How The Kardashians Are Filming KUWTK In Quarantine

When “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” returns in September, it’s going to take viewers inside quarantine with the first family of reality TV.

While a teaser for the show’s return already revealed the Kardashians would be filming themselves for the new episodes, executive producer Farnaz Farjam just spilled some specifics on all the changes they made behind the scenes for that to happen.

Speaking with Elle, Farjam said at least two episodes will be made completely from footage the family shot in their homes, including confessionals, calls with each other and Zoom dinners. While the initial plan — spearheaded by Kris Jenner — was to have them shoot everything on their phones, the footage didn’t look great. To fix the problem, a director of photography and technician donned hazmat suits and set up brightly-lit rooms for confessionals in Kim and Khloe’s homes.

According to Farjam, someone swings by the houses every week to pick up iPhones filled with around 16 hours of footage, while also dropping off new ones. “Sometimes you’ll hear them mumbling under their breath, ‘Who knew a camera person’s job would be so hard?!'” said Farjam. “But, like, that’s funny. That’’s gold. That’s stuff we want to include in the show.”

The downside of this situation, says Farjam, is not being able to fully control filming anymore.

“If Kris gets annoyed and walks out of the camera angle, it’s not like we can follow her and continue shooting,” she explained. “She has to come back onto the screen and explain [why she walked away]. It’s less fly-on-the-wall, because we have to give them direction and they have to be more informative with us.”

As for how the family is holding up, the producer said Kourtney Kardashian — who stepped away from filming last season — has been “trying to take a detox a little bit from her phone,” meaning viewers may not see a ton of her. Kim Kardashian, meanwhile, has been juggling filming with family time.

“I’m really excited for people to see Kim having to juggle everything on her own, especially early on, when it was so, so scary,” teased Farjam. “Watching Kim juggle four kids will be really relatable. No matter how big her house is, four kids is four kids. It’s a lot.”

She also confirmed Tristan Thompson has been social distancing with Khloe Kardashian, thanks to their shared daughter True. “Tristan definitely stepped up and helped Khloé a lot with True,” she explained. “He’s totally showing a way more mature side of himself. I think so much more [highly] of him now. Not that I didn’t like him before, I just like him so, so much more.”

The show will return in September.