Southern Californian performance lifestyle brand Vuori has
bucked the trends of traditional sports and leisure wear with a clean,
contemporary and earthy aesthetic reflected in its marketing and in its surging
commercial success.
“What sets us apart from our competitors is our authenticity
with the active California lifestyle,” says Phillip Mansfield, who is
responsible for consistently conveying the brand in dozens of video campaigns
for the Carlsbad-based fashion label which are shot, managed and finished
in-house.
“It depends on the project, the product and on the fabrics
that are being featured, but we try to keep the work consistent and to promote
the brand’s connection to the outdoors,” says Mansfield. “Vuori has clothes for
lifestyle, training, active sports and for surfing. In each case, we try to
incorporate a component of nature, which could be sky, ocean, clouds or
mountains.
Mansfield, lead cinematographer, editor and senior Motion
Content Manager, collaborates with Vuori’s outstanding in-house team on
marketing campaigns and sophisticated advertising initiatives, which run the
gamut from premium TV commercials to digital ads and social media reels
Mansfield started at Vuori in 2020 and has witnessed the
brand’s stellar growth. It has opened more than 70 retail stores across the US
and international flagships in Shanghai and London with more expansion planned.
“When I started it was just me on the video team, shooting
and editing most projects. It seems like in the last five years it went from
startup to high-profile brand. Demand for branded video content hasn’t stopped,
nor have the learnings and opportunities. Since then, we’ve added two
cinematographer & editors to the team and another editor that is really
focused on the post-production side. We also regularly partner with external
production and post-production partners and vendors.
Mansfield began his career at creative agencies in New York
City and San Diego, and later worked as a freelance cinematographer and editor
on commercial productions. During that time, he bought his first RED.
“RED SCARLET-W 5K took my work to the next level,” he says.
“It was the perfect camera for me because I was doing a lot of lifestyle and
fashion and action sports work. I loved the versatility of being able to shoot
beautiful slow-motion sequences or quickly turn it into more of a docu type
camera. It just really elevated my work and the brands that I was working with
were like, ‘Whoa, this looks so much better than what we've been used to.’
Things evolved from there over a few years, so, when I went to Vuori I took all
that experience with me.”
He upgraded to a GEMINI 5K S35 sensor and added a
KOMODO, both cameras which Mansfield owns and operates as A cam and B cam on
most projects for Vuori.
“I love the versatility of being able to pick up a RED to
capture a stunning sunset on the spur of the moment as an Individual operator,
break it down to be super small, or to fit it out to be more of a documentary
style camera, you can put it in a water-housing, put all the bells and whistles
on it and have it be a great studio rig, or put a big zoom lens which would
require a full camera department to get the shots that we need. The best part
is that anything is possible with these cameras depending on the project.
Mansfield loves creating work that provokes an emotion, which he did with a
Vuori documentary,”The Body Follows the Mind with Taylor Knox.” The nearly
20-minute film delves into the pro surfers daily training and meditation. “We
sourced some recent surf clips and archival footage of Taylor, but all the
material our team shot with him was RED.”
His team is also especially proud of a Vuori BlissBlend™
commercial featuring professional rhythmic gymnast Nastasya Generalova because
they were able to combine different aesthetics. “It had beautiful clean images
shot on RED, some shot in slow-motion mixed with 16mm film. It added a grittier
and more artistic feeling for apparel designed for flow-based workouts, which
complimented her dance movements.
The team primarily edit and prep color grades in Adobe
Premiere. “The control in being able to edit the R3D files is really helpful.
It's such a time saver because it eliminates the extra step of having to create
proxies in the post-production process.”
For a current Vuori campaign for outdoor wear, they shot
around Lake Tahoe and Reno with a V-RAPTOR and blended the 8K footage with
KOMODO.
“The ability to shoot RAW is huge. We have projects where
things are a little bit more controlled, but the versatility of being able to
shoot in a bright sunny space, then go into a shadowed area and be able to
quickly change your ISO after the fact is incredibly helpful.
”You’ve captured all the data in the negative and just knowing you are able to
bring it back if you need or turn it down if you over exposed a touch, is
definitely a game changer.”
RED’s compatibility with lenses is another big plus for Mansfield. “I've really
loved getting to experiment with different cinema lenses over the years, from
Master Primes to various vintage lenses, creating a unique look for each piece.
I also love the ability to shoot on EF or RF stills lenses, which can keep
things light, especially if we’re shooting with a water housing in the surf.
”Being able to take a RED camera for a swim and get beautiful cinematic images
from the ocean is definitely one of my favorite things that I’ve gotten to do
in my career so far.”
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