Selling a studio that did not exist yet.
SELFOGRAPHY STUDIO INC. — 2024
Selfography brought a Hong Kong self-portrait studio concept to Vancouver — a category the city had never seen. Aflak Media was hired to launch it: one hero film and six commercials, written, cast, built and shot before the studio itself was finished.
CLIENT
Selfography Studio Inc.
SCOPE
Commercial Film · Scripting & Casting · Set Design & Build · Post Production
YEAR
2024 · Campaign launch January 2025
DIVISION
Aflak Media
What we built, and why it mattered.
01 - OVERVIEW
CLIENT
Selfography Studio Inc. — self-serve photography studio, consumer retail
3 weeks pre-production · 1 day principal photography (21 November 2024) · post delivered within 2 weeks
TIMELINE
SERVICES APPLIED
Pre-production · Scripting · Casting · Location scouting · Set design & build · On-set direction of talent · Film production · Post-production editing · Post-build creative consultation · Lighting design for activation booths
TEAM ON GROUND
Full crew — Director, DOP, Gaffer, Grip/LX, DIT, Set Designer, Scripty, Producer, Production Assistant. 8 cast members recruited from across Metro Vancouver.
Selfography came to Aflak on a referral from an existing client. The reason given was specific: Aflak builds narratives from scratch. Selfography needed exactly that. The self-serve portrait studio — a fixture of Hong Kong, where guests shoot themselves in a private, professionally lit room with a remote in hand — had no equivalent in Vancouver. There was no category to advertise into. There were only questions: who is this for, what would you use it for, and what actually happens when you walk in.
Aflak was engaged to produce a hero brand film and six scenario commercials covering the studio's core use cases — couples, graduations, families with young children, professional headshots, pets, and solo shoots. The complication was that none of it could be filmed on location, because the location was a construction site. So Aflak designed and built the set: a working depiction of the finished studio, staged not as a backdrop but as a user flow — collecting the remote, checking in at the tablet, retrieving photographs, the cloakroom, the amenities. Visual reference was drawn from Monography Toronto, the closest North American analogue. Everything else was made.
THE CHALLENGE
Three problems arrived at once. The studio was not built, so there was nothing to photograph. The category was unknown in Canada, so the audience had no reference point for what they were being sold. And the client had no brand recognition to borrow from — nobody had heard of Selfography. The campaign therefore had to do three jobs at the same time: explain a concept, sell a business, and depict a space that existed only in drawings. It also had to hold a hard delivery date before the end of 2024 for a public launch in mid-January 2025, and it had to keep working long after that launch. It still runs today, more than a year on.
How we moved from brief to delivery.
02 - THE APPROACH
Three weeks, and the work was won here. Aflak wrote seven scripts — one hero film at 45 seconds and six scenario spots at 30 — then broke them into a 40-shot list keyed scene by scene, so a single studio day could yield seven standalone films rather than seven shoot days. Eight cast members were recruited from across Metro Vancouver to cover the six use cases. Two days went to technical scouting: nine locations across the region assessed before one was locked. The set designer built out the studio interior from Selfography's construction plans, deliberately staging the amenities and the check-in journey rather than just the backdrop, so the film would teach the concept while selling it. Music was licensed and voiceover scripted before the camera moved.
01
ROOT · PRE-PRODUCTION
One day, 21 November 2024, full crew on the floor — Director, DOP, Gaffer, Grip/LX, DIT, Set Designer, Scripty, Producer and PA. Aflak's creative team directed the talent directly; none of the cast were performers who arrived knowing the product, because the product had no precedent. Two camera bodies ran in parallel — a Sony A7 IV framing vertical for social, a Nikon Z6 on an external recorder framing landscape — so every scene was captured in both aspect ratios at the moment of performance rather than reframed or reshot later. Six scenarios, 92 clips, roughly 164 GB of footage and 1,546 stills, in a single day.
02
BLOOM · PRODUCTION
Delivery landed within two weeks. Seven films were cut, colour-corrected, audio-mixed and finished with motion graphics and overlay typography that carried the explanatory load — pricing, amenities, the walk-in promise — in vertical and horizontal versions for social and wider platforms. More than 1,500 final files were handed over ahead of the end-of-2024 deadline, in time for the public campaign to open in mid-January 2025.
03
HARVEST · POST-PRODUCTION
Aflak's involvement did not end at delivery. Once the studio was physically built, Aflak ran a creative consultation with the Selfography team and produced a roadmap for the equipment and shooting workflows to be used inside the space — so that what guests actually experienced matched what the films had promised. Aflak then designed the lighting maps for Selfography's public-facing activation booths, pop-ups placed outside major events where the public could try the concept free of charge. Every booth layout was different and every booth ran on Selfography's own in-house gear, so each lighting plan was drawn to the specific space and kit: where each fixture sat, what it did, and how to keep the result consistent with the brand the films had established.
OPTIONAL FOURTH PHASE · DISTRIBUTION, AMPLIFICATION, OR FOLLOW THROUGH
04
What the work produced, in numbers.
03 - THE RESULTS
926,019
Views across the campaign
6,000+
Social followers accumulated
SOLD OUT
Bookings, first 3 weeks of opening
7
Films delivered — 1 hero, 6 commercials
What was produced.
04 - DELIVERABLES
HERO BRAND FILM
FILM
5-second launch film introducing the concept, the space and the user journey. Delivered vertical and horizontal for social and wider platforms.
SIX SCENARIO COMMERCIALS
FILM
30-second spots covering the studio's core use cases — couples, graduation, family with baby, professional headshots, pets and solo shoots. Each cut vertical and horizontal, scripted to stand alone or run as a set.
PHOTOGRAPHY LIBRARY
PHOTO
1,500-plus final files delivered, curated by use case, with selects woven through their corresponding films and the strongest frames carried into the hero cut.
PRODUCTION
SET DESIGN & BUILD
A full studio interior designed and constructed from the client's construction plans, staged to depict the finished space and its user flow — remote collection, tablet check-in, photo retrieval, cloakroom and amenities.
LOCATION SCOUTING REPORT
CUSTOM
Two days of technical scouting across nine Metro Vancouver locations, assessed and narrowed to the final build site.
STUDIO WORKFLOW ROADMAP
CUSTOM
Post-build creative consultation with the Selfography team: recommended equipment and in-studio shooting workflows for the operating business.
ACTIVATION BOOTH LIGHTING MAPS
CUSTOM
Bespoke lighting plans for Selfography's public-facing trial booths at major events — fixture placement and layout drawn per booth, adapted to the client's in-house equipment.
PLANT THE FIRST SEED
Let’s build yours
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