Filmmaker AJ Mester has spent more than a decade producing commercial content for one of the world's largest footwear brands, Skechers, including seven Super Bowl spots.

Mester was originally hired to shoot behind-the-scenes footage for Skechers in 2012 during one of their photography campaigns. It was his first real exposure to large-scale branded production.

“Compared with narrative filmmaking, the pace was radically different,” he recalls. “You’re everywhere at once. It’s fast, it’s chaotic, but it’s exhilarating.”

At the time Skechers was building an internal production capability that would reduce reliance on external advertising agencies. That shift created opportunities for smaller, nimble crews and Mester was in the right place at the right time.

The internal production model quickly proved effective. Without the long agency pitching cycles, the team could move rapidly—often conceiving, shooting and finishing projects far faster than traditional advertising workflows.

Mester received progressively larger assignments: first smaller celebrity endorsements, then the brand’s highest-profile talent. With each step Mester became instrumental in refining a consistent visual style for the company’s on-screen advertising.

“RED stands out for two main reasons,” he explains. “The first is versatility. Skechers’ media department isn’t just producing television ads. Content has to function across broadcast and in cinemas ahead of the main feature, on giant LED conference screens and massive display walls at company headquarters as well as social media.

“So being able to have a RED sensor at our fingertips to be able to offer the array of different deliverables that they were asking for proved time and time again that this was the right tool for the job.”

The second reason is resolution. “The resolution and frame-rate combination were huge for us,” he asserts. “Those assets had to live everywhere—from broadcast to enormous video walls – and knowing we could blow the image up to any format or crop into the frame without losing quality was really important to our strategy.”

The camera’s compact form factor was equally important. “RED systems can scale from lightweight handheld builds to larger cinematic rigs, allowing us to move quickly and multitask while maintaining high production value. We can be nimble and basically produce deliveries for anything across the board.

“Even when you’ve added a zoom or matte box it doesn’t feel like you're building the camera out to be huge unwieldy missile like it does with some other cameras. All the functionality is in a little computer, essentially.”

Over time, Mester developed an intimate understanding of how the sensor behaved. “I know how to light for RED, how far it could be pushed, and how to extract the sharp, detailed aesthetic that Skechers prefer.”

Indeed, in Mester’s hands, the crisp quality of the image became part of the look for the Skechers’ brand. “As I was building a style and a look for them we would try other cameras, but none had the same clarity as RED. Skechers’ loves how realistic their product looked when shot on RED.”

Although Mester was initially credited solely as a cinematographer, the small‑crew environment at Skechers naturally expanded his responsibilities. He collaborated closely with creative directors, shaped concepts, guided talent and often operated the camera while directing.

“In reality there were two or three people directing at any given moment,” he says. “We relied on each other to push the creative forward.”

Eventually the transition became official, and he began directing and shooting projects simultaneously—a dual role that suited his technical instincts.

“It didn’t feel like, ‘Oh my God, I’m doing two jobs.’ It felt like, ‘I’m doing what I love!”

The arrival of V-RAPTOR XL[X] brought additional advantages, particularly high frame rates and a global shutter.

“The V-RAPTOR is the next evolution of versatility. Because we're shooting in many different types of spaces with different types of light the global shutter comes into its own. No banding, no weird roll, just a clean, even image across the frame. The global shutter also allows us to capture 8K footage at 120 frames per second while maintaining an unmatched, realistic clarity.”

On a recent Skechers campaign featuring runners moving through Los Angeles, the team relied largely on natural light, shooting V-RAPTOR XL [X] and focusing instead on timing and movement.

“Without needing big lighting setups, I was free to think more like a director—designing shots around time of day and framing movement.”

Mester continues to expand his narrative work and other artistic endeavors. At the same time, he’s been revisiting the extensive archive he built over 14 years. That deep dive sparked “The Commercial Break,” an Instagram series where he shares behind-the-scenes stories, technical notes and personal reflections.

“For years I was moving too quickly to document or discuss the work,” he says. “When you’re creating at that pace, you don’t stop to think about what you’ve done.”
A special thanks to AJ Mester for sharing his perspective on the process and the evolution of his work with openness and reflection. You can explore Commercial Break and the evolution of his Skechers campaigns on Instagram at @mesterpiece.