The Brief

“We need to hire a Melbourne-based camera crew that can shoot high-quality interviews and cutaway footage. The team must be able to take instruction from our director, who will fly in for the shoot, and work fast so that we can stick to our schedule.”

The Background

Accent Group is a footwear and apparel marketing and distribution company based just outside of Melbourne’s CBD. Amongst their brands are Vans, Skechers, and Dr. Martens.

Accent Group’s image is fresh and contemporary. As such, it was important that our camera crew delivered footage that stylistically matched that feeling. Both the cutaway footage and the interviews had to be visually interesting and cool to look at – like Accent Group. Therefore, movement was the name of the game.

We packed our slider, monopod, and hand-held camera rig for this shoot, so that we could add movement to otherwise static shots.

As a freelance camera crew, we understand the need for good communication. Whilst it’s important to us that we deliver great-looking footage, we also want our clients and customers to have an easy-going, positive experience with us.

Our first step was to work closely with the director, Ian John, to ensure we understood the brief intimately. Ian is the manager of Ian John Productions, a New Zealand based production house, who had been contracted by Accent Group to produce this video. As Ian had flown to Melbourne for a limited amount of time, our shoot date was fully-booked, requiring us to move quickly and lightly to ensure we got the coverage he needed.

The Shoot

During the shoot, we worked closely with Ian and the Accent Group staff to capture exactly what they needed for their promotional video. The promotional video was focused on their Sketchers brand of shoes, and would feature interviews with Sketchers employees, as well as in-store cutaways.

We recorded the corporate interviews with two cameras. This allows the Accent Group editors to cut between the two cameras and cut out any “umms”, “ahhs”, or stutters during the answers.

Our first camera held the interviewee in an static close-up. This was our master shot for the interview – the bread-and-butter of these set ups! Our second camera recorded the interviewee from side-on, mounted on our slider. As the interviewee answered each question, the camera moved horizontally alongside them. This movement allowed the interview to be more dynamic and visually interesting than an unmoving setup.

We shot two lots of cutaways for Accent Group, both around their Richmond head office, and a variety of their Sketchers stores around Melbourne. We chose to shoot the majority of these cutaways hand-held, as it gave our crew the most freedom to move and frame up interesting shots. We worked closely with Ian to shoot footage that most matched his vision.

The Results

Our camera crew was able to supply Accent Group with beautiful, dynamic footage for their promotional video. We ensured that we backed up all the footage as soon as the shoot was wrapped, and supplied Ian with the rushes well in time for him to catch his flight out of Melbourne.