Filming a business vlog as a surf movie.

I hate business vlogs. Not the people making them, the shape: a founder at a desk, a number, a lesson, a cut to the next desk. The information is fine and nobody watches to the end. So this month's update was filmed as a surf movie instead, and the business news was smuggled in as a commercial break.

Borrow a genre, keep the news

A genre is a set of promises the audience already understands. Say "surf movie" and the viewer arrives expecting sun, boards, salt, a soundtrack, and people who are not in a hurry. That expectation does the work an explainer usually has to do from scratch, which frees the runtime for the actual content.

The trade is that you owe the genre its conventions. A surf movie that is secretly a pitch deck is a bait and switch, and viewers smell it in about fifteen seconds. So the film commits: the water is the subject, the pace is loose, the narration is in the register of someone who has been in the sun too long. The business sits inside that world rather than interrupting it.

The look: bright, retro, vibrant

The grade is the first thing that sells the genre, before a single word. Surf films of the 1970s were shot on stocks that pushed cyan skies and left skin warm, printed on paper that faded the blacks. That is a specific, reproducible set of moves, not a vibe.

The grade built for this video, later packaged as the Retro Surf LUT, does three things: a cool turquoise world, warmth laid only on people and on whites, and pink pushed into the clouds over a cyan sky. Everything not human stays cool; anything human stays warm. The separation is what makes a flat coastal shot feel like a postcard instead of a phone photo.

Two practical notes for anyone copying this. Shoot log so the grade has room, and expose for the sky, because a blown highlight cannot be turned turquoise afterwards. And grade a face first, not a landscape: if skin survives the look, the look is usable.

The lightness is a structural choice

Surf culture carries a tone: unbothered, funny, slightly absurd, allergic to self-importance. That tone is the opposite of how founders usually talk on camera, which is exactly why it works here. Self-deprecation buys you the right to say a real number out loud. A founder who takes himself seriously for six minutes is asking the viewer to do the same, and that is a big ask from a stranger.

Practically: the jokes carry the transitions. Where a normal vlog would cut with a title card, this one cuts with a bit. It keeps the momentum without a single "so, anyway".

The infomercial that is also the business update

The problem with a genre film is where the actual update goes. Stopping the surf movie to deliver metrics breaks the world you just spent three minutes building.

So the update is not a stop. It is a commercial break: a period-accurate infomercial for Vanpelt Studio, the product being built while the video was shot, cut in the visual language of a 1970s TV spot. The genre absorbs it, because commercial breaks are a thing that happens inside broadcast. The viewer gets the product news, the film never leaves its own world, and the ad is the funniest part of the video rather than the part people skip.

Establish the world 30%

Water, light, pace. The genre contract is signed here or not at all.

Live in it 25%

The loose middle a surf film is allowed. Jokes carry the transitions.

The commercial break 20%

A period infomercial for the product being built. The update, in a format the audience enjoys watching.

Back to the water 15%

Return to the world so the ad reads as an interruption inside the film, not the end of it.

Sign off 10%

Short. The genre does not do conclusions.

That is the marketing lesson worth stealing: the most skippable part of your video is the part that is obviously an ad, so make the ad a format the audience already enjoys watching.

What carries over to client work

Genre framing is not a gimmick reserved for personal channels. A brand film that borrows a recognisable shape, a nature documentary, a cooking show, a gear review, arrives with an audience contract already signed, which means less explaining and more watching. Two things have to be true: the genre has to fit what the brand actually is, and the team has to be willing to commit rather than gesture. A half-committed genre reads as a costume.

If your product update has an audience of nobody, the problem is usually the container, not the news. See Video for how that gets built, or read what a product launch video costs for the budget shape.

Sources and further reading

• Free cinematic LUTs for S-Log3, C-Log3 and V-Log

  Vanpelt StudioThe Retro Surf grade from this video, as a .cube file, free and licensed for monetised use.

• How to write a video script

  Vanpelt StudioWriting to a structure, which is what makes a genre frame hold instead of collapsing into pastiche.

• YouTube sponsorship rates 2026 (what to charge)

  Vanpelt StudioWhy the ad break is the most valuable and most skipped part of a video, with the numbers behind it.