El Jimador Tequila
"Christian wanted to create a spot where the character’s adventure was playing back almost like a dream, flashes from an epic travel journey and experience. Even though it was a grueling shoot in Costa Rica the fantastic footage rewarded us with a spot we are all proud of."
"I often work with Christian out in New York and LA. We’ve done a lot of great work together, so I really understand his vision. He was commissioned by Draft FCB Chicago to make a spot for El Jimador Tequila and they wanted something in the same vein as ‘Apocalypse Now,’ where at times you feel like you shouldn’t be where you are but also a feeling that was fun, adventurous, and exciting."
"Typically when I work with Christian, I try to be on set as much as possible. I’m there as a DIT, Post Supervisor, and editor depending on the turn-around and other needs of the project. We try and attack as much of the edit as we can while we’re together. We’ll begin the edit on set if we’re able, or sometimes in a hotel room after we finish production."
"To film El Jimador we went down to Costa Rica for a 5 day shoot. The challenge of the spot was to take advantage of all the amazing locations, and make it feel like a big adventure that these heroes were taking. That required us to travel all across the country and meant 3 plus hours in a van between locations; it was grueling. We were pulling twenty hour days consistently."
"We went to the southern edge of the country, to the Panama border to shoot the river scene, spent a night in the jungle filming the rave scene - got eaten by ants, and found ourselves at times in some very dangerous areas of the ‘Barrios’ in San Jose. We were told by our driver we “shouldn’t get out of the car.” We ignored his advice. We wanted to make something that was almost like a dream, a reflection of a big adventure infused with El Jimador Tequila."
"We shot ‘EPIC’ and ‘Scarlet’ side-by-side with a fairly big crew, agency and client were present. A number of the shots were a bit more rogue, such as shooting out the side of the van as we came across some unique locations that you only find when you stumble upon them. We also shot 5D for the underwater shots."
"My role there as DIT was to keep everything safe in triplicate, process and deliver dailies, and begin the giant task of organizing a massive amount of media to work with. The spot was boarded, but not really scripted. It relied on us finding a narrative within the images, and since there were so many beautiful images to play with, it took some time to sift through. While we were still shooting, I loaded up an iPad with LightIron’s ToDailies allowing the director start making shot selections to be passed on to editorial. This was extremely helpful later on in the process as the director went directly on to another job after production."
"When shooting was complete I went back to Austin and I cut for about a week, and then flew up to Chicago to sit with agency and cut for another week to solidify the edit. We ended up finishing in New York with colorist Blase Theodore. We often work with Blase on spots that need to be supervised in NYC and he shares the same attention to detail that we demand. The mix for the broadcast spots was completed at ButtonsNY with Rich Macar."
"The post process went smoothly overall. In Costa Rica I was transcoding dailies on set in the jungle, on a beach or from a hotel room. The edit team (my assistant and I) rose to the challenge in Austin finding those unique gems within the footage so that when I flew to Chicago to sit with the creatives at FCB the process was quite fluid. The same can be said for the finish in NYC. We have great relationships with vendors in NYC and LA an so when an agency can’t make it down to Austin; we have the talented resources to finish things off wherever they need them completed."
