Nick Heymann
Reels, stories, TikToks. Content that doesn't look like stock footage. Shot in Hamburg, built for reach. For coaches, artists, and businesses who want to grow on social media.
Social media runs on authenticity. Your audience can tell immediately whether a video is real or whether it rolled off some agency assembly line. I make content that feels like you. Just well filmed, edited, and optimized.
Every piece has a purpose. Grab attention, build trust, or get people to act. Not "just post something", but intentional content that fits your bigger picture. Before the first shoot I ask about your three biggest topics, your goals for the next quarter, and what you absolutely do not want to be. From that I build a pillar structure that slots every post into a place. Nothing appears at random.
In formats that means: reels as the main format, because they currently get the most reach across every relevant algorithm. Stories as the bridge to your existing community. Carousels for topics that need space. Long-form cuts for YouTube and LinkedIn if you are active there. Which mix fits you gets decided in the strategy call.
Vertical short-form videos (15-90 seconds) that feed the algorithm and pull in new followers. Hook in the first 2 seconds, story in the middle, CTA at the end. I know what works.
Fast, authentic clips for younger audiences. Ride the trends, own your niche. TikTok rewards realness, and that's exactly what I deliver.
Behind-the-scenes, Q&As, polls, day-in-the-life stuff. Stories build a personal connection that regular posts just can't.
Glimpses into your daily work, your process, your team. Show the human behind the brand. This kind of content often outperforms polished product videos.
Visual slide decks for Instagram and LinkedIn. Education + design = saves and shares. I handle the visuals, you bring the expertise.
Video content for B2B and thought leadership. Shorter formats, focused tone, built for the LinkedIn algorithm.
A good brand film for a website plays by different rules than a reel for Instagram. With a brand film the viewer is seated, has 90 seconds, and wants a story. With a reel they are scrolling, deciding in two seconds, and have ten more clips queued up. Treat both the same and both suffer.
Rule one is the hook. The first 1.5 to 2 seconds decide whether someone stays or keeps scrolling. No logo, no intro, no "Hi, I am". The hook is a question, a claim, a visual break, a face with clear emotion. Whatever it is, it has to stop the scroll.
Rule two is think vertical. 9:16 is the standard, not the exception. That shifts where heads sit in frame, where text lives, how close you get. A horizontal shot that just gets cropped always looks like exactly that. I shoot for the final format, not against it.
Rule three is captions always. Around 80 percent of reels get watched on mute, on the subway, at work, next to other people. If your video does not carry without sound, it does not carry. Auto-captions are the floor. Optimized animated text is what we deliver.
Rule four is platforms are not interchangeable. TikTok rewards rawness and comments. Instagram rewards saves and shares. LinkedIn rewards the text context around the video. YouTube Shorts reward retention across the full 60 seconds. The same clip can explode on one platform and sink on another. We cut variants, not exports.
Then there is rule five, which many skip: series beat single posts. One reel going viral is luck. Ten reels on one topic, released in sequence, build authority. That is why we think in content series, not in posts.
One-off shoots are great. But social media lives on consistency. That's why I offer monthly content packages. They take the stress off your plate and keep you showing up.
Every package sits on a fixed shoot day per month. That day we produce material for 5 to 20 finished pieces. You get the videos across the next two weeks, staggered, so you can start posting right away. No waiting, no "when is the next one coming?".
5 Reels / Month
Half a shoot day per month. 5 finished reels, edited and optimized. A solid way to start showing up consistently.
10 Reels / Month
One full shoot day per month. 10 finished reels plus stories material. For coaches and brands who are serious about growing.
20 Reels / Month
Two shoot days per month. 20 reels, stories, behind-the-scenes, and content strategy. For those who are all-in on social media.
Pricing on request. Every package is tailored to what you actually need.
The shoot day is where content packages stand or fall. A well-planned day gives you 15 to 25 finished pieces. A badly planned one gives you four scattered clips and the feeling that you missed something. That is why I invest as much in prep as in the shoot itself.
Two weeks before: strategy call (60 to 90 minutes). We go through your topics, audience, competition, three to five content pillars. Result: a shot-list document with 15 to 25 reel ideas, grouped by setting and outfit.
One week before: location check and wardrobe alignment. If we shoot multiple spots, I walk them once. Check the light at the planned shoot time, test for background noise, scout power sockets and cable paths for the gear.
