Celebrating Stunt Performers in Cinematic Style

my interview and copy written for RED

article here

The 97th Academy Awards featured a series of six high-octane commercials celebrating the work of performers who are not usually in the spotlight. Stunt professionals not only executed a series of daring stunts without the use of CGI or green screen but also played all the extras in the ads.

The marketing spectacle, a collaborative effort involving multiple creative agencies and production companies, was described by Chris Denison, a veteran stunt coordinator and director behind the campaign, as “a love letter to stunt performers” highlighting their often overlooked contributions to moviemaking.

The pitch to brands was for a series of 30-second spots each honoring a different type of stunt and all united by one visual and thematic concept.

“Each has the feel of a certain type of action film and we wanted each to have a similar cinematic language,” explains cinematographer Graham Robbins who oversaw the visuals for the entire project. “The visual language should be consistent, high class and cinematic but respectful of each brand’s unique needs. We chose RED cameras because they give you a massive amount of flexibility which is essential for a project like this.”

Each commercial starts in the world of a classic action movie and, after a rug-pull, ends in a behind the scenes film set. The MNTN shoot was inspired by Mad Max, the ad for Kiehl’s was shot with the iconic look of a Sergio Leone Western and the opening office brawl scene for Samsung was a take on John Wick. A second Samsung spot featured a stunt performer taking a 184-foot high fall off a building references Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol where Ethan Hunt scales the outside of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. L’Oréal Paris showcased performer Samantha Win repeatedly smashing through a plate-glass window and was themed on Skyfall.

“It was so much fun to get as close as we can to a Bond look,” Robbins says. “Skyfall is one of my favorite films of all time. The L’Oréal and the Kiehl’s ads were lit more for beauty but each spot had its own unique flavor in terms of how we approached it from a lighting and color standpoint.”

Robbins first used RED’s V-RAPTOR 18 months ago and has since shot two Netflix Original features (Our Little Secret and The Wrong Paris) and more than 100 commercials with the camera. The DoP says he views modern camera systems as a platform, not just as an individual tool, and that RED checks multiple boxes.

“The huge advantage RED has is the sheer flexibility it gives you. Whether it’s the great little crash cam, a mid-sized body or the V-RAPTOR [XL], it feels like they all have their strengths and pair really well together. That’s especially important for a series of commercials like this where you're doing such a large range of material in a dozen different places. Having that much flexibility in the camera platform is massive for me.”

Robbins personally owns a V-RAPTOR which he says “has this chameleon ability” to be picked up and used for handheld which is what he did for the Samsung fight scene. “Or you can go to a gimbal and move really quickly without losing that bigger image plane. I just find it so flexible to have that smaller size body and still have a big sensor. Plus, the global shutter is a huge advantage when shooting rapid action and you want superbly smooth cinematic motion.”

“Then, if you’re on a techno crane I’ll go to RAPTOR XL. The camera is easy to rig and balance with a large zoom on a crane and the built-in ND system is excellent.”

For the high speed chase in the desert for MNTN they were shooting V-RAPTOR [XL] from a Russian Arm on the roof of a Porsche Cayenne. “Then for all the crazy angles and little crash hits we used multiple KOMODO-X. I know even if I destroy one, it's not the end of the world, because KOMODOs do not cost a ton.”

The last shot of MNTN commercial is of a TV set landing directly in front of the lens. “That was dumb luck,” Robbins admits. “We actually put a KOMODO directly underneath the car and blew up a stack of TVs in a huge explosion you could feel 200 yards away. Those are all real TVs, all real glass, and one went about 80 feet in the air and just happened to land directly in front of a KOMODO.”

Robbins adds, “I can also use multiple different RED bodies and know that they will be matched in post. That is a primary reason why RED is superior. That flexibility is something that no other camera offers. I don’t feel as if anything with RED is a compromise.”

The visual consistency extended to shooting the movie pastiches for each ad on anamorphic and switching to spherical for the film set reveal. Robbins selected Blazar anamorphics after using a set over the Christmas holidays to shoot home movies.

“The difficult thing about shooting action on anamorphics is once you get wider than a 50mm you start getting crazy distortion,” Robbins explains. “When I tried the Blazars with RAPTOR I couldn't believe how good the image quality was, particularly using the wides.

“It really blew me away that the wides were even usable because these lenses cost a fraction of others that we could have used. Budget was no issue here – I just loved the combination of lens and RAPTOR. The Samsung fight is almost entirely shot on a 1.5x anamorphic from that set.”

He shot R3D using the MQ setting using a base LUT that he built himself from work on music videos and commercials.

“The LUT is where I’ll start from, and then I'll tweak it per job. Each of the spots had their own version of that LUT but the base light is the same which keeps everything in a safe range that I know I can expose and light to. I don’t want to feel handcuffed to an approach and that’s what I love about shooting RED RAW. I can see the world how I want to see it with tons of flexibility to tweak it later.”

Robbins notes that the condensed timeline was a challenge. “It’s a testament to the skill of the stunt performers – some 75 of them across the production – that they were able to design, rig and pull-off the entire project in little more than 25 days.”

This marketing campaign was part of a movement in the entertainment industry to elevate the craft of stunt performers to be more widely recognized. The campaign was effective because it was recently announced it will be an Oscar category, beginning in 2028.

“Personally, I think it's well deserved,” Robbins says. “These people are legends. What they do is what makes movies great in the first place. They have been underappreciated for too long.”