Video Creator (Inside the Dolls-House World)
Shoot the explorable model-scale world of Three Doors — stills, video, and 360 captures that bring the miniature environment to life.
Read this first — this is part of a linked pair of consultant briefs.
This brief sits alongside the Plan / Dolls-House Creator. We're commissioning (a) the creation of an explorable physical or digital model of the Three Doors world, and (b) the photography / video / 360 capture inside it (this brief). The two halves are tightly coupled: the model has to be shootable; the shots have to do justice to the model.
We're genuinely unsure whether this is one role or two. Some people we'd hire are strong on both — miniature filmmakers, production designers who shoot their own work, art directors with a tabletop-photography practice. Others are world-class on one half and would want a specialist on the other. Both models could work for us.
What we're doing now is talking to a few people for each half. If you'd do both halves credibly, please also read the Plan / Dolls-House Creator brief and tell us in your application how you'd structure a combined engagement. If you're a specialist in just this half, respond to this brief on its own — that's equally welcome.
About Three Doors
Three Doors is a pre-launch immersive entertainment company. We're building a 90-minute live experience for teams of 3–6 where every player walks out with a behavioural profile derived from how they actually moved through pressure — not from a questionnaire. Two audiences, one product: consumer tickets for friends, couples and groups; corporate team-development packages on weekdays.
The founder is Tom Ball, who built DeskLodge (48,000 sq ft, £4m turnover, Sunday Times Top 10 Best Places to Work 2023, B-Corp) and has played 121 escape rooms in service of this.
We are pre-seed. Small team, AI-leveraged: a couple of full-time hires (Game Master, Operations Manager) plus a consultant pool. This is the lens-led half of the linked creative pair.
The role
You shoot the world that the Plan / Dolls-House Creator builds. The world is small — dolls-house-scale physical miniature, or a digital 3D environment, or a hybrid — but the images have to read at full scale: web hero, social, investor visuals, 360 VR teasers, internal design reference.
This is lens-led craft. You make a 1:12 set look like a place a real person could walk into. You light a paper window so it glows. You set up a 360 camera in a model room and the resulting capture is somewhere a viewer wants to spend time.
The brief is deliberately not specifying medium balance — stills vs video vs 360. We want to talk to people with strong views on what serves Three Doors best, and what gives us the biggest payoff per day of shooting.
Deliverables
The initial paid project is 4 days, drawn down over roughly 4 weeks. That's a deliberately low weekly commitment — we want the work to breathe across four weeks rather than be sprinted in a single block. You may well do a lot in those four days, and we don't want to over-specify the shape.
What we're paying for is your initial response — how you'd approach shooting a miniature or world environment for us, the early visible shape of what you'd produce. We're not expecting a fully agreed, finished shoot programme. We're commissioning enough for us to decide who shoots the full world (built by the Plan / Dolls-House Creator), and whether you're also our world-builder or someone separate.
The shape of what comes out is up to you. Depending on how you spend the four days, that might include:
- A few finished frames, a short video sequence, or a 360 capture — shot inside a reference space (your own existing miniature/world work, a small set we provide, or a digital world you've already built)
- A read on your lens, lighting, and 360 craft inside small-scale or digital-world environments
- An indicative scope for the full shoot programme that follows
- A read on whether you'd want to be the world-builder for our project too (i.e. also tender for the Plan / Dolls-House Creator half), or whether a separate specialist serves the work better
These are illustrative. If you'd spend the four days differently, tell us in your application.
Who you are
- You have a portfolio of work shot inside miniature, tabletop, or model environments — or inside digital 3D worlds. Quality bar: we'd hang it on a wall
- Strong lens craft. You compose, light, and sequence at a level where the small scale doesn't read as small
- 360 capture experience, or a credible plan for how you'd skill up fast
- Comfortable working closely with a world-builder, or comfortable owning both halves if that's the shape we choose
- Tasteful enough that we trust you with category creation — Three Doors is not theatre, not escape room, not theme park. You enjoy the gap, not flatten it
Bonus
- Miniature film, stop-motion, architectural-model photography, food photography, model-railway photography — anything where the world is small and the image has to read large
- Existing 360 / VR capture workflow (Insta360 Pro, Theta Z1, GoPro Max, professional-grade rigs)
- 3D / Unreal cinematography experience — virtual production, real-time cinematics
- You've also built the worlds you shot in, even if you'd prefer to specialise on the shooting half
How we work
- AI-leveraged. We use Claude/ChatGPT and creative-AI tooling extensively and expect you do too
- Pre-venue. The world you're shooting in will be physically built at full scale later. Get the iconography right at small scale and the big scale follows
- Cockroach, not unicorn. Lean budgets, hard choices, real respect for craft
- Bias to operating discipline over startup-theatre. Tom's background is operational real estate, not VC-circuit
Terms
Linked pair, with view to a lot more. This brief is half of a linked pair (see callout at the top). The initial 4 days is small on purpose — we're talking to several people across both halves to find the right shape. If your initial work points us toward "yes, you shoot the full world", the follow-on commission is the full Three Doors shoot programme: web hero, social, investor visuals, 360 VR teasers, and ongoing capture as the world evolves. If your initial work points us toward "you should partner with X as the world-builder", we structure accordingly.
What we're imagining: 4 days total. Day rate and fee structure discussed directly. Fixed-price-per-project also welcome.
What we'd like to see: your proposal. Tell us how you structure work like this, and whether you'd want to also tender for the Plan / Dolls-House Creator world-building half.
- Mostly remote for edit; on-site at Henley HQ (Unit 1 Stuart's Lane, RG9 1RY) for the shoot days
- Bring your own kit (camera, lighting, 360 rig). We'll discuss gear contributions if scope grows
- IP terms — please read carefully. We are commissioning you to capture the world of Three Doors. All deliverables, including all prompts, prompt chains, reference libraries, project files, RAWs, B-roll, outtakes, and 360 captures, are assigned to us in full on payment. You retain general methodology and craft — what you do for other clients with different briefs — but the specific creative outputs and the prompts that produced them belong to us. We say this upfront because some senior creatives won't accept it, and that's fair. We'd rather you decline at brief stage than later. If you have an alternative IP structure in mind (e.g. fully-paid-up perpetual licence rather than full assignment), we're open to the conversation — flag it in your proposal
- Small advisory option grant available for the right candidate if the relationship extends (discuss)
How to apply
Send us, in your own words: (1) a portfolio link with two pieces shot inside a miniature, tabletop, or digital-3D world, (2) notes on what you'd expect to do in the four weeks — how you'd spend the four days, what you'd start with, where you think you'd get to, (3) your view on stills vs video vs 360 balance for our use case (web/social/investor/VR/internal-reference), (4) whether you'd want to also tender for the Plan / Dolls-House Creator world-building half, and how you'd structure a combined engagement if so, (5) your honest take on the IP clause above, (6) one question you'd want to ask Tom before deciding.
Three Doors Experience Ltd is an equal-opportunity employer. We hire on judgement, behaviour under pressure, and whether you'll make the team better — not on credentials.