Shoot day, morning: setup at 8:30, first hooks at 9:30. I shoot in blocks of three to five connected reels to keep wardrobe and light continuity. You talk your topics in your own words, bullet points as anchors. No teleprompter, because your face registers when you read.
Midday: wardrobe change, short break, new location if planned. I scroll through the material in parallel and flag which hooks landed and where we should re-shoot.
Afternoon: B-roll. Hands, laptop, coffee, walking, working at the flipchart, Hamburg water in the background. This material is gold because later it gets woven into reels that would otherwise read as talking-head only.
End of day: quick material review with you. Which hooks definitely work, which are borderline, what we might want to retake. Then I head home with 400 to 800 GB of raw footage.
Great social video is rarely a camera question. Between a three-thousand-euro camera and a twelve-thousand-euro one, 99 percent of viewers see the finished reel as identical. Four other things make the difference.
Light. Natural light from one clear direction beats any softbox that is built sloppy. I shoot when possible mornings between 10 and 13 because the light in Hamburg sits cleanest then. When studio is the only option, we build a key-fill-rim setup, not a ring-light flat. Ring lights read as beginner on reels within half a second.
Audio. Even if 80 percent of viewers watch muted, the remaining 20 percent decide the retention rate the algorithm sees. I run a lavalier on the shirt plus a shotgun on-camera as backup. Never camera mic alone. Never smartphone audio. Done.
Talent prep. The most important point. A nervous person on camera kills any reel, no matter how good the gear is. I work with you the day before on the hooks so they sit. On shoot day we start with the easiest topics so you settle in. The hard hooks get shot in the last third, when you are warm.
Shot planning. Every hook gets shot in two variants. One with the planned wording, one with an alternative in case the first does not carry in the edit. Plus B-roll that matches the topic. Without that redundancy you lose more material in post than you think.
The edit is 50 percent of the work. On a classic brand film you can breathe. On a reel you cannot. My cuts in the hook zone often sit at 0.8 to 1.5 seconds, in the value section at 2 to 3, and tighten again at the CTA. That rhythm trains the viewer to stay.
Music is the second lever. I work with royalty-free tracks from Musicbed, Artlist and Epidemic Sound, because Instagram either strips unlicensed pop music or throttles reach. For platform copies that are supposed to run on Instagrams own music catalog, I cut without music and you overlay the song directly in the app. That is two minutes of extra work for you, but it protects reach.
Captions are not optional. I use animated text overlays with a clean font, two lines max at a time, positioning inside the safe zone between 15 and 85 percent of frame height. That way nothing slides under the Instagram UI. Colors restrained: cream or ivory on dark, never neon. That alone separates your content visually from 95 percent of all reels.
Platform exports are the end of the job. One master export in 4K as archive. Then platform cuts: 9:16 for Instagram Reels and TikTok, 1:1 for feed, 16:9 horizontal for YouTube Shorts if needed, 4:5 for LinkedIn video because it earns more timeline real estate there. Same story, four to five technical variants. You get everything sorted and named.
Out of hundreds of reels I have produced, five formats have emerged that deliver for personal brands and small businesses almost every time. Not because they are clever, but because they fit how the platforms actually work.
Which of these five fit you depends on the product. Coaches need founder POV and educational reels, studios and restaurants live off team doc and BTS, product brands need product hero plus team context. We map that in the strategy call.
I don't work with everyone. My sweet spot: people and brands who have something to say but don't have the time or energy to stand in front of the camera and edit everything themselves. The craft on the production side should match the craft of your own work. Not above, not below.
Hamburg is one of the visually strongest cities in Germany, even if it does not show that at first glance. Water, light, the mix of harbor rawness and architecture. For social content that is gold, because the material reads as locally grounded without sliding into cliche.
Depending on the brand, I work in different corners. For edgier, younger brands, Schanze and St. Pauli are the natural setting. For corporate and consulting, HafenCity works with its clean architecture and the water in the background. For performance and creative work we look for Altona and Ottensen, where rooms are more open. For retreat feel and nature content we move to Vier- und Marschlande or the Elbe beaches.
On top of that: the northern light. Soft, diffuse daylight that rarely reads as AI on Instagram. The more direct southern light of Berlin or Munich is cool for some brands, but it also screams "production" instantly. Hamburg light feels more natural, which is exactly what you want on social.
Practical version: if you are based in Hamburg, we come to you or shoot at a location that matches your brand. If you fly in from Berlin, Munich, or further away, I put together a shortlist document with three to five locations depending on topic. Shot in Hamburg, content for the rest of the world.
