Neighbourhood Botanicals
Brand Films
Formulator-led natural, organic skincare brand.
Film & photography brand campaign for independent skincare brand Neighbourhood Botanicals. Including a brand story film, a morning routine film & a series of social cuts and assets.
Created as the first project in a series of pro-bono, charity & original content pieces for Gramafilm in a series called ‘Magazine’.
From engineering music to skincare.
Having worked as a touring sound engineer for almost 12 years, Micaela had become tired of the long hours, constant travel and stale toast for breakfast that were all part of life on the road.
She took an online course in skincare formulation and knew straight away that this was for her. A few final tours put enough money in her pocket to set up shop, and now Neighbourhood Botanicals has been her life for the past three years
The Brand Story
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
My Role & challenges
This project was the first for an internal initiative that I spearheaded - called Gramafilm “Magazine”.
This initiative was to create smaller projects that would allow the team to tell different stories, test new creative ideas and to give back to the community.
We wanted to spotlight local small businesses & charities with interesting stories - that usually wouldn’t have the budget to afford our services.
Neighbourhood Botanicals was the first project in the series. I coordinated shoots through Covid-19 lockdowns with testing & precautions being taken. We were able to use this shoot to prepare and test our covid-19 safe working practices for much larger scale client shoots in the years to come.
We also used this opportunity to push our storytelling creatively and stylistically with the use of 16mm film as well as vintage miniDV.
With limited budget I negotiated deals with crew, kit hire & post houses.
Dir/DOP: Tiago Kingwell
MiniDV operator: Me
Editor & Colour: Ross Casswell
Sound: Sound Disposition
16mm Film Process & Scan: Cinelab

