From Home Depot Hardware to High-End Visuals: How Scott Secco Shoots Scrappy and Thinks Big
What does it take to make a brand film that feels cinematic, emotionally resonant, and professionally polished — without a massive crew, a Hollywood budget, or a truck full of gear? For filmmaker Scott Secco, the answer is equal parts resourcefulness, preparation, and an obsessive love of the craft. In a recent conversation with host Dylan Hahn, Scott broke down exactly how he produced Moments, a stunning outdoor spot for apparel brand Outdoor Research, and shared the lessons he carries from every project into the next.
The Philosophy: Small Crew, Big Vision
Scott Secco has built his career on a simple but powerful idea: do high-quality work as scrappily as possible. On Moments, he directed, shot, and edited the entire piece himself — a decision driven partly by logistics and partly by the creative control it gave him.
“When I’m doing everything, I kind of know what I need,” Scott explained. “And then also when I’m editing, I’m like, okay, this shot’s going to go here, this shot’s next. It makes it a little bit easier knowing the feel and style I’m going for.”
The production spanned five shoot days across British Columbia — Invermere, Squamish, North Vancouver, and Kamloops — covering coastal mountains, old-growth forests, and alpine grasslands. Each location was chosen not just for its visual drama but for its logistical accessibility. After 15 years of shooting mountain bike films, Scott had a mental library of locations that looked remote but were actually manageable to reach on foot with a full camera kit.
Building Camera Rigs from Hardware Store Parts
One of the most memorable aspects of Moments is its dynamic, unconventional camera movement — a signature of Scott’s work. For this project, he wanted 360-degree spinner shots, but hiking deep into mountain terrain meant he couldn’t bring heavy industrial rigging systems.
His solution? His collaborator and rig-building genius Robin Munshaw headed to Home Depot, bought a Lazy Susan turntable — the kind used in kitchen cabinets — and built a lightweight, portable spinner rig around it using metal pipes and wood. For counterweights, the crew used rocks they found on location, gaffer-taped into position.
“It looked bad but it worked,” Scott laughed. “And hopefully you can’t tell when you’re watching it how it was made.”
For more traditional rigging, Scott used a modular system of 5/8-inch rail from Filmtools, baby pins, and Cardellini swivel links — gear he originally developed for high-impact mountain bike shoots and adapted for this hiking project.
Camera and Lens Choices
Scott’s camera package balanced image quality with portability — a critical factor when crew members are hiking for over an hour to reach a location.
- Red Gemini — main camera for primary cinematic shots
- Red Komodo-X — used for all hard-mount and rigging shots; compact, lightweight, global shutter, excellent battery life
- Tilta Hermit POV Helmet — off-the-shelf helmet cam rig for first-person perspective shots
For lenses, Scott gravitated toward ultra-wides to put viewers inside the action:
- Laowa 7.5mm (on Komodo-X) — extreme wide, minimal distortion, good flare character
- Laowa 12mm (on Komodo and Gemini) — lightweight, sharp, with pleasing optical character
- Olympus Zuiko OM vintage lenses — used specifically for their distinctive, dramatic lens flares
- Sigma 150–600mm with a 2× doubler — used at 4K 120fps on the Red, reaching effective focal lengths between 1,000mm and 1,500mm for the jaw-dropping silhouette shots
One of the film’s most visually striking shots — a tiny figure silhouetted against the sun in the distance — was captured with that Sigma setup pushed to its limits. “The sun moves so fast when you’re on these long focal lengths,” Scott said. “So I basically sprinted super chaotically and was like, ‘Go up the trail!’”
Dealing With Unpredictable Weather
Shooting outdoors across multiple regions of British Columbia in autumn means one thing above all else: weather is the wildcard. During the Invermere shoot, the crew arrived to a gorgeous sunset on day one — only to wake up the next morning to a blanket of fresh snow that made continuity with the previous day’s footage impossible.
“The continuity’s just gone,” Scott recalled. “You can’t melt an entire mountain.” The team dropped below the snowline and adapted on the fly. In North Vancouver, an old-growth forest sequence was interrupted by heavy rain and unexpected snowfall that made conditions uncomfortable for cast and crew alike. In both cases, the solution was attitude: keep moving, stay flexible, make it work.
Finding the Moments: Direction, Music, and Voiceover
The film’s title says it all. Scott’s editing philosophy centered on capturing small, authentic human moments — a hat blowing off in the wind, a child peeking out from behind a parent, a hiker glancing directly into the lens while water drips across the frame. Many of these weren’t planned; they happened and Scott recognized them as gold.
“I always try to have good naturalism, but there is something to be said for just telling people what to do and then they can act natural while they’re doing what you want,” he reflected. It’s a lesson he’s carrying forward: be more assertive in directing, push beyond what would naturally occur, and create space for genuine interaction between subjects and camera.
The music was composed by Ben Gulliver, Scott’s longtime collaborator, who built an original score inspired by reference tracks Scott pulled from the film The Last Black Man in San Francisco. The voiceover — a poetic, meditative script written by the production team — was cast through Voice123, with actress Kelly winning the role from an open casting call that was then presented to the client for final approval.
The Bigger Picture: AI, Craft, and the Future of Filmmaking
No conversation with a working filmmaker in 2024 would be complete without addressing AI. Scott’s take is grounded and honest: he’s concerned, but not defeated.
“I really hope that [filming real people in real places] doesn’t go away because it is so fun collaborating with people, visiting these beautiful places, waiting for light,” he said. “And it’s just not the same doing it on the computer.”
He draws a parallel to CGI crowds in modern films versus the energy of real extras on set in classic cinema — the irreplaceable texture of hundreds of real people, with all their quirks, in the same physical space. Whether AI ever truly replicates that, Scott believes the audience’s brain knows the difference. And in the meantime, he’s grateful for clients like Outdoor Research who actively value authenticity and give their filmmakers the creative freedom to pursue it.
Key Takeaways
- Resourcefulness beats budget: A Lazy Susan from Home Depot can become a professional 360-degree spinner rig with the right creative problem-solver on your team.
- Know your locations: Years of scouting for other projects builds an invaluable library of accessible-but-dramatic spots.
- Wear multiple hats intentionally: Directing, shooting, and editing the same project creates powerful creative continuity — but also demands you eventually learn to communicate your vision to collaborators.
- Ultra-wide lenses create immersive energy: Getting close to subjects with wide glass puts viewers inside the experience and generates a sense of movement and scale.
- Weather will humble you — plan around it: Shoot flexible shot lists, know your fallback locations, and keep crew morale high when conditions turn.
- Authentic moments beat planned perfection: The most memorable images often come from unexpected, unscripted interactions. Build space for them.
- Return clients are the best clients: Delivering great work — and being great to work with — is the most reliable way to build long-term creative partnerships.
- Shoot for the audience that cares: Don’t chase the masses. Make work for the small group who appreciates craft, and do it at the highest level you can.
