Cigar Cigars

Client: Cigar, Cigars
Work Performed: Video “Infomercial”

Here at Pixeldust Films, we smoke the occasional cigar, so we were thrilled to have the opportunity to shoot a spot for a local cigar merchant. The spot is all about their new “Hecho Fresco” cigar line, which is hand-rolled right in their Willow Grove, PA storefront. Talk about fresh! Watching the master cigars rollers go from bunching the tobacco all the way up to hand-rolling a smokable cigar was pretty amazing. They made it look so easy, but you could tell that the amount of skilled labor in those hands took years upon years to acquire. We felt it was our duty at the end of the shoot to do some quality control in the form of smoking some Hecho Frescos.

Fast Facts

• This film was shot at night, starting at about 9:00 PM and went til around 2 in the morning.
• Between the cast and crew, I believe we smoked about 20 cigars in total between everyone in the building. The gear smelled like cigars for about 3 weeks.
• The cigars rollers, who speak Spanish, did not know we were coming there to film them, only that they were asked to work late that evening. They were pretty terrified when the film crew showed up and started giving them directions.
• The primary cigar roller, Eduardo Nunez, speaks virtually no English. Luckily, our audio guy for the evening happened to be fluent in Spanish.
• Cigar rolling has to be one of the most difficult skills to learn. Sometimes, you can pick up a thing or two by watching people for several hours. In the case of rolling cigars, I was just as clueless when I walked out as when I walked in. It's really difficult. Smoking them is much easier.
• Thinking we were going to be a little light on material, my Director of Photography for the evening threw me in the humidor and asked me to riff a little on camera. Well, I riffed a lot on camera and put myself in the film, which the client loved.

Watch the Film

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