Grand Seiko came to Ketchum and Ketchum Studios asking us to cover their first-ever US Grand Seiko GS9 Club event on November 6, 2021 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.
Membership to GS9 is exclusive in that members must have purchased an authorized Grand Seiko timepiece to register to be a member of the Club.
In it’s first-ever US Grand Seiko GS9 event, the objective was to capture the energy and excitement of an entire day (11am to 6pm) filled with lectures, workshops, watch-making, an entire hall of watch exhibits and the collectors sharing their Grand Seiko collections and knowledge with each other. Cocktails, food and a live jazz band completed this incredible experience for US GS9 members and collectors.
After a full day of capture, an edited short feature wove together each highlight of the day, telling an elegant and elevated story through music alone, showcasing a crowd of 350 US GS9 members learning, collaborating and sharing their love for Grand Seiko’s timeless beauty.
Our strategy involved deploying two cameras and a still photographer to cover the entire day-long event. We wanted to capture each lecture in full, while still capturing the energy and excitement of hundreds of GS9 members gathered in one space, for one day in the US, for the first time ever. With one camera static assigned solely to the speaker’s lectures, our broll camera worked overtime to capture as many interactive moments as possible between GS9 owners, collectors, Grand Seiko experts and watch makers. We underestimated how many people would show up for the event, given the pandemic and the early Saturday start time, but GS9 members mean business, and many arrived right “on-time” at 11am! We also underestimated the passion and appreciation GS9 members have for the brand and were surprised to capture a multitude of interactive and social moments as club members met and made new connections. It felt like an unprecedented time and space to be in, and the energy to connect and talk was high in the ballrooms. Through it all, our crew kept up, with one producer following our broll camera and one producer staying with the lecture camera, while still checking in with the still photographer throughout the day, and then downloading material as the shoot was happening, in all 7 total hours of capture on two cameras! Our still photographer captured thousands of photos of the event throughout the day as well. It was also important that we capture the live jazz band at the end of the day, which felt like a celebration for crowd, who stayed through cocktail hour. The jazz band was so great that we use their music as the soundtrack to the recap piece. The final, edited feature was needed quickly, and we started the editing the very next day!
The event recap video was posted on the Grand Seiko website and showcased the high-level production, knowledge and exclusivity that being a US GS9 member includes. The feature captured the energy, excitement and sheer numbers, interest and loyalty of the Grand Seiko brand.