Reel
Social Media
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Here's how it works: one shoot day, as much output as possible. I plan the content with you beforehand, shoot efficiently, and deliver finished videos you can post right away. No back and forth, no waiting around. Beyond reels, I also produce aftermovies, brand films, and video for coaches if you need more formats.
For Emotional Releases, I co-developed the video strategy that grew their Instagram from 20,000 to over 400,000 followers. Organically, no paid ads. That's what happens when the content is right and you show up consistently. Most of that growth happened in the first ten months. In total the project ran over 18 months, with monthly shoot blocks in Hamburg, Spain, and Turkey, and it showed what consistent content can do when the brand is clear.
Most people don't stall on social media because of production quality, but because of planning depth. Post a lot for a week, go quiet for three, then catch up in a panic. The algorithm reads that, and your reach collapses. Consistency beats volume, but only with planning across longer stretches.
With package clients I work in quarters. Three months is long enough to build, test, and expand a theme. Shorter is marketing hype. Longer is rigid. At the start of each quarter we sit down for 90 minutes and define three things: one through-line story (a method, a launch, a thesis), three content pillars under it (education, behind-the-scenes, social proof for example), and one clear goal at the end (more sales calls, more course signups, more newsletter opt-ins).
From that structure you get three shoot blocks per month and the topics that fit them. Nothing has to be invented on the fly. Spontaneity comes in the execution: which hook first, which detail in the story, how long the cut. But the direction is set. This way of planning is less exciting than TikToks born on impulse, but over six months it takes you where sporadic posting never will.
Content without measurement is a hobby. With package clients we work with simple reporting that separates "this video feels good" from "this format actually performs". At the start of each month you get a short overview: reach, watch time, saves, shares, and profile visits per published reel. Not 40-page reports, just the five numbers that actually decide.
The most important number is watch time. If a reel crosses 55 percent completion, the algorithm pushes it further. Under 40 percent it mostly dies quietly. We optimize hooks iteratively: month one we test five different hook styles, month two we double down on the winners, month three we work on the structure behind them. Over three months you get a real content formula, not just material.
Saves and shares tell you whether the content delivers value. Likes tell you very little, beyond "people nodded while scrolling". A reel with 2,000 likes and 10 saves is entertainment. A reel with 400 likes and 150 saves is a tool people come back to later. The latter builds your business. The former feeds your ego.
Profile visits and follower growth are the end metrics. If reach and saves climb but nobody clicks on your profile, something is off in your positioning. We fix that in the next strategy call: bio, pinned content, or the CTA in the videos. That way social media stops being a bottomless pit and becomes a system with clear levers.
A common misread on content production: clients think they are buying shoot time. They are actually buying the whole orbit around it. A realistic ten-reels-per-month package might have eight hours of shoot time, but twenty hours of other work: pre-call, shot-list development, footage review, rough cuts, fine cuts, captions, platform variants, music choices, revision rounds, delivery, monthly reporting.
Concretely, the Growth package contains per month: one full shoot day including on-site setup and teardown, ten finished reels in 9:16 with captions and optimized audio, two platform variants per reel (one with embedded music, one for Instagrams music catalog), a curated stories pack of 15 to 20 vertical short clips, caption suggestions in German or English depending on audience, a posting order with recommended times, a short monthly review call, unlimited follow-up questions by email or Slack between shoot days.
What it does not include: actual posting (your team handles it), community management and replying to comments (I refer to partners when needed), paid ads management (different trade), graphic design beyond caption text and thumbnail corrections. That is intentional, so you know exactly what you get and do not end up disappointed by a half-baked add-on.
"Wow, I'm so impressed! This film, those precise and beautifully captured moments. It touches me so deeply."
Dorian
Retreat Participant
"Incredibly genius what you created. Sitting here with tears in my eyes because you captured so many things so sensitively, so close and touchable."
Philipp
SH Fest
More video testimonials from Esteban and Lucien are on the homepage.
Let's talk about what content makes sense for you. 30 minutes, free. Not a sales call, not a forced pitch. If I think another producer fits you better by the end, I will say so.
In the call we look at what you are doing now, what is missing, and what would actually move the needle. After that you know whether a one-off shoot, a monthly package, or nothing at all right now is the right move. I am based in Hamburg, work remotely with you before and after the project, and travel for the actual shoot day, either I come to you or you come to me, whichever fits your setting better.
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