Anisa International

︎︎︎ Back
I wanted to highlight this particular project since it is by far the most ambitious, difficult and logistically complicated shoots I've done in my career.

On it's face, the project was a simple B2B advertisement. But we felt we could treat this project with the same rigor we would apply to a Netflix documentary or a car commercial.  

The particulars aren't important, but this particular client manufactures brushes at a very high level for cosmetics brands most folks have heard of.

I had to spin a lot of plates for this one. I was acting as the head of production for The Family at the time, but I was also the Director of Photography. Which meant I was responsible for hiring crew and equipment in both Georgia and Tianjin while also collaborating with Steve Dabal (Director) and Sebastian Clore-Gronenborn (Producer) on the visuals for the video.

This shoot happened in two parts, the initial interview shoot for Anisa leadership in Atlanta, GA (1 day) and the much longer b-roll shoot in Tianjin, China (5 days).

Behind the scenes, Steve and I were taking a lot of inspiration from environmental documentaries like Manufactured
Landscapes and Koyaanisqatsi.



But on the pitch deck (client facing) side we were referencing high end process demonstrations from brands like Chanel. Basically, our plan was to merge the objective and beautiful nature of these documentaries with the flashier and glossier elements of branded content. Since the subject was - at least in part - the brushes themselves, that gave us an opportunity to add that high production value kind of flair. 

The handles of the brushes in question were these very high gloss, mirrored objects. So I suggested we sort of treat the them like cars. In my mind, they shared a lot of qualities, both in that they were complicated objects to manufacture and in the way that they photograph. Cars and glossy finish brushes are basically curvy mirrors, and it’s less about direct lighting and more about careful placement of bounce cards.


I was inspired by an old friend Chris Saul who did this Chrysler commercial where he placed the camera right in the production line for these vehicles as they were being assembled (see below).



Steve and I went to China first for a scout a few months ahead. It was during this time that we met with our Chinese producer for the first time and visited a few rental houses to decide where our equipment package was going to come from.


Our Beijing-based producer Haoyang (who is incredible, by the way, hit me up if you want his contact) introduced us to several houses, but we ultimately went with KO Camera. They're somewhat legendary in the region, and happened to also be based in Beijing, which was near enough to our principle shooting location in Tianjin. I found KO's staff to be extremely competent. Their equipment was clearly in heavy rotation but well maintained.




The shoot itself took place in two legs. Our first stop was our client's corporate headquarters in Atlanta, GA. There's less to talk about here, while our schedule was quite ambitious, this was basically a pretty average corporate video shoot. Interviews, some light b-roll around the campus, etc. Here, we went with Atlas for our equipment rental needs. They were great and I recommend them highly. 

The real adventure began after our extremely long flight(s) to Tianjin.

At the last minute we ended up scheduling a full product day as the client wanted to use some footage as an advertisement for some of the brushes themselves. Lacking many options in the area, we had to use a large conference room in our hotel as a studio. The glossy product shots towards the beginning of this article were captured in that conference room.

This won't mean much to that many people but I elected to shoot on Alexa Minis mostly for the savings on the rental rate. Each camera had a set of Angenieux Optimo Styles. I've been using these zooms for many years and I felt that I needed a known quantity to minimize fussiness or stress on the day.

Also, I still think these things look incredible.

Styles are also very lightweight relative to their size. I knew we would  have to move fast during our very brief five day shoot and wanted to minimize on back pain where I could.



For specialty shot of various kinds, we also brought along several macro lenses by Laowa. We had a 100mm macro and one Probe Version 2. Fundamentally, this product is about details, about individual strands of hair. The tripods for A and B camera were outfitted with rolling spreaders. The floor of the production facility was necessarily very flat and we knew we could fly around on these wheels. We had a third camera set aside on a Movi Pro for sweeping shots of the entire facility. When it wasn't doing that, it was rigged up between two stands for very composed top down shots of assembly lines and conveyor belts. For some trickier specialty shots, we brought along our trusty iPhone 16 Pro. 





The next four days were a sweaty, difficult sprint across production facility floors, capturing brushes from design to prototyping to production to quality control to loading the trucks. 

It was here that our references were held at the front of our minds, but we essentially needed to improvise. We were working around the actual production schedule of the facility after all. At least, it felt improvisational. Looking at it now, just about a year later, I think we killed it. 

Myself and my b-camera operator flew around the factory, eventually developing enough trust with one another that we didn't have to communicate directly anymore. He would take some crew and capture some interesting happening on the other side of the facility while I would set up some intricate moving shots of some arcane brush making device.



All along Steve and Sebastian are calling out timing from video village over comms, dictating our movements. Client feedback happened live.They were at video village too, coordinating with production staff to make sure they knew where we were heading with cameras.



By day three, my crew and I were getting by on psychic communication alone. Our chinese producer and the B camera operator spoke English, but my camera, grip and electric crew only spoke Mandarin. Despite being half chinese myself, I couldn't (and still can’t) speak a word of Mandarin.

My shortcomings aside, the entire crew adjusted to my movements and needs without the need of any verbal communication. I'd turn around to call for a light to add a bit of edge to a subject, only to find it was on it's way already. My gaffer had dialed into my needs before I could articulate them. My camera assistants too. A lovely aspect of filmmaking is that the process is essentially the same all over the world.

Eventually, I started sending the B camera operator (shout out Jay that guy kicks ass) with either Sebastian or Steve to operate without me. He's a very good cinematographer in his own right, and I found that without almost any input on my part he had dialed in exactly into the look Steve and I discussed all those months before.


In five days we had managed to capture two different production facilities, a complete "studio" product day in the hotel. We only had needed enough for three brief videos about different aspects of our clients operations, but came away with enough for several hours. 

Two 28 hour flights and a little under two weeks of shooting later, we had what would become the video at the beginning of this article in the can. 

︎︎︎ Back

Creators featured above:
Steve Dabal
Sebastian Clore-Gronenborn
Emma Blackman (she edited this thing as well as the other two videos we delivered to this client. Hire her.)