Social media and reels content production for Australian Whisky Auctions

An auction house lives and dies by the size of its bidder pool. Australian Whisky Auctions needed to stay in front of collectors between auctions — not just on the day the catalogue drops.

We produced social content and reels alongside the monthly bottle photography across approximately five years, led by Lisa Saad, Principal Photographer at Gotham Studios Melbourne.

The brief

Create short-form video that spotlights the rarer bottles and key auction-highlight lots, makes the auction process feel accessible, and keeps the community engaged between monthly auctions.

The challenge — a monthly business in a daily feed

Auctions are episodic. Social media isn't. If you only post when the catalogue goes live, the algorithm forgets you and so do your bidders. The second problem: whisky is a still object. There's no obvious motion to film.

There was a third, more practical constraint: video couldn't come at the cost of the catalogue. The bottles still had to be photographed to deadline every month.

How we solved it

We produced the reels during the same shoot sessions as the bottle photography rather than as separate video shoots. That was the single most important decision on this project — it meant the client got moving content every month without paying for a second production, and the video and stills share one visual language by default.

Rather than filming everything, we were selective: a couple of reels per shoot, focused on the rarer bottles and the lots most likely to draw attention. We built them around the things that do move — light travelling across glass, the reveal of a bottle from its tube, the rhythm of a catalogue being unpacked.

We also treated the auction process itself as content. Showing how bidding works, what a lot looks like, how a bottle is assessed — that demystifies the category for newer collectors, who are the growth audience.

The result

A steady stream of short-form content produced over five years, spotlighting rare and high-interest lots, with a look that matches the auction catalogue exactly — because it came from the same room, on the same day, under the same lights.

Why this matters for your brand

If you want photography and video, book them as one production, not two. Producing short-form video during your existing stills shoot is dramatically cheaper than commissioning it separately later — and it guarantees the two match. You also don't need to film everything. A small number of well-chosen assets per shoot, focused on your highest-interest products, is usually more effective than volume.

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Credits

Social content and reels production by Gotham Studios Melbourne, art-directed and produced by Principal Photographer Lisa Saad. Gotham Studios Melbourne. We are your photographers. www.lisasaad.com · www.australianwhiskyauctions.com.au