A great video is never just what you see. It is the decision behind every frame, the edit that makes you feel something before you understand why, the sound that fills the space between moments. My audiovisual work lives at the intersection of storytelling and craft, from documentary and dance film to branded content and theater, always in service of whatever the story needs to be.

Company Hero was the first startup I ever worked at in person, and it changed how I see creative work. More than a job, it was where I learned to collaborate, navigate stakeholders, and understand what it really means to be part of a company culture. This video was my way of capturing all of that. Shot and edited entirely on my own, it was made to reflect what Hero is at its core: people, stories and purpose. When it was first shown to the full team, I received a standing ovation that lasted a few minutes. That moment stayed with me.

Every good video starts with a real problem. Gestão PJ was born from a pain that HR managers knew all too well: payroll closing was a marathon of spreadsheets, manual processes and endless back-and-forth that never seemed to end. My job was to turn that frustration into something people could actually watch and feel understood by.

The process started long before any camera was turned on. Working closely with Amanda Fran and Laura, two of Company Hero's leaders, we spent time mapping out who we were talking to, what kept them up at night, and what they needed to hear. That conversation shaped everything. The script wasn't written from a creative brief alone. It was written from real insight.

From there, the production came together as a full creative package: direction, motion graphics, editing and all the visual storytelling in between. The goal was a video that felt clear without being cold, informative without being boring, and human enough to actually connect with the HR managers watching it.

Gestão PJ ended up being one of those projects that reminded me why I love this work. When strategy, collaboration and craft come together the right way, the result speaks for itself.

One of the most valuable parts of this project was learning how to navigate a creative process with stakeholders who had deep knowledge of the product but needed someone to translate that knowledge into a visual language. That translation, from insight to image, is where I feel most at home.

The motion graphics layer added another dimension to the storytelling. Rather than simply showing the platform, we used animation to guide the viewer through the experience, making complex workflows feel intuitive and approachable. Every transition, every animated element had a reason to be there.

Working inside a startup like Company Hero also meant that speed and clarity were non-negotiable. There was no room for endless revisions or vague feedback loops. You learn to make decisions fast, communicate precisely, and trust the process you built together with your team.

Looking back, Gestão PJ represents something bigger than a single deliverable. It was proof that great creative work is rarely made alone. It takes the right people asking the right questions, and someone willing to listen carefully enough to turn those answers into something worth watching.

Some stories are told from the wrong point of view. Bertoleza is a musical theater production that fixes that. Based on O Cortiço, a cornerstone of Brazilian naturalist literature written by Aluísio Azevedo, the show flips the narrative entirely. Bertoleza is not a side character anymore. She is the one who carries the story, bringing buried histories into the light and turning the act of dreaming into something that feels like resistance.

My role was to capture the audience right after the curtain came down, when emotions were still raw and unfiltered. That kind of video requires a very specific approach. You are not directing anyone. You are creating the conditions for honesty to surface naturally, where the camera feels invisible and the conversation feels safe enough for someone to say something real.

What came out of those interviews was exactly that. People speaking about recognition, grief, pride and seeing their own history reflected on a stage for the first time. Working on Bertoleza reminded me that the most powerful thing a camera can do is witness. Not perform, not explain. Just witness.

Winner of the APCA Award 2020 in the Espetáculo category and the 2023 Convocatória of the Instituto Brasileiro de Teatro, this is a production that arrives carrying the weight of real recognition and leaves you with questions worth sitting with long after you leave the theater.

Theater needs space. Not just physical space, but the kind of space where a company can rehearse freely, take risks and build something without worrying about where they will be tomorrow. That is exactly what Aqui tem Sala was created to provide. An open call by the Instituto Brasileiro de Teatro offering artists and theater companies the chance to apply for rehearsal slots inside IBT's own facilities, fully equipped with air conditioning, proper flooring and a welcoming environment built for the work.

I was responsible for both the filming and editing of the announcement video for the second edition of this initiative. The video features Oliver Tibeau, cultural director and one of the founding members of IBT, whose presence brought an authenticity to the piece that no script could manufacture. The challenge was communicating something that feels both institutional and deeply human, an open door for artists who often have nowhere to go. The visual language needed to reflect that energy: bold, warm and direct.

Culture thrives when the infrastructure exists to support it. Aqui tem Sala is a small but meaningful answer to a problem that too many artists in São Paulo know firsthand. Being part of telling that story, from the first shot to the final cut, was something I genuinely cared about.

Some projects come with a weight that you feel before you even start editing. Mundaréu de Mim is one of them. Presented by the Ministério da Cultura, RICO and the Instituto Brasileiro de Teatro, this is a completely original Brazilian production written by Vitor Rocha, composed by Gui Leal and directed by Duda Maia. The show takes place at Parque da Água Branca in São Paulo, in a large outdoor arena where the cast stays on stage from beginning to end, blending frevo, samba-enredo and rhythms from every corner of Brazil into something that feels like the whole country singing at once.

