‘The Psychiatry of Evil, The Story of Dr Douglas Kelley’

Nuremberg (2025)

Client: Sky Cinema

Project: Nuremberg (2025)

Location: Worldwide

Deliverables:

  • 1x Hero Longform YouTube Deliverable (Longform Digital)

  • 1× 30 second cut-down (social)

Window Zebra did:

  • Creative Development of Original Concept

  • In House Team - Including Director, Producer, DoP

  • Pre Production

  • Production - Multiday shoot across 2 continents

  • Post Production - Offline & Online Edit

Key takeaway:

When filming in America, always expect the unexpected.

The Brief

With the launch of Sky Cinema’s film ‘Nuremburg’ around the corner, Sky’s YouTube team approached Window Zebra with a challenge. The film had been positively received in press screenings, but left viewers asking the question:

“So who was Douglas Kelley and why was he selected to play such a crucial role at the Nuremburg Trials?”

Our answer to this brief - to interview historians, psychiatrists, and the people closest to the original story. We wanted to truly understand the background of this divisive figure and explore what led him to play such a monumental role in history.

The goal was to raise awareness of the film, but along the way, we discovered so much more!

For details, see below…

Pre Production

The book ‘The Nazi and the Psychiatrist’, written by Jack El-Hai, was an illuminating introduction to Douglas Kelley. Giving fascinating insights into his early life, family and military history - which was not all able to be condensed into the runtime of the feature film. However, this presented us with a wonderful opportunity to compliment Nuremburg by exploring other facets Douglas Kelley’s character and little known stories of his life.

Through pre-interviews we were fortunate enough to be introduced to Doug Kelley (Douglas Kelley’s son) who had a huge amount of both insight and archive which proved invaluable to the piece overall.

The core crew consisted of:

  • Director / DP

  • Producer

  • Exec Producer

Although this was a tight turn around and a comparatively small shoot, this was anything but a small undertaking managing international contributors, travel and sourcing equipment locally, all within a very tight timeframe.

The main camera package was a combination of RED Komodo X and RED Komodo 6K, for lightweight traveling around the world. We used our in-house Canon CN-E Prime lenses in London, and worked with external rental houses in the US to use the same for ease in post production.

Production

Both interviews needed to take place in the US due to time constraints and the creative team felt that a Zoom interview wouldn’t do the story justice, so our production team hopped on over to Minneapolis to spend a day with Jack El-Hai and then Washington DC to spend another day with Doug Kelley before returning to the UK.

Our 2nd interview block happened with Peter Lamont and Rami Malek to help round off the character and provide insight into some of the more technical methods discussed in the film.

Post Production

Due to the timing constraints around the project (two weeks from brief to delivery), our post team was working across the project from the first interviews in America. We also needed a rough draft of the main video to get sign off by artist representatives before filming with some of the core cast, so the timeline needed to move even quicker.

The team was in constant communication with Sky and Ralph Creative acquiring onset and junket footage with Rami Malek which was implemented into the end film 24 hours before we were due to release on YouTube.

Window Zebra managed all aspects of edit, colour and sound in house and collaborated with Alysia Judge, edit producer from Sky to get to the final cut.

The video quickly became the fastest performing organic asset of the campaign. It was featured on Google next to Douglas Kelley’s search results and was praised across Sky for it’s level of detail and quality in such a short period of time.

The project also won the ‘Best Long form Behind the Scenes - Cinema’ in the Global Entertainment Awards 2026.

A man sitting in a red armchair in a cozy, well-decorated living room with a fireplace, colorful artwork, a side table with a book, and a studio light on a stand.
Monitor screen showing an interview scene with a man sitting on a red chair, wearing a gray shirt, in front of a fireplace and a lamp, during a video recording.
An older man with gray hair and a beard sitting in a red armchair in a cozy room with paintings, a lamp, and a fireplace. There is a book on a small black table beside him.
A man with dark hair and blue eyes is wearing a red sweater and looks to the side against a dark background.
Black and white photograph of a young man in a suit with arms raised, lying on the ground with a dark background.
A black-and-white photo of a man pointing at a chalkboard with scientific notes, with a manual typewriter and a desk in the foreground.
Black and white portrait photograph of a young man in formal attire, smiling slightly, placed on a weathered wooden surface.
An older man with gray hair and a beard smiling, wearing a light blue shirt and a dark jacket, in a room with brick walls and a large studio light in the background.