Behind the scenes - Praisenme video shoot

First of all, this video shoot was so much fun to work on! I've known the founder of Praisenme for some time now and knew we would inevitably get together to create something unique as she prepared to launch her organic skincare brand in New Zealand. So was chuffed when we got together and locked it in. For those who haven't heard of Praisenme before, here's a little background about the company that I grabbed from their website.

PRAISENME is bigger than a natural and organic skincare brand. Inspired by brands like FENTY, we have hopes and dreams of being a part of the culture shift in the beauty industry to represent all people. Our products are designed for our customers to take a moment to indulge deeply in self-care, to relax, unwind and dream on the daily.

Founder, Waiaria Putaranui, named her brand after her 7-year-old cousin, Praise, who has a real input into the business and who she finds inspiration from. "Her energy, eagerness to learn and her need to be constantly challenged, inspires me to do what I do… I want to show her that our dreams are real and valid and that we can do whatever we put our mind to. Even when the odds are stacked hugely against us"

The brief was simple: to create a promotional video to accompany the launch of their website, that celebrated the body and showcased her customers' feeling of using their organic body tanning oil. I have been lucky enough to experience golden hour out at Bethell's Beach before, so when we locked in the creative direction of the video project, I knew Bethell's would be an ideal shooting location.

There was quite the crew for this shoot. We had a stylist (Alex Blaze), a photographer (Seth Siope), a close friend of ours to help with setting up (Mereaira Jones), 2x models (Jaycin Tini & Brooke Evaga) and the founder herself, Waiaria. We all made our way down the beach and straight to the dunes to get stuck in, as the sun had started setting, and we were in that golden hour timeframe. I tried to keep the footage as natural as possible, so I gave the girls some basic direction and started filming. As I said, we did get lucky with the weather, as the crux of the shoot was to show empowered women shining in the golden glow of the sun, we tried to let the girls experiment with different location on the beach, and compositions for the photographer to shoot. Because the lighting was so on point, I just ended up filming everything I could as the girls were doing their thing, which made editing a little more time-intensive but made for more natural moments between photo positions.

After editing the footage, it was nice to look back at the raw footage and see the genuine fun we all had that day. The photographer and I made sure to show the girls the shots we were getting as we were getting them, encouraging them to try new frame compositions and more movement collectively. It also allowed us all to share in the excitement together as we were all so happy with the direction of the content as we were filming. It's something I will definitely be bringing to future promo shoots like this.

I might sound kind of cheesy too, but I'm just really stoked to be working on a video project in these early stages of Kiwiana Videography, including a diverse group of people. Working with a Maori start up on a video that's goal is to show the beauty of these Maori models embracing their bodies whilst using the Praisenme products was a real privilege to be a part of, and I hope it helps me secure more video work on other diverse projects in the future.

The behind the scenes video edit was just as fun to edit as the full cinematic video itself, so I hope you enjoy watching what it felt like to be there that golden Sunday evening out at Bethells beach. I’ll be dropping the full video in the next couple of weeks, so make sure to keep an eye out on my social channels. And If you have a spare moment too, head over to her website by clicking on the image below and support local NZ.

Over & out.

- Scotty