Video production in Cannes—
—for companies that exhibit, host events, and take home footage.
Cannes lives and breathes its film festivals. A company exhibiting there doesn’t need a pretty video—it needs footage it can use during the festival, and an edit that will still hold up once the Palais’s doors are closed again. We’re based in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, just ten minutes away.
A conference city first and foremost, rather than a film city
Cannes is best known for its May film festival. Businesses, however, come here for everything else: trade shows for real estate, audiovisual content, and communications; scientific and medical conferences; and networking and franchise conventions. The Palais des Festivals et des Congrès hosts a steady stream of events for much of the year, and the surrounding area—including the Croisette, hotels, and private venues—absorbs the overflow.
This creates a very specific need for video content—one that has nothing to do with a company filming on its own premises. In Cannes, the video is almost never the main focus: it’s a tool designed to capture a brief, expensive moment—one that’s been months in the making and will never happen again. A booth is expensive. Sending a team there is expensive. Coming away with three blurry photos and a vertical video shot on a phone by a salesperson is a total waste.
- Exhibitors. They need photos of their booths in action, their product demonstrations, and their client meetings—and a short-form format to post while the trade show is still underway.
- Event organizers and conferences. They need an “aftermovie” to promote the next edition, recordings of presentations, and interviews with speakers.
- Local businesses. Hotels, event planning, technical service providers, agencies: their showcase is their expertise in action, not a brochure.
An aftermovie released three weeks after the
trade show is no longer of any use.
A trade show is filmed in three stages, not all at once
Most of the requests we receive before an event in Cannes boil down to, “Come film on Thursday.” That’s the best way to end up with decent footage that’s completely useless. A trade show requires preparation, coverage, and then follow-up.
- Before. The promotional video played on a loop at the booth, the invitation video sent to your clients, the product demonstration filmed in a quiet setting—not amid the noise of an exhibition hall. That’s what we shoot in our studio, here at our office, when the pressure of the event hasn’t set in yet.
- During the event: Capturing key moments, interviews with your executives and visitors, and footage of the booths. And, if you arrange it in advance, a short video montage delivered that same evening or the next morning, while the trade show is still open.
- Afterward. The aftermovie, social media clips edited from the raw footage, and interviews repurposed as editorial content in the months that follow. A well-planned event recording provides a year’s worth of content.
This breakdown also changes the way we estimate time. One day of filming at a trade show equals two days of editing afterward—that’s our rule of thumb, and it’s especially true here, because raw footage from a trade show is long, noisy, and uneven. Sorting through it takes time.
The Real Challenge at Cannes: Logistics
Filming in Cannes during the festival isn’t a technical problem—it’s an access issue. Hotels are fully booked, and their rates are nothing like what they are the rest of the year. Traffic around the Croisette gets heavier. Parking a vehicle loaded with equipment right next to the Palais requires some negotiation. And inside, nothing can be left to chance: accreditations, filming permits from the organizer, and specific rules for each hall and conference room.
In practical terms, this means one thing: in Cannes, everything has to be booked well in advance. Local service providers are fully booked during trade show periods. If you call us the week before the event, we’ll be honest with you rather than try to sell you a team thrown together at the last minute.
Our film set is located at 627 Avenue de Cannes in Mandelieu-la-Napoule—ten minutes from Cannes, with a nearby highway exit, and, best of all, parking where you can load and unload without worrying about the time. It’s a 50 m² studio housed in the former Relais de Poste at Château Vieux: exposed stone, period ceiling beams, a cyclorama, and a large door for bringing in equipment. This space isn’t yet available for rent, but it will open soon under the N’ Studio brand. In the meantime, it’s our workspace, and it’s a game-changer for your film shoots in Cannes.
Here’s a simple example: In the morning, we film interviews with your executives and product demonstrations in the studio against a neutral background, and in the afternoon, we’re at your booth to capture the trade show. Two very different types of footage in a single day—without any long-distance travel between locations and without having to rent a hotel room at peak-season rates just to set up a backdrop.
The value comes from people and the time spent.
Not from equipment.
A camera doesn’t frame a shot on its own, and a drone doesn’t tell a story. What you’re paying for is a team that plans ahead, knows what to film in a crowded exhibition hall, and then spends as much time as needed on editing. And a video only makes an impact if it’s shared: set aside part of your budget for distribution; otherwise, even the best trade show video will end up being seen only by your competitors and your sales team.
Let's talk about your next trip to Cannes
Tell us about the event, the dates, and what you need us to cover. We’ll get back to you with a detailed plan and a realistic price range. To give you an idea of the price ranges: short-form video series for social media and editorial content range from €50 to €500 per video; a corporate or employer branding video ranges from €1,500 to €5,000; and a full-scale production ranges from €5,000 to €50,000, depending on the scope of the project. Details on how we calculate our prices can be found on the corporate video pricing page.
If your needs extend beyond Cannes, we serve the entire region from Mandelieu: see Video Production on the French Riviera. If the focus is on recruitment and your company’s appeal rather than a trade show, please see Employer Branding instead. And if you’d like to see our work for yourself before contacting us, our portfolio is freely available.
One last piece of advice—free of charge: if your trade show is coming up, email us now rather than after you've finished setting up the rest of the booth. We'll get back to you within the day.
