Ten years, two countries, one standard.

I started Five Shades in Pakistan in 2015. The work was commercial from the first job — businesses that needed to look like themselves, only better — and it grew the way that work does, one client telling another.

I moved to the UK as a student and kept the studio running through it. That turned out to be the useful part of the education. Working across two markets teaches you quickly that production problems are the same everywhere and only the logistics change.

Today the work spans food and hospitality, product and e-commerce, property, and clinical and aesthetic businesses. The deliverables are advertising films, brand content, product photography and short-form video. The sectors change. The standard does not.

Five Shades Productions Limited is the registered company behind it. It is still small on purpose: I am on every shoot and in every edit, which is the whole point of hiring a studio this size rather than an agency.