Some projects change the way you think about video production. Rémy Martin is one of them.
We’d been briefed on the products: XO, VSOP, Tercet, Club, 1738. Five expressions, five worlds, five films to design. What we didn’t anticipate was that the cellars themselves were going to change everything.
Arriving before the light
The first morning in Cognac, we were on site at 5:30 a.m. Not because the schedule demanded it. Because the dawn light in the aging cellars — that light filtered through the barrels, slightly amber, slightly dusty — only exists for about twenty minutes.
That’s what filming artisanal luxury is: accepting that the material sets the tempo. Not the other way around.
We waited for that light. We captured it in LogC4 on ARRI Alexa 35. And in color grading, three weeks later, we spent a full day finding exactly that color temperature again — between aged gold and warm copper.
The hand of the cellar master
Filming craft means filming gestures. Gestures repeated thousands of times until they become invisible to the person making them.
The Rémy Martin cellar master no longer thought about it. He tasted, he breathed in, he decided. In a few seconds. With a calm certainty.
Our director spent two hours observing him before pulling out the camera. Understanding when he closed his eyes. When his expression changed. Which shot would say everything without needing a voice-over.
That shot — a fixed 11-second frame, the hand holding the glass, the light passing through the cognac — became the heart of the XO campaign.
What we hadn’t planned
We thought we were shooting films about cognac. We actually shot films about time.
The time it takes to age a Grande Champagne. The time it takes to train a cellar master. The time it takes for a house to become what it is.
That realization changed our narrative approach. Rather than following a manufacturing process, we chose to follow a transmission. From the founder to the current teams, from yesterday’s gestures to today’s.
The lessons from this production
Silence is a shot. In a film about craftsmanship, the moments without speech, without music, with just the sound of wood and glass, are often the most powerful. We resisted the urge to dress everything in music.
The place is a character. The Rémy Martin cellars have a presence. A scent you can’t film but you can suggest — through staging, through materials in the frame, through the rhythm of the edit. We worked so the viewer would feel the cognac, not just see it.
Trust takes time. Rémy Martin didn’t give us access to their most intimate spaces right away. That trust was built, over exchanges, shared storyboards, compromises found together. The final film wouldn’t exist without that relationship.
What remains
These films have been circulating for several years now. They’ve been used in flagship stores, in international market presentations, on the digital channels of the group’s houses.
Some shots have become reference images for the brand. We’re not the ones saying it — Rémy Martin told us so when they came back for the next campaign.
That’s the lifespan of a film well made.