How a Haikai Media project runs
From the first email to the final master file, every project follows the same disciplined process — built around clear briefs, careful preparation, and post-production handled to cinema standards.
What to expect before we start
Every project I take on follows the same three-stage process: pre-production, production, and post-production. What changes from project to project is the depth of each stage — a one-day interview shoot in Rome doesn't need the same preparation as a five-day documentary across two countries.
The constants are these: I write back to every enquiry within one business day, I quote in writing before any work begins, and I deliver a first cut within 24 to 48 hours of wrapping the shoot. The rest of this page explains what happens inside each stage.
Pre-Production
Pre-production is where most of the work actually happens. By the time the camera rolls, every decision that can be made in advance has already been made — which is why shoot days run on time and within budget.
The first step is the brief. After our initial call, I send back a written treatment outlining the creative direction, a shot list or interview framework, a shooting schedule, and a quote that itemises everything included in the price. Nothing starts until you've approved that document in writing.
From there, pre-production covers:
Location scouting and recces — either in person or remotely via video walk-throughs and reference photography for shoots further afield. I look at light, sound, power, sightlines, and access — the things that decide whether a location actually works on the day.
Scheduling — call sheets that account for light direction, talent availability, room changeovers, and travel between locations. Every shoot day comes with a printed and digital call sheet sent the evening before.
Crew — most projects I shoot solo or with one assistant. On larger productions I bring in trusted freelance collaborators — sound recordists, gaffers, second camera operators — who I've worked with before and can vouch for. You always know in advance exactly who will be on set.
Permits and logistics — film permits where required, insurance documentation, equipment carnets for international shoots, and risk assessments where the production calls for one.
Interview preparation — for testimonial and documentary work, I prepare a question framework in advance and share it with the interviewee. People perform better when they've had time to think.
By the day before the shoot, you have a final call sheet, a final shot list, and a single point of contact — me — for anything that comes up.
Production
By the time we arrive on set, the plan is already in place. My job on the day is to execute it cleanly — and to adapt quickly when reality differs from the plan, which it usually does in small ways.
I personally operate the camera on every Haikai Media shoot, and the kit travels with me. The A-camera is a RED Komodo 6K, shooting in REDCODE RAW or ProRes depending on the project's post pipeline. The B-camera is a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K, used for second-angle interview coverage and as a B-roll body. Lenses are Zeiss Standard Speed Primes in PL mount — 16, 24, 32, 50, and 85mm — the same lenses used on professional feature productions.
For moving shots that need to hold critical focus on talking heads at wide apertures, I work with a DJI RS 3 Pro gimbal paired with LiDAR-assisted autofocus and Focus Pro. Sound comes from a Sennheiser MKH-416 shotgun on a boom for room-tone-aware coverage and Sanken COS-11 lavaliers for clean dialogue, recorded to flagship Zoom field recorders with timecode synchronisation. Lighting is a full owned LED package — key, fill, hair, and practical sources — colour-accurate, dimmable, and battery-capable for locations without mains power.
The day itself runs to a rhythm. The first hour is unloading, lighting the first setup, and a sound check; I aim to have the talent in front of camera within ninety minutes of arrival on location, so their day isn't lost to logistics. I light, frame, and operate. Every shot is reviewed on a calibrated monitor before we move on — nothing leaves the set that hasn't been checked in playback. Dialogue is recorded twice, in-camera and to a dedicated field recorder, so sound is never dependent on a single failure point. The atmosphere on set is calm, focused, and on time; talent and clients consistently tell me that it feels professional and unhurried, even when the schedule is tight.
At the end of every shoot day, footage is downloaded on location to two independent drives before the kit is packed away. No exceptions, no compromise — this is the single most important habit in the entire production process, and the reason I have never lost a frame of client work.
Post-Production
Post-production happens in-house. I edit, colour grade, mix sound, and compose original music myself — the same person who lit and framed the shot decides how it finishes. This is unusual in corporate video production, where post is typically handed off to a separate facility, and it is the reason projects come back faster and more coherent than the industry standard.
The first cut lands in your inbox within 24 to 48 hours of wrapping the shoot. This is a working edit — structure, pacing, selects, and a temp sound mix — sent early so the conversation about the film can begin while the footage is still fresh. From there, we move through revisions: typically two rounds for corporate work, more for documentary projects where editorial direction evolves as the cut comes together. Every revision round is scoped in writing in the original quote, so there are no surprises about what's included.
Colour grading is done in DaVinci Resolve, working from camera-native RAW or log footage through a managed colour pipeline — usually ACES or a Rec.709 working space, depending on the deliverable. Skin tones are matched across cameras and lighting conditions, contrast and saturation are shaped to support the edit rather than imposed on it, and final deliverables are rendered in the colour space and codec the client's downstream pipeline requires, whether that's broadcast Rec.709, web-delivery H.264, or a master ProRes file for archive. If you need a different deliverable for a different platform, I render it from the graded master rather than re-encoding a finished file.
