Kubota

The brief

In 2023 I shot a multi-location campaign for Kubota through Grit Productions. It covered stage work, field work, the assembly line, and interviews with the people who build, sell, and run the tractors.

My role

I was the director of photography. Grit Productions produced the campaign, and the work moved between a stage, open fields, a factory, and interview setups.

How we shot it

The campaign started in Grapevine, Texas, and then took us to Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Abilene, Kansas; and Jefferson, Georgia. That is four states, and each place asked for something different from the camera.

On the stage, the frames show the crew rigging lights around a red Kubota tractor and two red tractors on a white stage, with monitors at video village and a row of orange tractors behind two hosts. In the field, there is a gimbal rig in a yard at golden hour, and a wraparound field backdrop with the camera team silhouetted against it. Inside the plant, welders throw sparks, and orange tractors move down the assembly line.

The interview frames show a Kubota dealer in a blue shirt, an executive in glasses, and an assembly line worker in an orange cap, and a couple and a dealer reviewing paperwork beside a tractor.

On vehicle work I build the day around the vehicle and the sun. Paint and metal read best when the sun is low, so the schedule gets built so the hero pass lands when the light does. The close work, like tire and fender detail and ultra-low wide angles on a tractor in tall grass, is what makes the wide shot feel expensive.

The result

The campaign film is embedded on this page. Kubota is also the clearest example on my site of a job that crosses four states, and it is one of the credits on my automotive cinematographer page.