YOUR NEXT SHOOT with annabelle moore
Your Next Shoot is my interview-lead blog, where I speak to a different professional in the film, TV and commercial industry. You’ll get to hear the ins and outs of 🎥 📸 sets, from absolute horrors to the most insanely fun (& stressful) shoots to work on, all whilst expanding your network of the UK’s top freelance talent.
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I’d like to introduce my second guest, an old colleague and work friend, Annabelle Moore. We worked together at LADbible a few years ago; Annabelle project managing and client servicing the campaigns I produced with brands such as Disney and Kia.
Annabelle has now ventured into consulting and freelancing after 12 years working with magazines, agencies and social publishers. She started out in events; organising gigs and charity fundraisers whilst she was still at school.
She gained experience interning whilst studying, and worked at the Loch Ness, Secret Garden Party and Lovebox festivals organising VIP parties, gifting and stage managing activities such as jelly wrestling and haggis and Irn-Bru eating competitions. Volunteering at Sundance Film Festival in London planted the first seed of contacts that grew into the network she has today.
Eventually, she accepted a full-time role at a magazine that had previously tasked her to run weekly live music nights and manage their Alternative Escape Festival stage.
“That was my first Account Manager role. It was super hybrid as I worked across loads of events and produced all the shoots, including a monthly advertorial for a sports magazine. We did Kangol’s first ever clothing collaboration in its 85-year history with the streetwear brand Terrible Movement. The clothing line was sold at a pop-up in Box Park. At the time, it was the most successful event Box Park had.”
The company was very small, just Annabelle, a few writers and the co-founder of the magazine. Everyone else was freelancers so the role meant juggling a lot of spinning plates.
“That’s why I quite like working for smaller places because then you get that hands-on experience. It was really fun… until it went to shit!”
As much as Annabelle enjoyed the variety of the role, the company faced a lot of financial difficulties, so they completely closed down the business and she was unfortunately made redundant. Not the best introduction to the working world, but it lit a fire in Annabelle to mix it up between events and shoots in her career moving forward.
“[Before I moved to London for uni], I didn’t have any contacts and I was struggling to get a job that wasn’t an internship. I didn’t know much about the advertising industry or that account handling or client services was even a thing. It was a whole industry I didn’t know much about because I wasn’t taught about it at school. It never seemed like a viable option, but [at the magazine] I learned more about how advertising works. I love the buzzing feeling you get working on events, so I thought I could get that with shoots but on a smaller, less stressful scale.”
“I used to think working at events like Glastonbury would be amazing, but now I think, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I could do it!’ That’s not to say that I couldn’t, but there’s so many factors to consider. Events are incredible, and they are made by incredible people, but they are so big and there’s so much paperwork! It doesn’t sound that sexy but the most important stuff you have to deal with is the paperwork. It was a lot to take in and I enjoy events, but I realised I didn’t want it to be my only career and my skills were transferable.”
Public safety is the top of everyone’s priority in events, not too dissimilar to the Producer’s priorities on a film or photography set. Health and safety is the fairy at the top of the Christmas tree. Learning these processes enabled Annabelle to move into client servicing and project managing at a music marketing agency, working on a VIP corporate and consumer hospitality trip to Ibiza, hosting unique experiences for competition winners, DJs and club owners and then partying with them afterwards. In 2018 she moved into the social video space when she started working at LADbible, building her portfolio of branded content campaigns before moving onto rainbow pastures at GAY TIMES in 2021.
“The piece of work I’m probably most proud of was for Voltarol [a pain relief gel]. This might not sound too exciting, but they’re a great example of a brand that really supports and cares for the LGBTQ+ community as they’ve been working with GT for about four years and the scale and complexity of the campaigns have grown year on year. It was a collaboration with Channel 4.
