On the Other Side of the Camera
11 minutes ago
7 min read
Haziyah Azalmey usually writes about the work after it happens. Two days with AICREATIVV’s media team gave her the chance to see what goes into making it in the first place.
As AICREATIVV’s Marketing Lead, Haziyah Azalmey spends a lot of time thinking about what happens after the work is made. A completed production becomes a portfolio piece, a story for the Journal, a feature in Spellbook or something worth sharing on LinkedIn. She thinks about how people might respond to it, what parts of the story are worth telling and, eventually, the views, clicks and engagement that follow. Production itself wasn't completely foreign to her. She had made videos as a student and occasionally caught glimpses of the media team working on internal shoots around the office. She knew shoots were carefully planned and understood, at least generally, what went into them. What she hadn't done was spend enough time on a client production to properly observe how the team worked.
That changed rather suddenly when Imamull decided she would spend two days joining the media team to document the behind-the-scenes of a Frost Haus production. There was no long preparation period or particular production skill Haziyah had decided she wanted to master. In fact, she only found out the night before. But unfamiliar situations have often been where she finds herself learning the most, so her first goal was simply to observe, absorb and figure out how to fit into an environment very different from her usual one.
More Than Pressing Record
The difference became obvious almost as soon as Raf Zaini picked her up from the office. For one, Haziyah was no longer glued to her desk. More importantly, the kind of content being produced around her was very different from the marketing videos she was accustomed to making. AICREATIVV’s internal fun content can be deliberately spontaneous: she sees an opportunity to catch the team off guard, takes out a camera and starts recording. Sometimes the entire operation is just Haziyah and one other person. A client advertisement, on the other hand, left considerably less room for improvisation.
Everything had been considered much further in advance, from the scripts and storyboards to lighting, set design, sound and the movements of the talent within a scene. Haziyah had always expected professional production to be technical, but seeing it happen in front of her gave that word a different meaning. Her student experience had taught her a much simpler formula: get a camera, find someone who knows how to edit and have a good-enough writer. Now, she finally understood why professional productions needed so many people. There wasn't just one job happening behind the camera.
“They’re really good at realising and executing visions that began as a sketch or a notepad scribble.”
Some of the smallest details became the most revealing. She watched the team carry lights around and diffuse them with cloth until the ambience was right. She learned more about blocking and why exactly where someone stands or moves can matter. She saw how carefully the crew prepared for moments that couldn't easily be repeated, including a talent dunking himself into an ice bath. If there was only one good opportunity to capture something, the team needed to be ready for it, with safety shots recorded wherever possible. Even some of the moments that eventually appear candid on screen, she realised, required much more intention than audiences would ever know.
Learning How the Machine Works
What interested Haziyah just as much as the equipment was the way the people around it worked together. She is accustomed to handling much of her own work independently, so seeing the media team operate almost instinctively as a unit was unfamiliar. At one point, the set required near-complete silence. There were barely any whispers between crew members; instructions were communicated through eye contact and hand signals instead. To Haziyah, they looked like a well-oiled machine, with everyone understanding their responsibility and adjusting quickly whenever something didn't go according to plan.
Finding her own place within that machine took a little longer. Her main responsibility was documenting the preparations, interviews and smaller behind-the-scenes moments that the rest of the crew couldn't capture while occupied with their respective roles. Ironically, filming wasn't the part that made her feel most like a member of the production. That happened when someone asked her to help switch the fans on and off. It was a tiny job, but after spending much of the day observing, Haziyah was simply happy to have something hands-on to contribute. In her head, the moment felt like an episode of Chowder: “Helpful! Yay, helpful!”
The less comfortable part was having to approach people. Haziyah's job already involves what she affectionately describes as “bothering people”, usually when she needs information for something she's writing. On set, there was nowhere to hide behind a message. Capturing BTS meant spontaneously stopping crew members and talents to ask questions, something that didn't come naturally to someone who doesn't consider herself particularly sociable around new people. Even though she was technically the one putting everyone else on the spot, she somehow felt like the pressure was on her instead. It was awkward, unfamiliar and exactly the kind of experience she had been sent there to have.
From the Other Side
While Haziyah was busy figuring out how the media team worked, the media team was also getting used to having her around. It wasn't common for Haziyah to join them on a client production, and for Raf, simply having someone from Marketing there to observe the process was something different. Beyond capturing footage for the eventual BTS video, there was an opportunity for Haziyah to see first-hand how the final client video was being built, rather than only encountering it once the work was finished.
For Hisham Firdaus, her presence also solved a practical problem. When everyone on the media team already has a role to concentrate on, the moments happening around the production can easily go undocumented. With Haziyah there, someone could pay attention to the preparations, interviews, unexpected situations and smaller moments happening outside the main camera. As he put it, “With Haziyah there, she took some BTS — the preparations, situations, interviews and the unseen bits.” Those details might not appear in the client's final video, but they are often exactly what Marketing needs when telling the story behind the work.
Haziyah asking the most important questions
More importantly, Hisham saw the value in Haziyah simply observing. Seeing the crew operate gave her a better understanding of what they usually do, how they communicate and why certain decisions are made on set. That context could then follow her back into her own work, particularly when writing about projects she would normally have to ask Media to explain afterwards.
There was, however, an adjustment period on both sides. Haziyah might have been delighted to finally be entrusted with turning the fans on and off, but Hisham hadn't quite registered her as an official member of the crew yet. When he went out to buy refreshments for the talents and production team, he forgot hers.
Clearly, two days weren't quite enough to complete the transition.
Seeing Media From Marketing
Being useful to the media team was one part of the experience. Understanding them was the more lasting one. By the end of the two days, Haziyah hadn't suddenly become a production expert, but she had a much clearer picture of what was happening whenever Marketing sent another request in their direction.
From her desk, she already knew the media team's schedule was packed. Being physically present allowed her to see what “packed” actually meant: the preparation before a shoot, the concentration required during it and all the decisions happening outside the final frame. Her immediate response after witnessing all of this was appropriately concise:
“First of all… sorry, guys.”
A lot of AICREATIVV's marketing naturally depends on Media. Portfolio pieces need visuals, BTS content needs someone to capture it and internal ideas sometimes require production support. From the marketing side, it can be easy for a request to sound small. Spending two days on set gave Haziyah a better understanding of the work sitting behind those requests, and it has encouraged her to become more independent where she can.
Bringing It Back to Her Own Work
Perhaps the most useful part of Haziyah's experience began once she returned to her desk. Writing makes up a significant part of what she does at AICREATIVV, whether for the Journal, Spellbook, LinkedIn or the agency's wider marketing. Often, that means telling stories about disciplines she doesn't personally practise. In the past, recapping a production usually required asking the media team broad questions about what happened because she hadn't been there to see it herself. Now, she has more context. She can ask why a particular production decision was made, understand some of the terminology being used and recognise the smaller details that might otherwise never make it into the story.
Two days weren't enough to teach Haziyah everything about production, and she wouldn't claim otherwise. She'd happily join another shoot, although preferably with more than one night's notice so she can plan around her actual marketing workload and prepare what she wants to capture. There is also the small matter of editing all the BTS footage afterwards, which she has discovered may be the harder part of volunteering to record everything.
Still, the experience gave her something more useful than a crash course in cameras or lighting. It gave her context for the work happening beside her every day. Haziyah went onto set thinking primarily about documenting what the media team does and came back with a better understanding of what happens between an idea scribbled onto a notepad and the finished piece that eventually reaches Marketing.
She doesn't need to become a producer to become better at working with one. Sometimes, understanding your own role a little better simply requires spending some time on the other side of it.
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