You have a hard runtime, a hard message, and zero room for indulgence. Everything in frame has to be there for a reason.
Commercials are the discipline that demands the most preparation per second of finished film. We shoot commercials the same way we shoot brand films: cinema cameras, controlled light, treatment-driven direction. The difference is the cut runs at twice the speed.
We've delivered three-spot campaigns in 12 hours. We've shot national-scale spec on a slow weekend with our own kit. The thread through all of it: a producer who can run the day and a director who knows what each frame is for.
Angstrom was the test case. Three spots — Bathtub, Kitchen, Meeting — for a DeFi platform called Sex Dex Arbitrage. Sub-$100k budget. We had 12 hours on set in Brooklyn. We delivered every spot the brief called for. The day worked because every department had earned their slot on the call sheet, the lighting plans were walked through the night before, and the crew was the right size — not the biggest size.
Commercial work also lives or dies on the cut. We finish in-house — color in Resolve, sound to spec — so the post pipeline doesn't bottleneck on a vendor who doesn't know the project.
We turn around fast when the brief asks for it. We say no to briefs that can't be done well in the time given.
Cycling — an in-house spec ad. Captured on RED V-Raptor with Atlas Mercury anamorphic glass. Rolling shots tracked from a golf cart. The whole piece was directed and shot on a slow weekend with the team and our friend Jasmin Elaine on camera.
Spec work is part of our commercial practice for two reasons. One: it gives the team room to try gear and ideas without a client schedule. Two: it produces references for future briefs faster than waiting for the right brief to come in. About a third of our brand-side commercial conversations start with a spec piece.
"12 hours, three spots, sub-$100k. Every department earned their slot on the call sheet so the day could actually run at our pace, not the clock's."
— On the Angstrom three-spot day
- 12 hr Three Angstrom spots delivered in a single day
- 20 Influencers shot in one day on Amazon HYDP
- 5 studios Simultaneous coverage on multi-set days
- 1000 fps Freefly Ember S5K for spec-grade slow motion
- 01
Brief + treatment
Director's treatment + boards. We don't go to set without the cut already on paper.
- 02
Pre-light + casting
Locations and casting locked. Lighting plan walked through with the gaffer before the truck loads.
- 03
Production
Often a single day. The day works because every department earned their slot on the call sheet.
- 04
Edit
Hero cut first. Cutdowns and platform variants from the same timeline.
- 05
Color & mix
Same in-house finish we apply to feature work — even on a 30-second spot.
Spec is how we sharpen the practice. About 30% of our commercial work starts with a spec piece — Cycling was shot on open Carolina roads with a golf-cart tracking rig, on Atlas Mercury anamorphic, with our friend Jasmin Elaine on camera. No client, no brief, no budget — just the team trying something we'd been talking about for months.
If you've got a commercial brief and a tight calendar, send it. 24-hour read.
- RED V-Raptor High frame-rate capture when the brief asks for slow motion.
- Atlas Orion / Mercury Anamorphic glass for theatrical falloff at any focal length.
- Freefly Ember S5K 4K up to 1000fps for the moment that earns the spot.
- Rosco / Aputure / ARRI Full-spectrum LED package + tungsten where the script asks.
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Standard turnaround for a 30-second commercial is 3-5 weeks: 1 week pre-production, 1-2 days production, 2-3 weeks post. We've delivered in 10 days when the brief and crew were already aligned. We've also taken 2 months when the spot was a campaign anchor that needed more development. Tell us the calendar — we'll tell you what's possible.
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Same camera package, same crew, same in-house finish — different cut speed and different deliverable spec. Commercials live in :30, :15, :06 cutdowns optimized for paid media. Brand films live in 60-120 second hero cuts optimized for owned channels. We often deliver both off a single shoot day when the budget supports it.
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Yes — about 30% of our commercial work is spec. We shoot spec pieces on our own dime when there's a director's-treatment instinct we want to test (Cycling, Carmella's). The pieces become references for future briefs, and often the spec piece is what kicks off the conversation with a brand we want to work with.
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Yes. Amazon HYDP was 5 studios and 20 influencers in a single day across multiple New York locations. Angstrom was three spots in 12 hours in a single Brooklyn build. We've done multi-city productions (Bartaco — Boston and Charleston) and we scale crew to the brief.
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Direct-to-brand and in association with agencies. We've worked alongside Circulatory Cinema, HYDP, and in-house brand teams. We don't pitch on briefs where another agency owns the creative — we come in as the production partner.