Sound mixing follows the same in-house principle. Dialogue is cleaned and levelled, room tone is laid in, music and effects are balanced against the spoken word, and the final mix is delivered to broadcast loudness standards (-23 LUFS for EBU R128, -16 LUFS for web platforms, on request). For projects that call for original music, I compose and produce the score myself — a service quoted separately from the edit when commissioned.
Once you approve the final cut, delivery happens within 24 hours. Files are uploaded to a private link of your choosing — Google Drive, WeTransfer, Frame.io, or an FTP if you prefer — in every format and resolution the project requires. Project files are retained for twelve months in case you need an alternate cut, a different aspect ratio, or a re-export later.
What's included, and what isn't
Quotes from Haikai Media itemise everything that's covered, so there are no surprises later. As a general rule, a standard production quote includes pre-production planning (treatment, shot list, recce where relevant, call sheets, permits), the shoot day or days agreed in writing, the full camera, audio, and lighting kit described above, editing, colour grading, sound mixing, and final delivery in the formats the project requires. Two rounds of revisions are included for corporate work; documentary and longer-form projects are scoped individually.
Quoted separately are services that genuinely vary by project: additional shoot days beyond those agreed, original music composition where the brief calls for a bespoke score rather than licensed library music, motion graphics and animated titles, additional crew on larger productions (sound recordists, gaffers, second camera operators), talent fees and location fees where the client is not arranging these directly, and licensing of third-party music or archive footage. None of these are hidden costs — they are simply line items that depend on the specifics of the project and are agreed in writing before any work begins.
If a project calls for something not listed here — a drone operator, an underwater housing, a specific historic location with its own access regime — I tell you what it costs and how I would source it before the quote is finalised. The principle is straightforward: you should know exactly what you are paying for, and what you are not, before you sign anything.
How long it takes
Realistic timelines depend on the shape of the project, not on a single advertised figure. The windows below reflect how Haikai Media projects actually run from first brief to final delivery.
A short corporate piece — a single-day interview shoot, a testimonial, a product video, a conference highlight — typically runs two to three weeks end to end. That allows roughly one week for pre-production and scheduling, the shoot day itself, and one to two weeks for edit, colour, sound, and revisions. The first cut still lands within 24 to 48 hours of wrapping the shoot; the rest of the window is for the iterative editorial process.
A multi-day commercial or branded project — a two-to-five-day shoot, often across multiple locations or with several speakers — typically runs four to six weeks. Pre-production carries more weight here: scouting, scheduling, permits, and crew bookings all take longer when the production scales up. Post-production runs in parallel with the back half of the shoot when the schedule allows.
A documentary or longer-form project — anything that involves location travel, multiple shoot blocks, or an editorial structure that emerges from the footage rather than from a pre-written script — is scoped individually, but typically runs eight to sixteen weeks. These projects often involve a rough-cut review before the final edit begins, and the timeline reflects that.
Three things stretch any timeline: client-side review cycles longer than the working week (which is the most common cause of delay on corporate projects, and the one factor entirely outside my control), permit lead times for shoots in restricted locations, and bespoke deliverables such as original music composition or extensive motion graphics, which are scoped into the timeline at quote stage.
If your project has a fixed deadline — a launch date, a conference, a campaign window — tell me in the first email. I will only commit to a date I am confident I can hit, and I will tell you honestly if a brief and a deadline are not compatible.
Who you're actually hiring.
Everything described on this page is delivered by one person. I founded Haikai Media in 2013 and have personally shot, edited, graded, and mixed every project that carries the studio's name since. When you book a Haikai Media production, you are hiring a director of photography trained at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb), with 29 years of professional experience behind the camera — not a booking agent passing the work to an unknown freelancer, and not a production company with rotating crew you will never meet.
This is the structural difference that everything else on this page rests on. The 24-to-48-hour first cut is possible because the same person who shot the footage walks into the edit suite the next morning. The colour grade is coherent with the lighting because the colourist and the cinematographer are the same person. The brief never gets lost in translation between departments because there are no departments — only one operator, end to end.
The work is verifiable. My first feature, Anna Pavlova Lives in Berlin, won the Prize for Young Film Art from the German National Gallery and the German Film Academy, presented by Bruno Ganz and Iris Berben, and was exhibited daily over four months in a dedicated room at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart museum in Berlin. Broken Dreams (2017), on which I served as cinematographer, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video and holds an IMDb rating of 8.5/10. As a commissioned cinematographer and photographer I have delivered work for Google, Pfizer, AWS, Novo Nordisk, Van Cleef & Arpels, Brain Corp, Zurich Insurance, Merck and SVT (Swedish National Television), among others.
For a full list of recent productions, see the portfolio. For the longer story of the studio and how it works, see the About page.