We Produced a Promotional Video for S.R.Leather to Screen at LINEAPELLE 2024

Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Sheena.

Out of the blue: have you ever traveled abroad?
Booking flights and hotels months ahead, packing your clothes…
It's usually an exciting event.

This time, though, was different for me.
All of a sudden, I had to go to Indonesia (Yogyakarta, to be exact) for work!

Early December 2023

The boss: "You might be heading to Indonesia at the start of next month."

Me: "?!"

When I asked for details, it turned out that
"S.R.Leather, which is exhibiting at LINEAPELLE, an event held twice a year in Italy, wants a video to show at their booth."
Since I can shoot video, I was the one chosen for the job.

S.R.Leather is a company that produces leather.
Conventional leather production ranks fifth among causes of environmental pollution, consuming huge amounts of water and discharging waste such as sludge.
It also harms the health of factory workers.
S.R.Leather has solved these problems: it produces no lime sludge, uses 1/100 of the water, and has drastically shortened production time.
Its factory is also designed with workers' health in mind, and it's really clean!
*That's seriously impressive, right?!

So the request was: "Please film the local factory and the natural surroundings."

So sudden!
But first things first, we needed a meeting with the client.

We rushed to line up a meeting date.

Mid-December 2023

Mid-December already?!
The exact dates weren't set, and we hadn't booked a flight, let alone a hotel…
Would we make it in time…?

But first, the meeting!

We worked out the specific schedule and video content with the client.
- The message they wanted to convey
- The look of the video
- Shooting dates, etc.

In the end, the request was
"We want a clean image that shows our care for the environment."

We decided to hold another meeting to flesh out the content.
*Of course, even between meetings we kept aligning on the content via messages and Google Docs.

Late December 2023

Late December?!

This is bad, really bad…
We still hadn't booked the hotel or flights!!

So we hurried to book a hotel and flights.
After aligning the shooting dates with the client, we settled on leaving Japan on January 4 and returning on January 10.
*I only speak Japanese, so I went with a colleague who also speaks English (BINGE).
*And since it was a business trip, it was all on expenses. Awesome!!

Despite all the chaos, the shooting plan came together.
*The plan: build the video around explanations from S.R.Leather staff, cut in footage of the factory and Indonesia's natural scenery, and use infographics to make it easy to understand visually.

January 4, 2024

And we're off!!

There was a small mishap during our transfer, but we arrived safely!!

*Why is there a dinosaur at the airport?

We left on the night of the 4th and arrived around noon on the 5th.
My whole body was stiff.

But from there, we headed to the factory for a final meeting with the S.R.Leather team at the shooting location!

It was the rainy season in Indonesia, so it looked like we could only shoot from morning to late afternoon, which meant a 4 a.m. wake-up the next day.

*As in the photo below, it rained almost without fail every evening.

January 6, 2024

And so, shooting started early in the morning!

We filmed the sunrise,

and the natural scenery.

A few things came up, but we wrapped the day's shoot safely!
But of course, not everything goes according to plan…

January 7, 2024

"You can't film the factory."
Oh no. Now we had to change not just the shooting schedule but the direction of the whole video…

But time was limited!!
We just had to keep shooting!!

We set up lavalier mics to film a staff member explaining S.R.Leather, arranged the lighting and positions, moved on to capture more natural scenery like the day before, and so on…

We did the very best we could with what we had!!

All in all, it was a hectic day.

*Totally unrelated, but the food in Indonesia was delicious!

January 8, 2024

We headed out to shoot on this day too, which we had set aside as a backup!
*I'm so glad we planned a backup day!!

We reshot the staff explanation parts we wanted to redo and went to film the ocean. It was busy, but we finished early and even got to do a little sightseeing in Indonesia!!

We also visited a place selling batik paintings by Indonesian artists!

January 9, 2024

Sadly, it was time to go home…

After saying our last goodbyes to everyone who had looked after us, we headed home!!
Goodbye, Yogyakarta!!

January 10, 2024

We made it home safely, and then it was time to edit!
*The editing and delivery part is boring, so I'll skip it…
Honestly, there's just nothing much to write about!

So that's how I ended up going abroad on very short notice, but I had a great time working!
I'd love to go again! For work! Boss!!

Please!!!!!!

And BINGE, who came with me: thank you so much!
Because I can't speak English, I relied on you for everything at the airport and beyond…!

See you again somewhere!!