Six Worlds, One Vision: Vincent Eckert’s Technical Breakdown of ‘Anytime, Anywhere – Lime’.

Hey community!

We welcome back our friend DOP Vincent Eckert for an exclusive breakdown of his latest work: the “Anytime, Anywhere – Lime” commercial, directed by Nicolas Bori.

In the world of high-end production, constraints are often seen as obstacles. For Vincent Eckert, they are the ultimate creative driving force. In this detailed breakdown, we explore how Eckert managed to recreate six distinct historical and fictional worlds. These ranged from the depths of the Titanic to the lunar surface. He did this by prioritizing agility and out-of-the-box thinking.

Utilizing a hybrid camera strategy with the Sony Venice and the Sony FX3, the production leveraged Sony’s Dual ISO at 12,800 to ditch massive lighting rigs in favor of leaner, faster setups. For example, transparent painter’s foil was used to simulate the ocean horizon. Additionally, crew members were camouflaged as “moon equipment” to hide reflections in astronaut visors. As a result, this project serves as a masterclass in technical ingenuity.

Join us as we step onto the set of a medieval witch hunt, the Sahara desert, and a confined submarine. Discover why, in cinematography, there is always a solution if you’re willing to look for it.

The medieval set brings to mind another project by Vincent, Martyrs of Striving—check it out here!

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The Concept

“Anytime, Anywhere – Lime” is a commercial built around a recurring premise: no matter the era or situation, there’s always a way out. The film consists of six vignettes set in different historical and fictional worlds. These include a medieval witch hunt, the moon, the Titanic, and the desert.

Camera and Technical Approach

We shot primarily on the Sony Venice 1, switching to the Sony FX3 where the set demanded a more compact solution. Sony’s Dual ISO at 12,800 was central throughout — it allowed us to replace large rigs with faster, leaner setups and stay mobile on some locations. For select scenes, we ran both cameras simultaneously to cover the main film. In addition, we also captured extended parallel cuts.

Moon

The central challenge was building a convincing lunar surface without big studio resources. After studying NASA photography of the actual moon landings — particularly the lenses f/stop, shadows, and high-contrast surface texture — we scouted quarries until we found one whose fine dust closely resembled lunar regolith. The terrain was shaped by production design.

A single ARRI Max positioned on an elevated ridge roughly 120 metres away created a light with hard, defined, nearly parallel shadows. The horizon was kept deliberately steep. This way a sharp dark edge would allow us to extend the surface via luminance key in post. Importantly, this was done without a chroma key.

The visor reflections presented a separate problem: the crew and camera appeared in the helmet. So the set went to be a 360 set there before disguising the camera as technical moon equipment and hiding the crew behind it in grey molton. For the low-gravity movement, I shot on the FX3 at ISO 12,800, overcranked to around 50fps to adjust the speed in post. The rover was a non-driveable museum replica — we mounted extra wheels underneath and towed it with a Jeep.

Witch

Three days at three locations: a witch’s cabin and a forest for our chase and flight sequence, combined with additional shots made at a studio.

Outside the cabin, we took advantage of the blue hour to get the details of the sky. The forest sequence was shot in the night. Four lights between 2.5 and 4kW shaped the building. Venice at ISO 2500, white balance around 3900K. For the forest, I lit a 100-metre stretch from an elevated position on the opposite slope. This let the light fall through the branches. Heavy fog made the beams visible and gave the space depth.

Two cameras were used simultaneously – one on a gimbal with the actors, one on longer lenses for compressed lateral perspectives. All light positions were calculated exactly before the shoot. As a result, this reduced the prelight time and helped us get everything in the tight time window.

Titanic

Three days in a swimming pool – way smaller than the original movie. The problem was creating a believable expanse of a horizon in a confined space without a big budget. After testing various materials, I settled on a transparent painter’s foil stretched across the back of the pool. Then I back-lit it with spot lenses. This created a soft, diffuse gradient that served as our horizon. The water read as extending into the distance. Two CL44s, rigged to the ceiling, produced light reflections on the surface.

The entire pool was pre-visualised in Cinema 4D to lock positions for the boat, because we shot in the same direction at all times. Since we had only one background that worked, we only moved the light, actors and props. Once set up on the day, there was almost no time for adjustments. The white pool floor was covered entirely with black foil by divers, weighted to stay flat. For the scene where a boat surfaces from underwater, the buoyancy force was significant enough that one tonne of ballast had to be placed at the bottom to provide an anchor point.

For the underwater lighting, we used Astera tubes in waterproof housings, fully cabled. About shots where the camera exits the water alongside a rigged smartphone, I used a Panther Vario Jib with a fin attached to the splashbag. This kept it aligned throughout the move.

Desert

The desert block took place in the Sahara. Sandstorms prevented us from working in the dunes almost every day. The entire shoot happened in a single 24-hour window, day and night, back to back.

The night scenes ran almost entirely on available moonlight. ISO 12,800, T1.5 to T1.8, sometimes 360-degree shutter. One CL42 for fill and rim. I had tested multiple denoising workflows in prep specifically for this sequence.

I had tested fluorescent paint on the camel saddle in prep, and it reacted well to moonlight and flashlights.

Submarine

I worked exclusively with practicles, small LED tubes, and bulbs. The FX3 with the RS3 gimbal was the only viable setup for the tiny spaces and to follow the actors through the submarine.

Berlin

For the bus stop, the glass panels were treated with butter to improve light pickup and create depth in the reflections. A pre-existing street lamp was too bright – I had it switched off. Then I replaced it with my own unit and mounted it directly to the pole so as not to see the stand. A wetdown on a road helped with additional asphalt reflections.

Working within tight constraints became the creative driving force behind the whole production and our belief was reinforced: there’s always a solution!

A huge thank you to our readers for diving into this breakdown with us!

We want to express our deepest gratitude to Vincent Eckert. Your work is nothing short of extraordinary, and you never cease to amaze us with your ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking and ingenious solutions to complex cinematic challenges. Thank you, Vincent, for being a loyal supporter and a constant contributor to our community since the very beginning.

Keep creating, and we’ll see you in the next breakdown!

Don’t miss the other articles featuring Vincent’s work here.

Much Love,
The Filmmakersworld Team