Pre-Production

Our collaboration began on October 27, when we met with Lauren, Pinch’s Head of Marketing, to align on goals for their holiday campaign. Pinch was in the middle of a full rebrand, and while their internal design team was still refining the new visual identity, they wanted to create something that felt firmly rooted in the updated brand language; sleek, modern, editorial but with a distinctly warm, holiday-forward twist. A huge portion of pre-production revolved around finding the right environment. Their newly introduced brand color—a rich, warm red—became a guiding visual anchor, and we needed a location that could merge clinical precision with cozy holiday. After several scout passes, we landed on the Schweikher House in Elk Grove Village, a Japanese-inspired mid-century modern home with an abundance of natural light, clean horizontal lines, and warm wood tones. It struck the perfect balance between the “editorial clinical” identity Pinch was stepping into and the approachable, intimate feeling we needed for a holiday spot. Once the location was locked, we brought on Afrim Zenuni as Director of Photography. His approach to overheads, pre-visualization, and blocking elevated the entire creative. Afrim selected the ARRI Mini LF paired with Panavision P70 Panaspeeds, giving us the large-format depth and richness needed for both a polished director’s cut and social-first 9x16 deliverables. .