ARDS

ARDS was shot across a single night of stage battles, where the only reliable light was whatever the rig decided to throw. No second takes, no resets. Everything you see was caught in the moment it happened.

The approach was to shoot it like a concert film rather than a dance recording: long lenses, wide apertures, and a willingness to let the haze and the spill do the work. Where the lighting went hard red or hard blue, I leaned into it instead of correcting it out.

In the edit, the cut follows breath rather than beat. The pauses carry as much as the movement. Grading kept the blacks genuinely black so the colour that survives feels earned.

The result is a film that looks like the room actually felt: hot, loud, and briefly weightless.