My father was in the final stage of a terminal illness. It had already been a few hard months, and I was tired. Then Chava Perales called me.

I’ve known Chava and 4G Ad Group since around 2003.

We grew up professionally in parallel, crossing paths every few years. Somehow, when they call me, there is usually a challenge attached to the job. Something has to happen fast. Something has to be solved.

Usually yesterday.

This time it was baseball.

Unión Laguna was about to present its new jerseys, and Sergio had come up with this crazy superhero-inspired concept.
My first reaction was somewhere between okay and how the hell are we going to do this?

I also knew almost nothing about baseball.

So I went scouting. Pretty quickly, I realized I didn’t need to understand baseball. I needed to understand bodies, uniforms, light and atmosphere.

The jerseys were the subject. Everything else existed to make you want to look at them.

I decided to keep the production brutally simple.

Jorge Eduardo Espino, my gaffer. Roberto Soto, and Me.

A few people from the agency.

No large crew.

No elaborate machinery.

Lots of fucking smoke.

The stadium already had great lights, it was about being honest with what we were showing. We used them.

The location had things I didn’t want to see. We hid them. Smoke gave us depth.

Darkness gave us somewhere to subtract. A few controlled sources gave us somewhere to look.

Before anything else, I shot the ending.

I knew the players had already been training.

I knew they would eventually get tired, impatient, hungry, or simply want to leave. So I wanted the part I absolutely needed before fatigue entered the room.

At first, I think some of them were wondering what the hell this tiny crew was doing. Then the smoke started filling the space and they saw themselves on the monitor.

That changed things.

I like showing actors what I’m seeing when it helps. You don’t need to make a speech about trusting the process when the monitor can simply say: Look. You look f***ng good.

From there, they were in.

Didi Gregorius, Nick Torres, Allen Córdoba and the rest of them were important baseball players. Some had played at the highest level.

I had almost no idea who any of them were.

And maybe that helped.

They had their job. I had mine.

There was no mythology required.

Stand here.

Turn.

Walk.

Again.

Smoke

Next.

As each player finished what I needed, I wrapped him. I’ve never liked keeping people around just because a production is still moving.

So the crew became smaller as the night went on, until eventually there was nothing left to shoot.

A few days later, we came back for some drone material of the stadium.

That was basically it.

One night.

A handful of people.

A ridiculous amount of smoke.

And somewhere outside that stadium, a completely different part of my life was happening.

Nobody on that field needed to carry that with me.

There was a film to make.

So we made it.

Mino Rimada