Saigon office – the year in review

Tet, or Lunar New Year , is approaching in Vietnam and if you know the region, you know that this is truly the end of the business year.

We opened the Mott Visuals Saigon office in late 2014 but we fully got it running right after last Tet (February 2015) – so it has been pretty much exactly one year now – a good time to take a look back and see what has happened.

We built up a great team including a full time producer, junior producer and a growing network of freelancers. We also renovated and refurbished the office so it looks pretty sexy now:

View of Mott Visuals Saigon Office

In terms of work we did a wide range of jobs ranging from corporate portrait shoots:

Corporate Portrait for Hafele

to full video productions

This video for Comfort we produced for Ogilvy Vietnam ranked number 3 in the Campaign Viral chart in September 2015.

We did quite some work in the area of food photography

Michelin Star Chef Pierre Gagnaire at Intercon Danang

A colorful desert by chef Gagnaire

as well as Hotel Photography

A comfortable suite at Fortuna Hotel Hanoi

and got commissioned a great Project with Unicef all over Vietnam including photo and video

Christian Berg and Nam Quan in Dien Bien Phu on the Unicef shoot

Tearsheet from People Magazine for Unicef

We supported our Hanoi  team with a video shoot for IHG in Dubai

We danced the night away

Full house at the German Ball Saigon

Ready to sing? at the German Ball Saigon

We shot on land, under water and up in the air

Drone selfie at RMIT Vietnam shoot

What the drone actually captured at RMIT Vietnam shoot

It was an exciting year – we look forward for the year to come!

 

Happy new year of the Monkey!

Christian Berg is a documentary photographer working in Southeast Asia since 2008 – he joined Mott Visuals to run the Saigon Office in 2014 and has since then worked on photo and video shoots all over Southeast Asia and beyond. His work has been published for example in the New York Times and the Wallstreet Journal. For inquiries please contact chris@mottvisuals.com

 

Holiday Inn Maldives Brand Film and Photography

Check out our recent work for IHG shooting video,stills, and aerials at the Holiday Inn Maldives.

Our unique advantage is we handle full production including casting, wardrobe, editing, creative, scripting, etc for our clients creating a one stop shop for all your visuals. Having the same team shoot your video and photography creates a fluid visual style.

Here are some photos for Holiday Inn Maldives:

A little bit of everything – a shoot with Michelin star chef Pierre Gagnaire at Intercon Danang

This was quite a challenging shoot – In a way it combined so many different aspects of photography – travel photography, food photography, portrait photography and event photography – sometimes under extreme time pressure – all over the course of 3 days on different locations around the beautiful Intercontinental Danang Peninsula Resort as well as in the ancient town of Danang.

Our team (Christian Berg and Hoang Anh Nguyen) was hired to cover the visit of multiple times Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire who is now in charge of Intercon Danangs fine dining restaurant La Maison 1888 – a) to support the international Media visiting from as far away as China or Australia, who did not all bring their own photographers b) to document the press visit, different activities and of course chef Gargnaire’s work for Intercon Danang.

On the first day we started joining a trip organized for the visiting journalists to visit a local fish market in Hoi An – a few strong espresso helped everyone to overcome the 4AM start.

In the late afternoon this was followed by tour discovering the amazing street food of Hoi An.

Chef Gagnaire arrived the next day, and as he is a very busy yet incredibly sweet man, we only had a bout 15 minutes to actually take the portraits – this was one of the major challenges – but good preparation, location scouting and our set of profoto lights (link) led to some really nice shots.

Later on we had the chance to cover his work in the Kitchen with his team

And the dinner itself

The assignment ended with a food shoot on the last day (again under extreme time pressure – this time about 30 minutes for 7 dishes) – again planning ahead and profoto lights worked their magic – on top of this the challenge was that the focus was just on the dishes itself on a simple white plate with white background – while this sounds easy it is in fact much more tricky then some of the modern more wild food photos you come across these days. Chef Gagnaire was really happy with the food shots – and in this case this was the most important thing!

 

 

 

Justin Mott Finished Up Filming The Season 2 of Photo Face-Off

Justin Mott just finished filming Season 2 of Photo Face-Off where he was the resident pro photographer. Here are some behind the scenes shots from the past few months. The show is sponsored by Canon PhotoMarathon and airs on History Asia this September.

Latest work of MOTT VISUALS in Ban Phuc Nickel Mine, Son La, Vietnam

Last month, our cinematographer, Colin Elphick has came back from Australia and took in charge a new Mott Visuals Commercial project for Ban Phuc Nickel Mine in Son La, Vietnam. Those BTS shots would help you to know more about our job and its process.

“Ban Phuc Nickel Mine project area is located some 180kms west of Hanoi in Son La province, 80km east of the border with Laos and 150km south of the border with China.” – announced by Mancala.

Colin focusing 100% on his work…

… make sure he would get the most impressive frames for video production.

Our founder Justin Mott featured on PetaPixel

Every career has a reality TV show nowadays, from chefs to pawn brokers, but what about photographers? When I was asked to be the resident photographer on History Asia’s first home grown reality show about photography, Photo Face-Off, I jumped at the chance.

The show is regional only, filming in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Indonesia. It was described to me as Iron Chef meets Amazing Race. The show has essentially made photography a sport and being a competitive dude I love this idea.

I was confident and maybe a little cocky about my skills because I shoot all kinds of professional photography. I’ve shot over 100 assignments for the New York Times all over Asia, and I also run a successful wedding photography and commercial photographybusiness. I’m use to working under pressure and working quickly.

I was a little worried that my looks might hinder my chances at being selected. The producers had only seen my old biography pictures where I had a full head of hair and was decently fat. The updated version of myself was larger and lets say less hair present. I was later told the Advertising Agency was disappointed that my looks didn’t match my picture; you have to love that Asian honesty.

I slammed an afternoon whiskey at my office to loosen up the nerves and had my friend interview me for my audition video.

I’m a goofy dude and that showed, and the next thing you know a tall fat American photographer was put on TV.

The show pits me up against amateur photographers all over the region and is based on the Canon PhotoMarathon, a popular yearly photography contest in most major cities throughout Southeast Asia.

Through the course of an episode I go head to head against the amateur local photographer in 3 different challenges and we use everything from the top of the line DSLR’s to compact cameras. The playing field is leveled by time restrictions and extreme circumstances like having to get a macro shot of bees without wearing protective gloves. I don’t always win and the show humbled me quite a bit.

MOTT History Channel Profile from Mott Visuals on Vimeo.

The show is part entertainment and part education and it caters to any level of interest in photography. After the show was finished, I got to travel to all the Canon PhotoMarathon events in the Southeast Asia and talk about photography. It’s amazing how many people come to these events — there were thousands. I was enthralled about the passion for photography in Southeast Asia; people are so hungry to learn.

Season 1 was a huge success for the network and Season 2 was just given the go ahead. We start filming in Singapore at the end of this month and I can’t wait to compete.