In 2015 I had the great pleasure of working on a truely unique shoot. One that had all the earmarks of being something epic. Something I could show off to clients for years to come. Little did I know. I was right. but for all the wring reasons.
Lets start from the beginning.
In 2015 I was working regularly with advertising agencies here in Saigon. In particular Grey Global was a regular client.
Grey had a client.. Chivas. of whiskey making fame. Who happened to have their Sponsored Racing Yacht parked in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, for those who are not great with geography. Is not too far from Vietnam. Particularly Nha Trang. A tourism focused coastal city in the southern half of Vietnam.
Nha Trang, known for its waves, and beach life.
Nha Trang is also known for its resorts. Lots and lots of resorts. It is like the Miami of Vietnam.
Someone in Vietnam had the idea to host an event. Showcasing Chivas 18 whisky, The crew of the racing yacht. and the boat itself. All to promote Chivas in Vietnam. On top of that. Chivas Asia wanted to make a commercial video to promote the same interests. Enter Grey Global. 116 Films, and me.
This was only my second time being the support team to a larger production. Normally I would be working on the photography part of a production solo.
But this time around. With the limited availability of a racing yacht sitting in Nha Trang harbour. All teams had to work together to make the magic happen. Over the course of 3 days my assistants and I shot alongside the film crew.
Hopping from small speed boat to small speed boat. Sometimes with the film crew. Other times in our own boat. Trying to catch the yacht as it flew around Nha Trang Harbour.
One would think that photographing something as large as a yacht would be easy. 100% Not so. Not only is the boat moving much faster that you think. The smaller motorboats we were in to catch it were buffetted by waves at every opportunity. Bouncing us up and down like dolls.
Thrown into the mix was a set of Lifestyle images. Meant to show the fancy life you have if you are drinking Chivas 18.
One of these images was a “sunset” shot with all the models. About 10 in total. Having sunset drinks with the ocean in the background.
In Vietnam. that is almost impossible. As Vietnams coastline faces almost exclusively East. So what does one do?
We get everyone up at 4am to be on set for 4:30 to shoot at 5:30 to use Sunrise as Sunset! Brilliant!!
Only one tiny problem. The film crew was working with the models until 2am on the video production. So most of them only got about 2 hours of sleep.
On top of that. Instead of switching the actual whiskey in the glasses for tea or something. The models were drinking actual Chivas 18 pretty much all day!
Which resulted in some… interesting outcomes.
Aside from the general weirdness of the shooting days. We got some great photos out of it.
But we cannot forget the evening work. We were under contract to not only photograph the lifestyle images. But also cover the nightly events! Which meant every evening finishing up on the boat and hauling ass back to the hotel to shower. Then change and run back to the event space on the other side of Nha Trang bay.
As everything was sponsored by Chivas 18 we quite obviously drank nothing but that all week. DUh. To this day if I see a bottle of Chivas 18 I have a Jagermeister moment.
In the end I and the team were very happy with the resulting Photographs.
However, there was one more wrench to be thrown into the works. It turned out. That the Chivas head office in Asia did not get full approval and funding for the project. Due to a misread or not read email.
So after all that hard work. Long hours, Days in the sun. Nights on the beach working while drinking whisky. No one has ever seen the images created on those days.
Except for now. I hope you enjoy them as much as I had making them. The entire project was an eye opening experience and one I would love to repeat.. But maybe this time the photos make it out to the world.
Chivas 18, if you are reading this. Call me. Would love to work together again!