We created a documentary and TVC about a queer boxer who was on her way to becoming an Olympic champion and a trans boxer who’s boxing club sadly closed down due to lack of funding, so they can’t stay open anymore. It explored both their personal journeys, emphasising the importance of LGBTQ+ safe spaces in sports. Sport often is an outlet for people and a way to get away from everyday life, but then there are times when actually those places aren’t safe anymore. All groups should be open and available to people from any background or belief, but sadly this doesn’t always happen and minority groups often feel unwelcome. That’s why it was great to amplify and support minority voices and stories, especially across a platform as big as Channel 4.”
“It was possibly the most diverse crew I’ve ever worked with, it was amazing to see such incredible representation across the board. The cast and client had such great feedback and that’s testament to the incredible group of people who brought it all together. I’m so happy it won and was nominated for lots of industry awards.”
Representing diversity within my crew is now always in my mind when building my team, but I find it can be really difficult sometimes to not only find people who are available for your dates, but who are also approved by the Heads of Departments. It is those HOD’s that ultimately have final say over who is in their team, as they naturally fall under their responsibility.
I find that many Directors, Photographers, DOP’s and Gaffers already have their trusted, close-knit teams that they like to work with - which is understandable when you need to know you can count on your peers to do the job quickly, correctly, and with a good attitude. But this shouldn’t be an excuse for not giving other, also deserving people those same opportunities.
I have had experiences in the past where I’ve asked my HOD’s to consider diversity in their crew and I’ve either received the cold shoulder, or a flat out refusal to even accept the job unless I book their team too. It’s unbelievably obnoxious to think there aren't any other talented people out there who could do the job to the same standard. We should all be doing our part to help bridge the divide. I’m now in a POC and a LGBTQ+ Whatsapp group for people working in the film industry so that I have access to such groups for resourcing. If there are any other Producers out there that would like to be added to these groups - give me a DM!
Following our rant, and getting back to the interview, I asked Annabelle what has been her most challenging job to date. She’s had a few.
“At LAD I had two really difficult campaigns back to back. One of them was very complex because I was managing all of the internal teams, around nine different internal departments and the client, media, PR and talent agencies. It was my first shoot with celebrity talent and also of this complexity and scale. It needed to go live two weeks after we’d been briefed and we had to write and storyboard ten different scripts. When I say scripts, it was also for Instagram Stories which we had to board out too.
The production time was insane, what should have been 2-3 weeks editing time had to be done over a weekend. We pulled out all the stops we possibly could working over the weekend, late nights.. And in the end, they pushed back the deadline the day it was due to go live…”
Managing difficult clients is something I’ve always struggled with. Confrontation is not my forte. I asked Annabelle for advice on how to approach these hard conversations.
“Kill them with kindness. A lot of the time you have to put on a happy face, be as understanding as possible but also firm. Understand where clients are coming from, because often they just want to rant. They have a lot of pressure internally and can be overstretched, so I just try to think, ‘Ok, why are they acting like this? How can I make this better? How can I get them back on side?’ Saying you understand their frustrations and offering solutions helps, but also knowing your project and your team well enough to explain why their requests might be unreasonable and being able to rationalise why things might be different to how they expected. Chatting with them on the phone is always better as details and tone often get miscommunicated over email.”
Deep breaths, do yoga, tomorrow is a new day. Having a glass of wine helps! I asked Annabelle what her biggest gripes are on set.
“... Having a clear chain of command when communicating with clients is super important. I’ve had clients who tried to direct the talent before, completely bypassing me, the Producer and Director, so knowing who they should speak to if they want something re-shot needs to be really clear. If the Director and Producer can make the client feel like they are a part of the process and have regular check-ins with them on set really helps them feel at ease and in control. If there’s been a particularly tricky pre-production, sometimes there’s a crew vs client dynamic which you have to try to diffuse as much as possible, so bringing the client on the creative and production journey and making them feel included really helps. That's not to say they can demand whatever they want, it's just making sure they feel comfortable with what’s being shot.”
My personal favourite coming up… best set stories.
