Los Angeles – Cameron Karsten's Imaginarium

Amazon from A to Z

We covered the spectrum this year with Amazon, capturing 3 different campaigns for various departments. The first one was my favorite in terms of planing and logistics, and making sure the skill of anticipation was properly tuned. The 2nd and 3rd were more storytelling processes, highlighting the teamwork, effort and energy put into Amazon deliveries. Ultimately, this is a story about commerce and how it moves, and the people that move it, across the country.

For the 1st campaign we traveled to Los Angeles, piggybacking on a motion campaign. We captured the A to Z of Amazon delivery, specifically highlighting the new Amazon Intermodal container branding. From trains and tracks and yards, to trucks and the excitement of fulfillment centers, to passing planes, it was an extensive effort in planning, including loading a BNSF train with only Amazon Intermodal containers and traveling from Chicago to LA just for a mountain pass shot.

The 2nd campaign was a quick 1-day shoot of personnel delivering boxes, from the sorting centers to the delivery truck and on the streets to a front doorstep. The final assets land as classroom wraps where trainees will be taught the process. It was an in-the-moment shoot, often creating something out of nothing, whether camera angles, foreground elemental distractions or manipulating backgrounds to appear as if we were not located in the Pacific Northwest.

Lastly we were in Virginia, where a man by the name of Bayar Palani has partnered with Amazon Relay to help deliver Amazon packages throughout the region. This partnership has helped Bayar grow his business exponentially and create the dream-life for he and his family. As an immigrant, whom traveled halfway around the world with his parents to seek better opportunity, he is a perfect example of what hard work, dedication, belief, and persistence take to open the right doors and fully live one’s dreams for a better future. He is the perfect example of what all persons should have the opportunity to create.

For more visit www.CameronKarsten.com

Albertsons’ Memorial Day & Summer Campaigns

Summer in Los Angeles in February. We spent three days capturing the warm summer vibes of LA at 70 degrees. Produced by HyperionLA with a skilled crew of assistants, DigiTech, HMU and food stylists, let alone the creatives from Albertsons – it was all perfect… except for the locations. One house’s online profile turned out to be smoke and mirrors; completely disheveled, which included an immobile RV parked in the yard trailing a long yellow extension cord through a maze of untidiness, a dilapidated trampoline with it’s walled netting looking like a marooned salmon fleet, broken and water-logged playsets and plastic debris from the pool’s detritus filled waters, all nestled on patchy green crab grass, which didn’t offset the large swaths of chocolate brown dirt bearing no life (and not to mention the pile of dog shit which filled a commercial-grade trash can to the brim… and sat in the yard’s corner). Our first shot on the list was, needless to say, behind schedule.

The second location housed a menacing manager who restricted all movement until he offered a bribe and was paid an additional fee. This eventually permitted further access into his four-walled cavern. And as it turned out, the homeowner was his father, a kind man who had no idea what was actually happening as about 20 personnel moved gear throughout the interior and exterior of his home. It was true. We needed all the space we could get. And it paid off.