Challenge

Cobra Kai’s sixth season hit Netflix in three parts across 2024 and 2025. Director of Photography Abraham “Abe” Martinez faced a task unique to a long-running series; he had to follow the canon look of the beloved franchise but introduce new lighting and cinematography ideas to match a new global scope.

This challenge is highlighted in a climactic tournament, and heightened by challenges inherent to the genre, like a cast dressed in monochrome white karate uniforms and a massive 40x40 mat that the team literally couldn’t place light stands on.

Solution

To light the Sekai Taikai tournament, Martinez wanted to represent Mr. Miyagi’s fatherly style of teaching with warm light, and contrast that with Kreese’s shadowy, sinister style, represented by cooler “moonlight.” Fighters would move through pools of warm and cool light followed by spotlights.

The team found the power, color range, and dimmability of the Aputure Electro Storm CS15 with Spotlight Max was perfect for the follow spots, and supplemented with on-camera 9-light Maxi Brutes.

The competing warm and cool light ended up adding dimensionality not only to the arena but to the white karate gis, where cool and warm clashed in purple and gave another visual representation of the multi-generational philosophical battle that began in The Karate Kid (1984).

Electricians also operated shoulder-mounted light rigs for close-ups, and INFINIBARs integrated into the set gave the arena its distinctive yellow accents.

Results

The theatrical nature of the light setups, with electrician-operated spotlights and handheld rigs, gives the sequence an organic, “main event” feel, and allowed the production to work quickly and efficiently. The reception for this final season of Cobra Kai praises the show’s rich drama and dynamic fights.

“Functionality was a plus plus that we found. And it was the first time any of the electricians had seen a tool like this. That I can bounce an Electro Storm from each side of the stadium, I dim down if the camera is facing this way, dim up if it’s facing that way. It was very immediate for me.”