“A silly one that's kind of embarrassing is when I did a big tech party at Cannes Lion. We had performers that were quite famous, and part of my job was client servicing but also artist liaison. One of the things on the rider was XL condoms!
I was like: ‘Do we actually have to get these?!’ I was told to buy them just in case, as it was probably a test to check we had read the whole rider properly.”
Just casually out on the table next to the fruit and the water. One their five-a-day.
“And then I suppose our [referring to mine and Annabelle’s] crazy festival shoot. That was one that definitely taught us how to think on our feet! We had to film and go live with an asset in the first 24 hours of us arriving, but our tiny crew of four all had horrendous hotel WIFI, so trying to wrangle footage was so difficult. We had to get up at 5am to drive to the festival press tent to use their WIFI to desperately sort it before the client arrived on-site. My phone didn’t have reception the entire four days we were there, so I had to keep borrowing people’s phones to communicate with the client and agency to get the shots signed off. You then got ill, so I stepped in as Producer and drove around frantically filming multiple locations before the sun set. The only evening we could watch bands and relax, we were just too exhausted. By the time we got back to the hotel, they stopped serving food and there were no food deliveries open, so we just ordered Dominos and drank Rattlers cider outside the local off-licence!”
It’s funny I’d forgotten about all those moments until she brought it up. Sweet memories. Concluding our interview, I asked Annabelle to pay it forward and recommend a standout professional in our industry, and to give some worldly advice to Junior Account Execs.
“I worked closely with Sophie Christophersen when we were both perm at GAY TIMES, including the Voltarol shoot; she’s now an amazing freelance Producer. She’s a co-owner of an end-to-end production and post-production company. They set up an LGBTQ+ film and production Whatsapp group and Instagram page called Queer Lens. I’ve never met anyone as unflappable as Sophie!”
“Pav Grewal has the most incredible energy (and filthiest laugh!) that will light up any room. I met her when I joined LADbible and she was freelancing as an Account Director. We then reconnected years later when we needed an extra pair of hands at GAY TIMES and she joined us for a few months. She embodies everything a great client services person should be, champions diversity wherever she can and really cares about everybody she comes in contact with. You cannot not love Pav!”
“I’d also love to recommend Rebecca Hallifax. She’s a multilingual media operations and production specialist who’s worked across loads of the Olympic Games. I met her when I was doing Sundance Film Festival. She also runs the volunteer programmes for The Great Escape and does artist liaison and stage management for international festivals. She is such a fun person to work with, great energy and has the most incredible CV.”
“My advice for people getting into client services or project management is try to be as positive and friendly as you can. You’re the one who’s job is to keep the project together and when you've got a really tricky client or campaign that no one looks forward to working on, you’ve got to keep motivating the team, keeping morale up.
I think praising people for their hard work is really important. Telling people individually they’ve done a good job, telling the wider team, telling their manager. It’s often underrated but it's such an easy thing to keep spirits up, because people work so hard and such long hours in this industry and they often aren't given the praise that they deserve.”
“Also, learning how to stand your ground and knowing your limits. I realise this is hard if you’re new to the industry as you’re unsure what you should be able to complete within your eight hour working day and you can sneakily have work piled on you and end up juggling multiple people's jobs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help. It doesn’t mean you’re weak or not good at your job. I wish I’d ask for help earlier in some of my roles as it led me to complete burnout, and no job is worth that level of stress.”
“A last note, and back to our previous rant, try to champion diversity wherever you can, you wouldn’t believe how many people still don’t consider this, especially when sending casting options. Yet diversity applies to all areas of a business. Try to champion neuro-diversity too - think about how other people may work or think. How can you support them to be the best version of themselves?”
To contact Annabelle or her recommendations, follow the links below.
Freelance CS + PM/ Consultant - Annabelle Moore
Freelance Producer - Sophie Christophersen
Freelance PM/ Media Ops - Rebecca Hallifax
Freelance PM/ CS - Pavanjit Grewal
