We shoot chrome and grey references in the same light as the plate. HDRI is a start, not a finish: we rebuild key and edge in the renderer until the contact shadows sit.
If the physical product cannot be there, we still light an empty stand so the CG object inherits the same wrap. The test is simple — if a producer can point to the render in the first second, we go back.
Materials are photographed, not guessed. Polarisation, roughness, and a measured white help more than a downloadable ‘studio HDRI’ from a different room.
Grade happens with the composite, not before. A plate graded in isolation will fight the CG no matter how good the look-dev was.
We deliver layered files when the contract asks, and flattened masters when it does not. Either way the public image is one picture.
Pacificfu produces commercial photography and motion from Vigo. The still and the film share a recce so a campaign does not split in public between a lookbook that looks like noon and a cut that looks like sunset. The rooms on Rúa do Príncipe hold tabletop, a compact cyclorama, and a colour desk. Clients sit with tethered stills and a calibrated monitor in one visit. Product and grade are not two cities apart. Location days stay on the granite we recce first. Bounce and a quiet key match the overcast; we do not gel a false Atlantic. If the weather turns, we wait or we rewrite the shot, we do not invent the hour in the suite. Agencies come with a media plan. We name masters for print, 1:1 and 9:16, keep a working project for the revision window, and hand an archive another team can open a year later without a private naming scheme.