Port of Savannah at Sunset - Evening of the Social
Corporate Annual Meeting - Savannah, GA
Brief
This project is a corporate Annual Meeting in Savannah, Georgia, for an international company headquartered in Spain. Client requested photography and video. Coverage began the evening before with a social gathering for executives and shareholders, followed the next morning by the Annual Meeting itself and a tour of the company's logistics warehouse. I handled photography and video, with a second videographer on site to cover multiple angles throughout the event.
Challenge
This project was first discussed roughly seven months out, following a series of video conferences to plan coverage of the social gathering, Annual Meeting, and logistics warehouse tour, along with a follow-up video production series to showcase the client's product for marketing purposes. Thirty days before the event, a leadership change within the company shifted the plan significantly — the video production series was cut, and a live video feed of the Annual Meeting was considered and ultimately replaced with a packaged video for attendees instead. Additional last-minute changes followed as new personnel came on board with their own creative direction. Staying flexible and adjusting quickly to a moving scope, while still delivering a polished final product, was central to this project's success.
Approach
During initial planning, I recommended a branded backdrop for the social gathering to strengthen the images for the client's social media use; the client sourced their own to match corporate branding guidelines. I brought my custom travel studio lighting kit for the shoot. The drive to Savannah presented its own challenge — Hurricane Helene had recently passed through, leaving downed trees, power outages, and water service disruptions along the route between Atlanta and Savannah. On site, tight parking at the social event's restaurant meant relying on an unloading zone to move equipment efficiently, and limited parking near the hotel required valet service for the first time on a project, given the seven cases of camera and video equipment involved. Throughout the social, Annual Meeting, and warehouse tour, I handled still photography while the second videographer captured video simultaneously; once stills were complete, I moved into video coverage as well. Aerial drone footage required only one of us to capture.
Result
Select photographs were delivered the same day, as planned in advance with the client, for their social media use. I also produced a packaged video of the event, provided to all attendees, and both the video and photographs were later featured on the company's corporate website to showcase the Annual Meeting for shareholders who could not attend in person.