Production dossier
PARADOX
A performance editorial with the fire and flow-arts ensemble Blackout Paradox in the dead furnaces of the Poldi Kladno foundry. Live fire, controlled light and physical action — light born inside the darkness. Not a document of a show, but its concentrated, cinematic version.
Project file
A dead space as a stage.
Blackout Paradox is a movement and fire-theatre ensemble — flow arts, physical theatre, acrobatics. Their world is alive, dynamic and fleeting. Our task was not to document a performance but to translate its energy into a series of images that stand on their own — as a campaign, not as a report.
The location became the Poldi Kladno foundry — a raw, post-industrial space of dead furnaces, steel and concrete. The contrast could not be stronger: living fire and the human body in the middle of cooled-down industry. This is the paradox that named the project — light and movement where everything had fallen silent.
"No performance report. Images that can carry a campaign — where fire and the body act as the only source of life in a dead space."
It was not about capturing an act.
It was about translating the ensemble's energy into an image that stops attention. Project brief — PARADOX
Challenge
Live fire.
Total darkness.
One day.
- Controlled live fire in a real space — safety, timing, no CGI
- The total darkness of the foundry: the only light is fire and the performers' flow tools
- Movement on the edge — freezing a gesture that lasts a fraction of a second
- Turn dead industry into a stage, not a backdrop
Visual direction
Darkness as canvas. Fire as the brush.
We bet on the dark. No large flat lighting — the space is held by black and volume is modelled only by real sources: fire, sparks, flow tools and precisely metered flashes. The performer's body is carved out of the dark by its own light.
The raw texture of steel and concrete stays readable only as a hint — on the edge of light and dark. Each frame is built as a stilled moment from a larger story, not as a flashy shot from a show.
Lighting design
The performer is the light source.
The key light is carried by the action itself — fire in the hands, the light trails of flow tools, sparks. Our task was to capture this unstable, brief and unrepeatable energy precisely: at the right moment, with the right exposure, without losing detail in the highlights or the deep shadows.
Fill flashes were metered only where needed to hold the shape of the body and the depth of the space. The result looks cinematic because it was made cinematically — in real light, in a real space.
Production scope
From concept to delivery — one team, one responsibility.
Concept
The visual key of "light in the dark", location scouting and building the frames before the first flash.
Light
A lighting design built on fire and flow tools, with precisely metered fill.
Shoot
A single production day, 4 performers, controlled live fire in the real foundry space — no CGI.
Finish
Selection, retouch and colour grade — 5 final visuals with full rights transfer.
Final assets
Selected outputs.
Production notes
Every frame is the result of decisions.
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PARADOX is not a document of a performance. It is a cinematic world built around a single paradox — life and light in a space that went cold long ago.
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