Faculty Profile: Gil Domb

Gil Domb P’17, Lawrenceville’s filmmaking teacher, is a core member of the Visual Arts Department. Before he became a teacher at Lawrenceville over 15 years ago, Domb worked as a professional filmmaker for production companies such as National Geographic, PBS, and BBC for more than 20 years, spending time in Africa and Asia, specializing in the production of conservation documentaries for television, being immersed in the wildlife and local communities. 

Unexpectedly, filmmaking was not his “driving motivation” at the beginning of his career. Growing up in London, his “childhood dream was to go into the wild,” and filmmaking was his outlet to do so—his “way in.” After studying psychology and zoology in college, he found himself looking for “something more,” so he decided to take action to fulfill his dreams, “knocking on the door of a wildlife filmmaking company as a young 21-year-old just saying [he’s] really interested in [the] business.” While his main goal was to live in the wild, he “fell in love with filmmaking” and “developed a new passion” over his time working abroad. He found filmmaking so captivating because it was “an amazingly fun craft: it’s storytelling, and it’s creative,” and the ability and necessity to improvise and collaborate appealed to Domb as a professional filmmaker.

When reflecting on his work, a few projects and people stood out. Notably, he worked with Jane Goodall, an esteemed primatologist, in the Congo and Tanzania filming chimpanzees, which he says was “strikingly memorable...and a lot of fun.” Additionally, he filmed Julia Roberts and other Hollywood celebrities across Africa. Another memorable shoot of his was in Mali, on the edge of the Sahara, filming elephants as they migrated—what he recalls as an “amazing, remote story.” He described, “ I managed to lose myself in the wild,” and “I found my experiences to be culturally enriching, and unbelievably unique.” 

In the wild, Domb was adjusted to living differently than life in London. Throughout his career, he lived in tents in the rainforest and other terrain. He wasn’t quite “roughing it,” but he and his colleagues “immersed [themselves] in the environment and filming, going to places where people have never been before and encountering animals that had never seen people before.” Although this was such a contrasting environment to what he was used to, he “never missed creature comforts,” and adjustments like a lack of running water “just never bothered [him].” Moreover, these conditions helped him bond with his colleagues, saying he “made such amazing friends while traveling [...]. When you have a shared experience like that, you make the best friends.”

Working in the wilds of Africa presented its challenges. Domb found himself in countless dangerous situations; however, he notes that he did not typically get scared or nervous, but instead tried to keep his composure. He recounts a common potentially life-or-death situation, where he would hear a rumbling in the bushes, and he is faced with the decision to flee or stand his ground. “If the thing in the bushes moving around happens to be a lion, and you run. You're dead, but if the thing moving around in the bushes is a buffalo or an elephant and you do’'t run out of the way, you're dead.” Domb had to make instant “snap decisions,” what he calls being “jungle-wise.” He also takes the lessons that he learned studying animal behavior and applies them to his everyday life at Lawrenceville when it comes to emotional intelligence and connecting with others.

After over 20 years of fieldwork, Domb began teaching at Lawrenceville in the hopes of settling down after starting a family, continuing to work in an area that interests him, and sharing his passion with students who want to learn from him. “Teaching was a good place to land,” he said. He enjoys teaching at Lawrenceville and uses his experience in the industry to guide his style of teaching. He says he “treats [his filmmaking classes] like a little production company, bringing [his] creativity and storytelling skills to a truly collaborative space.” He gravitated towards teaching because of its engaging quality and the opportunity to share his passion. He says after having kids, he realized “in a really healthy way that I didn’t want to always travel, and I wanted to be home for a really fundamental reason, which felt really good” and he felt grateful to have been in the wild for 20 years; “it really was a childhood dream come true.”  

Ironically, what struck Domb upon coming to Lawrenceville after traveling the world looking for stories, is that “you don’t need to travel to find film-worthy stories.” He learned that “amazing stories are absolutely everywhere in front of you.” This realization “really made teaching filmmaking at Lawrenceville not feel claustrophobic or constrained; it’s a matter of, ‘What are the stories right in front of us right here?’”

Domb’s message to Lawrentians is that “if you have a dream, chase it.” He’s learned that “the difference between the people that actually make it and the people that don't is the initiative to actually go for it, to chase their dream.”