The story follows Graciela, a girl who sneaks out to experience Brazil's most famous celebration, and José, a man who has already become saudade and needs help reaching someone from his past. Actors and actresses from six different Brazilian states share the same stage, and accessibility was built into the production from the ground up, with a Libras interpreter as an actual character on stage, subtitles, audio description and reserved spaces for people with disabilities.

My contribution was the editing of the promotional content. Putting this material together meant working with footage that already carried an enormous amount of energy and emotion, and finding the cuts that let that energy breathe without getting in its way.

Some stories exist because someone refused to let them disappear. Maria Preta, Solo Fértil is an autoethnographic and documentary theater piece written and performed by Jucimara Canteiro, built from her own memories and her family's history in Santos, on the coast of São Paulo. At its center is her grandmother, Antônia Bruno da Silva, known as Maria Preta, one of the founders of Vila Progresso, a community on the outskirts of Santos that she helped build and for which she has never received recognition. Theater becomes the place where that recognition finally happens.

The stage itself is covered in bare earth, evoking the backyard of Jucimara's childhood home. That detail is not decorative. It is a statement about the right to land, to territory, to housing, a constitutional right that has been systematically denied to Black families across Brazil. The show won the 2023 Convocatória do IBT in the Adulto Inédito category, an initiative designed to decentralize theater production across the greater São Paulo metropolitan area and bring it to audiences who rarely get access to it.

I filmed and edited this interview with Jucimara, where she opens up about the creative process behind the piece. Capturing someone speaking about work this personal requires a particular kind of attention. You are not just recording words. You are holding space for a story that took years to be ready to tell out loud.

Over 30,000 people have already watched this love story between a cat and a swallow, and it is not hard to understand why. O Gato Malhado e a Andorinha Sinhá is a musical adaptation of Jorge Amado's beloved book, conceived, written and scored by Cia Novelo, named one of the best productions of 2022 by Folha de S.Paulo and now returned to the stage at CCJ Ruth Cardoso. A fable about love and tolerance, free for everyone, with a company that has reached more than 50,000 people in person over more than a decade of work.

I was responsible for filming and editing the promotional content for this return season, working to capture the warmth and energy of a production that has clearly already found its audience.

ZICA is a dance film born from something personal. The piece explores the duality of feelings I experienced when confronted with judgment around social class, racism and competitiveness within the same peripheral minority I belong to. It is a response to those who believe themselves superior even when their reality mirrors your own.

The concept draws from Emicida's 2018 single Inácio da Catingueira, a tribute to a real historical figure: a Black enslaved poet and repentista born in 1845 in the backlands of Paraíba, who had no surname of his own and was known only by the name of his birthplace. Illiterate and of unknown paternity, his poetic talent became his greatest weapon, ultimately moving his enslaver to grant him his freedom after an eight-day verbal battle against a celebrated white poet. What makes the reference so sharp is that it is not just about racism from the outside. In the legendary battle, Romano tried to belittle Inácio for his lack of formal education and his enslaved condition, even using threatening references to torture, all in an attempt to avoid public defeat. The wound was not only in the oppression. It was in who chose to inflict it.

That is exactly what ZICA sits with. The body becomes the language because some things are too layered to say with words alone. Movement holds the contradiction: the pride, the pain, the refusal to be reduced. ZICA is a personal film, but it does not stay personal. Anyone who has ever been made to feel less by someone who should know better will recognize something in it.

Some dancers are known by those who know. Hugo Campos is one of them. A twice finalist at Summer Dance Forever, one of the most respected annual street dance competitions in the Netherlands, Hugo has built a name that travels well beyond Brazil's borders, recognized by communities across the global underground dance scene.

This video was created for NOBU Dance Media, one of the most relevant platforms in the urban dance underground. The kind of page that does not chase trends because it already lives inside the culture. Bringing Hugo's story to that audience meant working with footage that had to match his level: precise, honest and full of the kind of energy that does not need to be amplified, just captured right.

The backstage of a theater production holds a different kind of truth. Before the lights come on and the audience settles in, there is a quieter, more intimate version of the show happening in the dressing rooms, in the hallways, in the small rituals that performers use to prepare themselves for something that demands everything they have. A look being adjusted in the mirror. A breath held before the entrance. A smile shared between cast members who know what they are about to carry on stage. These are the moments that never make it into the program, but they are often where the most honest version of the work lives.

These photos were taken during the production of Maria Preta, Solo Fértil, a show built from memory, from land, from the kind of history that was never meant to be told out loud.

Photographing its backstage felt like a responsibility. The story Jucimara Canteiro brings to the stage is already full of weight and tenderness, and the moments before she steps into the light carry all of that too. The goal was simple: to be present without interrupting, to document without performing, and to let the images speak with the same honesty the show demands from everyone who makes it happen.

LUSCA® is a creative studio run by Lucas Reis, a Brazilian filmmaker and creative director working across branding, audiovisual, graphic design and UX/UI. Many tentacles, one vision.