Ford Lightning

Directed by Nicholas Maggio — Commercial for Ford

Cool Wins the Day

Nicholas Maggio is someone I look up to. His visual style is extraordinary — moody, underexposed, rich with texture and atmosphere. When the call came to DP a Ford commercial with Nic directing, I didn't hesitate.

We flew up to Seattle and spent a single day in the Cascade Mountains shooting the F-150 Lightning. The approach was reality-style — no grip truck, no electric kit, no focus puller. Just me, the Canon R5C, the Canon RF 24–70mm, and the mountains. A Hollywood Black Magic diffusion filter took the clinical edge off the photography glass and gave the image a softness that felt right for the landscape.

Nic's direction was liberating. He told me to forget about story continuity and just look for interesting angles. His exact words were "cool wins the day." That freed me to shoot instinctively — chasing light, chasing composition, chasing whatever felt right in the moment instead of matching eyelines and screen direction.

nic maggio directing — cascade mountains, washington

the entire crew — one truck, one camera, the cascades

The Cascades as Collaborator

I shot at a deep stop, embracing the massive depth of field to let the Cascades fill the frame on the R5C's vista vision format. I wasn't trying to isolate the truck from the landscape — I wanted them fused. The mountains, the fog, the tree line, the gravel road — all of it was the image. The truck lives inside the environment, not in front of it.

I looked for foreground whenever possible. Branches, grass, rock formations — anything to create dense, layered compositions that gave the wide shots depth and texture. On a deep stop with a zoom lens, foreground is what separates a photograph from a snapshot. It's what makes a flat vista feel three-dimensional.

No Crew, No Problem

With no AC, I relied entirely on autofocus. The Canon RF system's eye and subject tracking handled the work that a focus puller would normally do. With no grip or electric, I had to read the landscape and chase the best naturally occurring light. I'd watch the clouds, wait for the sun to break through a gap in the mountains, and then shoot fast before the light shifted. It's a way of working that feels closer to still photography than cinematography — and on a one-day commercial in the wilderness, that's exactly the muscle you need.

The whole shoot was a dream. Out in my home state of Washington, in the mountains I grew up around, with good people, quoting our favorite movies between setups and laughing all day. Some of the best work comes from the simplest conditions. One camera, one lens, one day, and a truck in the mountains.

end of the day — the lightning against the cascades at sunset

the cascades at sunset — washington