Isa Mahdi

Work / FILM

GMI — ARABAL Conference

Cinematographer Colourist Editor Motion Graphics Gulf Markets International

The brief

A corporate film for Gulf Markets International built around the ARABAL conference — a piece that had to carry the company's own voice rather than a narrator's.

The approach

Built on seated interviews recorded in the company's own offices rather than a hired set, so the environment reads as theirs. Subjects are framed off-centre against the room's existing blinds and glass, with the aperture open enough to soften the background without erasing the sense of place. Graphics were kept to typographic lower thirds and titles so nothing pulls focus from the speaker.

My role

Cinematography, colour grade, edit and motion graphics. Direction and production sat with the client.

Interview-led corporate work stands or falls on whether people look comfortable, so the setup was kept small and lit to extend what the office windows were already doing rather than replace it. The grade holds the cool green of the room and warms skin against it, which keeps faces forward without turning the space into a studio. The cut runs on the answers themselves, using cutaways only where a sentence needed room to breathe, and titles were animated in the same restrained weight as the company's own material.

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Let's make something worth watching.