Nescafe

I shot this Nescafé commercial for director Xander Bartole and Canteen down in Guadalajara, Mexico. It was one of those jobs where you're balancing the practical constraints of location shooting with the need to keep the coffee looking, well, like coffee and not mud. We went handheld in spots to catch the energy of the scene, but locked things down when it mattered for the product. The light was tricky because you've got that Mexican sun doing its thing, so we had to be deliberate about fill and bounce to maintain detail in the cup without losing the ambient warmth. Nothing fancy gear-wise, just the right tools for the job and a crew that understood how to move fast without sacrificing the frame. The result sits somewhere between documentary observation and controlled product work, which is usually where the best commercials live.