May 2026 · 2 min read
Why every shoot gets two shooters
Because there are two of us, and we both turn up.
Every shoot gets two of us, because there are two of us. Urban Media is run by Jack and Gabe, and when you book the studio, both owners turn up. It is not a crewing policy we decided on. It is just how the business works.
That might not always be true. As things grow there will be jobs where it does not make sense, and there are already days where we are not both there for the whole thing. On one shoot Gabe covered the first half, Jack got there partway through, and we both ran the back end of it. Two of us on site is the default, not a guarantee we would rather break than admit to.
Who does what
We both run the business, so neither of us is the assistant. Gabe is the creative director. He does most of the planning and most of the editing, which means he usually has the clearest picture of what the finished thing has to be, and he tends to take the lead on the day. Jack sits back a bit further, helps direct, and is generally the one turning an idea into something that actually gets shot.
What two people actually buys you
Two cameras is the obvious part, and it does mean there are always two angles running. Neither of us is only the photographer or only the video guy either, so we swap between photo and video depending on what the day needs, and get more coverage out of the same hours.
The part that shows up in the edit, though, is that there were two people thinking. We are both creators, we have both done this a lot, and we know what works. So when we are working out how to shoot something, it is not two people guessing. It is two people who have made this before, working out which version is better.
What that looks like on a job
On a recent real estate shoot, one of the agents wanted to push the other one into the pool as a joke and brought the idea to us. We both went and looked at the property, and at the pool itself, to work out where the shot would actually work from. Between us we wrote a quick script and a shot plan, down to the angle and the timing of the sequence. On the day Jack ran the main camera on the gimbal, and Gabe ran a second camera picking up behind the scenes, which we ended up using as its own social post.
Nothing goes out seen by one person
It carries through past the shoot. Nothing gets delivered having only been looked at by whoever made it. If Gabe cuts it, Jack reviews it. If Jack cuts it, Gabe reviews it.
When it is only one of us
Sometimes we are stretched to the bone and only one of us can get there. It happens, and we would rather say so than pretend it does not. It is not how we like to work and it is not what we plan for.
Most clients do not realise they are paying for two people. It is part of why we are not the cheapest, and it is most of why the work comes back the way it does. If you want to talk through a shoot, get in touch.