A Social Media Agency Hired Us for Their Brand Shoot. Here Is How We Planned It.
Updated: Oct 7
The Modern Social is a social media agency in St. Louis, Missouri. In May 2026, Fredhall Assembly produced a two-day brand shoot at their studio: we built the shot list, set the creative direction, and ran the day on set. It produced the original photography their new website had been waiting on, plus the footage for a brand film that is still in the cut.
Who Is The Modern Social?
The Modern Social is a social media agency based in St. Louis, Missouri, working out of its own studio on Locust Street. Its team shoots, edits, and runs social for other brands every week.
We had worked with them before. Fredhall Assembly led their rebrand, which we wrote up in the strategy behind The Modern Social rebrand. The shoot was the next piece of that work: the identity existed, and now it needed images. You can see the studio at themodernsocial.org.
The Challenge
This client owns the cameras, knows the crew, and shoots content every week. They could have run the day themselves. They chose not to, and that decision is the interesting part.
What they wanted was an outside eye and a plan, which is the one thing no studio can hand itself. Every good creative team knows the feeling of reading a client's brand instantly and their own not at all. Hiring for that is a sign of judgment, not a gap.
The second challenge is the one every busy studio shares. Client work is always the priority, so the in-house brand shoot is the thing that slips. Bringing in an outside partner is what puts it on the calendar and keeps it there.
Why the Website Was Waiting on a Shoot
The rebrand had produced an identity, and the new site was in build. But the pages were sitting on placeholder imagery, and so were the business cards. We had held off dropping in stock or borrowed photography, because putting temporary images into a new site is how temporary images end up permanent.
So the shoot was scoped backwards from the website. Before anything else, we built a shot list tied to specific pages and sections, so every frame had a job to do. That list, not a mood board, was the spine of the day.
Our Approach: Most of the Work Happens Before the Camera
Pre-production was a separate scope on this project, and deliberately so. A shoot day is short and expensive. The planning is what makes it productive.
A Shot List Built From the Website
We worked page by page through the site structure and shared the list as a live document, so the client could see exactly what we were covering and what was missing.
References Attached to Every Shot
A schedule cannot be built until the producer can see what a shot actually looks like. Visual references sat against each line of the list, held with the shot list and the running order on one shared production board.
A Run of Day Built With the Client's Producer
Their team knew the schedule before they arrived, which is the difference between a shoot day and a long afternoon of figuring it out.
Creative Direction on Site
This is the line clients most often try to cut, and it is the one that decides whether the day works. A deck cannot make a call when the light changes or a set runs long. Someone has to be in the room who owns the creative, which is why we travelled rather than sending a document.
What We Shot
The shoot ran across several sets inside the studio in between two days. The concept was the agency at work: hands, cameras, phones, Polaroids, talent, and the ordinary mechanics of making content, treated as the subject rather than the backdrop.
Capture ran on two tracks consecutively. A photographer covered day one on high-resolution stills for the website and brand library. Both days, the client's own team documented it on Polaroid, digital point-and-shoot, camsnap, and iPhone, which gave us a second, rougher layer of imagery that looks like social because it was made like social.
Running both tracks deliberately is worth more than it sounds. A polished hero image and a Polaroid of the same moment do different jobs, and shooting them on the same day costs almost nothing extra.
We shot the film the second day, with a photographer capturing moments in each scene, and The Modern Social's team captured BTS.
The Results
The two shoot days covered several sets and produced more than fifty high-resolution frames for the website and brand library, plus behind-the-scenes capture in four formats.
The full library was handed over roughly four weeks after the shoot, sorted by set rather than dumped as a folder. It replaced the placeholder imagery on the website, and the day also produced the footage for a brand film that went into post production.
The organization matters more than it reads. A shoot delivered as one unsorted folder gets used twice and forgotten. A library broken down by set gets used for a year.
What This Means for Austin Brands Planning a Content Shoot
Austin is full of businesses sitting on a new brand and an old photo library. The site launches, the identity is sharp, and the images are stock.
Three things from this project apply almost everywhere. Scope the shoot from the deliverable, building the shot list from the pages, posts, and materials the images are for, because a shoot planned from a mood board produces images you like and cannot use. Pay for pre-production, because it is the cheapest part of the budget and the part that makes the day productive. And shoot two grades at once, since polished stills and rough, native-looking capture serve different channels and getting both on one day costs almost nothing extra.
If you are planning a shoot, our Austin content production team works this way on every project, usually alongside the brand identity and social media marketing work that surrounds it. For more on stretching a single day, read how to turn a single shoot day into 30 days of posts.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Modern Social?
The Modern Social is a social media agency based in St. Louis, Missouri, operating from its own studio. It handles social strategy, content production, and account management for other brands. Fredhall Assembly led its rebrand and produced its brand shoot in May 2026.
What does a content production agency actually do on a shoot?
The work is mostly before and after the day itself. A content production agency scopes the shoot against what the images are for, builds the shot list and references, plans the running order with a producer, directs the creative on set, and then delivers an organized library rather than a raw dump of files.
How long does a brand shoot take to plan?
On this project, planning ran several weeks across April and early May 2026 for a two shoot days on May 7th and 8th. Most of that time went into the shot list, the visual references, and the schedule. The delivered library followed about four weeks later.
Why shoot both professional stills and phone content on the same day?
Because they serve different channels. High-resolution stills carry a website, a deck, and print. Polaroid, point-and-shoot, and phone capture looks native on social because it was made the same way social is made. Shooting both while the set is already built costs very little extra.
Does Fredhall Assembly work with brands in Austin?
Yes. Fredhall Assembly is a referral-only creative and growth studio based in Austin, Texas. We work with founders and leadership teams on brand strategy, identity, website design, content production, social, and growth, and we travel for production when the work calls for it.
Building something in Austin? Reach out at hello@fhassembly.com. Let us talk about what you are building.
Comments