Roast

Fjell has a lot to say about coffee and a short time to say it in a feed. They asked for a series people would wait for.

A social series of six 40-second episodes, vertical and wide.

Six steps, six episodes: the green bean, the roast, the rest, the grind, the brew, the cup. Each episode ends on the first frame of the next, so the series plays as one film too.

We framed for both formats on set rather than cropping later. The vertical versions are not cut-downs but their own edits, paced for a thumb that is about to scroll.

Shot in two days in the roastery, with a macro rig built for the drum and a lot of coffee.

The macro rig let the lens sit a few millimetres from the beans as they turned in the drum. We timed the shots to the roaster's own cues: the first crack, the colour change, the moment the beans are dropped.

Sound was recorded as closely as the picture. The grinder, the kettle and the pour are all real, layered so the episodes work on a phone speaker as well as in headphones.

Episode three was shared more than the rest of the brand's posts that year combined.

The series doubled Fjell's followers in the six weeks it ran, and the roastery started offering tours because people kept asking to see the drum.

Fjell has since commissioned a second season, about the farms the beans come from.