[faq]
Frequently asked questions
Working with Ford Media Lab
What does Ford Media Lab do?
Ford Media Lab is a visual production studio for premium spirits, wine, luxury, and CPG brands. We shoot real product plates on a Hasselblad in our Miami studio, then extend them through AI production into full campaigns: stills, motion, and environments. One pipeline from strategy to final frame, run by two founders who came up inside the spirits trade.
How does an engagement start?
With a briefing call. You bring the brand and the problem; we bring a read on it before the call ends. From there we scope the engagement, lock the treatment, and move to production. Most clients come back, which is the model working as intended.
Do you only work with spirits brands?
Spirits is the home turf, built on 18 years behind the bar and inside brand ambassador programs at Rémy Cointreau and Diageo. The same pipeline serves wine, luxury, and CPG. Maria Tash and 1806 Magazine sit on the same roster as Diageo and Pernod Ricard.
How fast can you turn a project?
Faster than a traditional shoot, because the pipeline removes the decision points that usually sit between concept and deliverable. Speed is not the pitch, though. Discipline intensifies when there are fewer steps, and fast is not the same as cheap. Timelines get set at scoping, per project.
AI production, accuracy, and disclosure
Is your work real photography or AI?
Both, deliberately. The product is captured for real: studio plates shot on a Hasselblad, composited and finished by hand in Photoshop. AI generates environments, extensions, and motion around that captured truth. The bottle in the frame is your bottle.
Will our bottle look accurate?
Yes. Accuracy is the entire reason we shoot physical plates instead of generating the product. Label, glass, liquid, and proportions come from the studio capture, not from a model’s guess. We wrote about this approach in our digital twin essay on the Visual Intelligence index.
Can AI-assisted imagery run in paid media?
Yes. Deceptive advertising was always illegal; the medium is not the violation. What matters is that the claims in the ad are true and the product depiction is accurate, which our plate-first pipeline is built to guarantee. We work with counsel on disclosure requirements as they evolve by jurisdiction.
How do you handle AI disclosure?
We published Rendered, Not Recorded as an open standard: a plain-language disclosure line for work featuring digital talent, free for anyone to use. Where a jurisdiction requires specific synthetic-performer disclosure, we comply with it and build the language into the deliverable.
Rights and ownership
Who owns the finished assets?
Ford Media Lab holds the copyright, and you license the work. Our compositing and finishing process builds enough documented human authorship into every visual to make it protectable, which is what makes the license worth something. For social and website use we typically grant unlimited usage, because ongoing content is a volume relationship, not a metering exercise. Full buyouts exist but are rare and scoped separately. Terms are set in the contract, not implied.
Do you use real people’s likenesses?
Not without consent, ever. Digital talent in our work carries the disclosure line: featuring digital talent, no likeness of any real person. When a real person appears, they were photographed, released, and paid.
What is Rendered, Not Recorded?
Our published disclosure standard for AI-produced imagery featuring digital talent. It states plainly that no real person’s likeness was used. We released it as an open standard because the industry needs a shared convention more than we need a proprietary one.
Pricing and engagement
How much does spirits product photography cost?
It depends on scope: number of hero assets, motion, usage, and timeline. We price per engagement after a briefing call, not from a rate card. What we can tell you up front is that the pipeline delivers campaign-scale output at a fraction of traditional production cost, without the fraction showing in the frame.
Do you offer retainers?
Yes. Several clients run ongoing social and content retainers with us, managed by Rachel Ford. Retainers suit brands that need a steady drumbeat of assets rather than a single campaign drop.
The studio
What is a Visual Intelligence Laboratory?
Our term for what Ford Media Lab is: a studio where real capture, AI production, and brand strategy operate as one system instead of three vendors. The laboratory part is literal. We test, document, and lock repeatable methods rather than improvising per project.
What is The LAB?
The Lost Ambassador Bureau: four former spirits brand ambassadors, Rachel Ford, Kyle Ford, Erick Castro, and Nick Hogan, available to premium liquor brands as one collective unit. Details at fordmedialab.com/the-lab.
What is conscious compute?
Our sustainability protocol. Production runs carbon-negative through Climeworks direct air capture and water-positive through Bonneville Environmental Foundation water restoration certificates, funded monthly. The diagnostics in our footer are audited claims, not decoration.