LMNT | Sweat for Something

June 11, 2025

Concept

It was a privilege to work with LMNT for their “Sweat for Something" campaign. Following Olympic bobsledder Darrell Payne Jr, Mexican tennis pro-Fernanda Contreras Gomez, and MMA fighter Michael Aswell, we look at each of the three incredible athlete's relentless dedication to be the best—to sweat for something. This concept takes our three different athletes in their real-life training environments, as we take a look at how they prepare to be their best for their biggest moments.

Director Harrison Chiu brought the concept to life with a detailed pre-vis plan to capture the world and energy of high-performance athletes while showing how the LMNT product and our subjects co-exist in that. This endeavor came with a challenging pre-production phase. However, thanks to the exceptional teamwork of Salado, our crew, and our cast, we came away with a final product we were thrilled to deliver.

Tone & Feel

The look for this project needed to feel cinematic, putting our athletes at the center of a wider and elevated frame. Our director and cinematographer wanted to match the look and tone with the intensity of the spot, constantly moving the camera in-flow of the action.

Our DoP, the talented Dino Maglaris, operates the Alexa 35 and Cooke Anamorphic to achieve our frames. This combo led us to create a smooth, warm rendering that’s flattering for skin tones and maintains a nice elliptical bokeh, which enhances subject separation and depth in a way that feels organic. In addition, we used probe lenses to get nice POV and product shots that helped with the overall piece.

Production

With a heavy emphasis from our team on a tricky pre-production, our team was able to execute this project, which was shot over three days in multiple cities across Texas. We handled everything from locations, castings, props, and crewing. It was an exciting opportunity to shoot with an incredibly nimble crew, and we were lucky to have worked with three incredible athletes on the rise within their respective sports.

Our shot list was fluid and we were fighting with sunlight half the time, but our crew never skipped a beat. The athletes were true professionals, making it extremely easy for us to operate against the clock. Our on-set photographer did a great job of capturing great moments, and in the end, we all walked away feeling like we got plenty of amazing stuff in the can.

Post-Production

Zach Carter, our wonderful editor cut this piece remotely from his edit bay. He and Harrison went through numerous rounds of internal revisions before handing it off to the client, who was blown away by the product. Zach’s eye for finding and sequencing out powerful moments in the edit truly set him apart on this one.

Zach is known for his fast-paced editing style, bringing a sense of excitement and gravity to the footage. We shot and edited so that we could seamlessly move from one subject to another, so Zach’s use of match cuts, transitions, and slower beats was directly aligned with Harrison’s vision. The team cannot wait to work with Zach again. Our colorist, Arthur Garibay, brought a rich, cinematic tone to this LMNT campaign, balancing gritty realism with polished looks for each of our three worlds.

Fresh off a Superbowl commercial featuring Glenn Powell, Dusty Albertz with Howdy Sound, took the reigns on our sound design for this piece. Dusty completely took the piece to another level, fully immersing the viewer in each of the athlete’s world. He built out each motif with a unique sonic palette and made our transitions both really clean and impactful. Endless thanks to Dusty for coming on board. See his timeline below.