A Production Day at Le Negresco
Right in the heart of Nice, south of France, Le Negresco is a royal jewel waiting to be discovered. During these holidays, together with the SFB Creative team, we produced a holiday video for the brand, with lots of magic. Let me take you through our journey…
You may wonder, what does it take to produce a short film with a high-end hotel such as Le Negresco? Well, it is a lot of back and forth negotiations, creative presentations and overall chemistry between the team that will be producing. The creative team that produces a film like this, is usually a 5 people crew (at least). These include: stylist, videographer, producer, creative producer and a couple of assistants.
How do we make a video one of a kind? It all starts with the creative production, the idea behind the film and the moodboard. A moodboard is a visual representation of everything that inspired you for the film; it includes images of poses, colours, locations and outfits.
When the moodboard is finalized, the team presents this to the client, and we take them through the story. There will always be a few tweaks to make according to the needs of the hotel. In this case, le Negresco wanted to highlight their kid friendly quality, and you will see in the video how wonderful the outcome was! Internally, we say we found the next Leonardo DiCaprio in Louis, the kid model featured in the video.
Once the moodboard is tweaked and finalized, we move forward to scouting models and talent that will fit the ideal persona of the story. This will always be a mix of Instagram research, agency inquiries and your database of friends. Depending on the concept, you will need models with more expertise than others, so be flexible with your budget. Also, another thing to take into account when scouting is location location, location! Depending on your budget, you might want to do a pre-selection of local or near talent first, rather than flying them out from somewhere like Milan or NYC. All this goes the same when you’re looking for your hair and makeup artist. Make sure you scout local talent first, and ask for a book / portfolio before hand to make sure their style aligns with your vision.
By now, we have the producer working on city drone permits (which takes up to three weeks in Nice) and contracts with the hotel, the model and finalizing crew selection. In between, we are negotiating barter agreements for hospitality services for the crew and having meetings with the stylist to ensure the film’s fashion direction.
We are also running around confirming all the props, and anything we need in the shots, such as: balloons, christmas tree, food, etc.
One of the last steps before the big production day, is a shooting schedule. You can create this on an excel doc, outlining the crew information, arrange shots based on availability of rooms (locations) desired. For example, in this case we needed the hotel’s concierge as part of the video, so we had to schedule those shots based on his work-schedule. Also, write down any comments or details in addition such as props or outfits per frame. Consider that It usually takes 15/25 min per frame and outfit changes. If you want a hair and make up style change, allow for more time.
When the schedule is good to go, we have a creative team meeting to be ready for the big day. This day it is a MUST to have an on set producer, this role can also be filled by the creative producer who ideated the concept. Why do you need a producer? We need to make sure the entire team is on time, that the schedule is being followed, that the hotel is happy with our work, and that all the contracts and agreements have been finalized by the time the shooting starts.
Something very important to keep in mind in your schedule and throughout the day is if your concept includes a sunrise or sunset shot. You only have a few minutes for that perfect golden moment; and as you can see, we had lots of luck capturing that sunset moment. What do you think?
So, that was our 3 month work road that lead us to the 15th of December, a magical (and exhausting) shooting day at Le Negresco. Our call time was at 7 AM and we finalized it all by 7PM. The total video then took about 4 days to edit and deliver and it was right on time for Le Negresco to showcase their holiday spirit and show off their luxurious one of a kind rooms.
Check out the teaser of the final video below.
SFB Creative team. Videographer, David Hatters. Stylist, Schanel Bakkouche. Creative Producer, Mariana Valle-Mesen. On set producer, Myriam Zahmani. Model, Alisson Malfroy. Kid, Louis M., Enjoy Models Management. Hair & Make up, Morgane Jackson.
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