Matching a Look Across Three Cities: Completing a Social Story Series in Zurich

Details

Client: 3 Sixty Creative
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Format: 1-minute story piece for social media, third installment in a three-part series
Crew: Visiting Director/Interviewer and DoP from the UK, plus a local GetCameraCrew Camera Operator and Sound Recordist
Gear: Two-camera setup, Sony FX6 and FX3 kits, prime lenses, minimal lighting, natural available light

Insights

Not every job starts with a blank page. This one started with two chapters already shot in London, and the job in Zurich was to complete the third without anyone watching being able to tell where one city ended and the next began.

3 Sixty Creative's brief was simple to state and harder to execute: shoot two people together as a pair, capture b-roll of their environment in Zurich, and cut it into a one-minute story piece for social media, matching the format and production values of two earlier pieces shot in London so all three would sit together as one cohesive suite. The look they wanted was intentionally unpolished, a natural, softer documentary feel rather than a commercial sheen, built around working with the surroundings and using minimal lighting rather than shaping the environment to fit the camera.

The production itself was a hybrid team by design. 3 Sixty Creative brought their own Director/Interviewer and a DoP from the UK to hold continuity of creative vision across all three shoots, and GetCameraCrew supplied the local half of the crew, a second Camera Operator and a Sound Recordist, along with the camera package: matching Sony FX6 and FX3 bodies and prime lenses, chosen specifically so the Zurich footage would intercut seamlessly with what had already been shot in London. With a single day to work with, the two-camera setup covered the pair together and the surrounding city in parallel, capturing environmental b-roll without slowing down the interview coverage.

Keeping the lighting minimal was as much a discipline as it was a look. Rather than building a set, the crew worked with Zurich's own light and spaces, letting the city read as itself rather than as a backdrop. That restraint is what let the piece sit naturally alongside its London counterparts instead of standing out as the shoot that looked different.

By the end of the day, the third piece of the series was in the can, matched in look, tone, and pace to the two shot in London, delivered from a single day of production with a crew that was half visiting, half local, and fully aligned on getting the same result from three different cities.