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What it takes to run a large-scale photography and film production for a luxury brand
A Gaggenau case study
Over the past year, we’ve produced five separate projects for Gaggenau, working the entire time with the same marketing agency, Lime Creative, who first found us through our organic social media content rather than a pitch. That relationship now spans a campaign shot between Spain and Germany, two documentary-style films at Gaggenau’s Lipsheim factory, and interior photography and film for two flagship showrooms in Amsterdam and Paris. What it’s become is a working case study in what it actually takes to produce at this level for a luxury brand, repeatedly, without the quality slipping or the relationship fraying. And what’s evident is that a brand like Gaggenau needs more from a luxury brand photography and film partner than good imagery alone.
Being led by expertise, without losing control
A brand at Gaggenau’s level doesn’t want a vendor waiting for instructions, but it also wants a say in how it’s represented. They want a partner confident enough to lead the creative direction, while still keeping them genuinely informed and involved at every stage. That balance starts at concepting, before a single frame is shot, where the brief gets shaped collaboratively rather than handed down or guessed at. The projects that work best are where there is a shared trust between the brand and the creative producer.
Clarity before flexibility
Every project starts with a clear scope: what’s being delivered, in what formats, and on what timeline. That clarity is what makes flexibility possible later. When the Perfect Climate shoot had to move between a vineyard in Spain and a showroom in Germany, built entirely around winemaker Elias López Montero’s own schedule rather than ours, we could adapt without the project drifting, because the deliverables were never in question.
That same clarity has to leave room for the creative itself to change mid-process. Edit style, sound mixing, titles, sometimes the story a film is telling, can all shift as a project evolves, and that’s not a planning failure, it’s the nature of the work. We almost always shoot more material than the brief strictly calls for, so those changes have something to draw on rather than forcing a reshoot. On the vineyard shoot, that meant testing several different endings before landing on the one that worked.
Communication that doesn’t drop off once the crew arrives on set.
Keeping the wider team informed throughout a shoot, not just before and after it, is what lets a large brand trust a production it isn’t standing in the room for. That mattered on the Engineer’s Story shoot at Gaggenau’s Lipsheim factory, where a documentary profile of engineer Remy Diringer ran alongside a second, separately styled product film for the Minimalistic Series launch, shot in the same window. Two deliverables, two sets of decisions, one production moment.
That’s much more efficiently managed with dedicated project management in house. Most independent photographers or videographers can shoot beautifully, but it can be harder to run the relationship: keeping every stakeholder aligned, managing a shifting schedule, making the small calls a shoot day throws up without stopping to ask permission for each one. For a brand where a project’s complexity scales well beyond the shoot itself, that’s often what decides who they work with.
One in-house team, not a coalition of freelancers.
We shoot photography and film with the same team, not separate vendors stitched together. On the Amsterdam Showroom project, that meant one crew handling wide spatial photography, close product detail, and video in a single visit, working primarily with available light and controlling reflections across glass and steel by hand rather than compositing them out later. Being in-house end to end is what lets us hold one visual identity across a project instead of reconciling two studios’ instincts afterward, and what makes timelines genuinely manageable: no handoff between teams, no schedule built around two different availabilities
Formats built for how the work will actually be used
A single shoot rarely produces one asset anymore. The Lipsheim factory access alone became two distinct films built for different purposes. A showroom shoot needs to serve retail, PR and social simultaneously, each with different crops, lengths and pacing, so planning for that upfront is what makes a large production efficient rather than just large.
Gaggenau’s own final deliverables move between wide showroom overviews, tight product close-ups, longer cinematic films, and short-form video, each shaped for a different eventual use. That’s not always finished when the scope says it is, either. Sometimes a brand’s needs shift after delivery, a new format or an extra cut becomes necessary depending on where the assets end up being used, and staying available for that, while still respecting the original scope, is something clients like Gaggenau genuinely value.
Visuals that have to earn a brand’s trust
None of the above matters if the work doesn’t look the part. Take the two Lipsheim films: a factory floor isn’t inherently cinematic, but Gaggenau’s visuals have to be, because aesthetics and precision are what the brand is built on. Engineer’s Story tells that story through a person, Remy Diringer, framed like the subject of a documentary. The Crafting of an Icon tells the same underlying story, the craftsmanship at the core of the Expressive series, through process instead: extreme close-ups, macro shots, raw metal pressed, cut and hand-sanded under dramatic lighting, no narrator required. Two different visual stories, built from the same access, because craftsmanship is the thing Gaggenau is actually known for, and therefore it deserves to be shown at its best.
We’re currently working on a second showroom project in Paris, applying the same approach.
For a brand at Gaggenau’s level, none of this works as a one-off. It’s the result of a year of the same team showing up, learning the brand’s standards, and being trusted to apply them.
If you’re a brand considering what a production partnership like this could look like, see more of our brand work or get in touch.
