz and Ulrike Brinkmann on the relatively recent invention of white marble sculpture.
Climate activist Xiye Bastida on Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow.
Episode 5 of 10: Author/activist Mona Eltahawy and Met Egyptian Art Curator Aude Semat on depictions and destructions of Hatshepsut, the woman “King” of Ancient Egypt.
Met Acquisitions: The JameVan Der Zee Archive
The Met celebrates its major acquisitions annually and for the past few years, the museum has commissioned us to make films highlighting these extraordinary additions to the collection. Our 2022 films about the museum's second most expensive acquisition ever (the Mantuan Roundel) and the entire James Van Der Zee archive served as entertainment at the museum’s annual gala, then found a second life/viewership online.
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Director: Jonathan Sanden
Interviewer/Story Editor/Producer: Rachel Wolff
Cinematographers: Jonathan Sanden, Noah Therrien
Editor: Hannah Kaylor
Music: Noah Therrien and others