Speaker 1: What's up guys, Landon here from the Full-Time Filmmaker team and since Parker is on vacation, he asked me to tackle this week's video, so today I'm going to be showing you my top five tips to shooting product videos. Now before we jump into our five tips, let me first tell you about the product that we're actually going to be working with. So this is a pre-workout powder from a company that my buddy started called Alpha Theory. I've done some promo videos for them in the past, usually just showcasing the product in action at the gym with different fitness models. And even though those videos have done really well, we wanted to put together a product video in its purest form with simple camera movements and shots that really show off the details of the physical product that you'd be receiving in the mail if you were to go and order it online. By the way, if you're more interested in videos like this that showcase a product in action, we have several different job shadows inside our paid course, Full-Time Filmmaker, where you can follow us along and see our entire process for putting together these types of videos. So I'll drop a link below in case you want to check that out. All right, tip number one is to do some pre-planning. Now we already know that this video is going to be used on paid advertising platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which means the video needs a strong beginning that can quickly captivate our audience, and then a strong ending that encourages the viewer to then click on the learn more button and potentially place an order. Now my pre-planning process goes something like this. First, I find the perfect song, and as any filmmaker knows, this process can sometimes take even more time than the actual shooting and editing of the video, but it's absolutely crucial that you find the right one. Music choice can often make or break the final video, so take your time on this one. The second part of my pre-planning process is brainstorming different shots that I think would work well with the music and complement the product that we're showcasing. Usually I'll isolate myself in my office and then play the song that I found on repeat and just kind of take my time imagining the environment, the lighting, the camera movements, and so on. Then once I have my thoughts on paper, I move on to the third part of the pre-planning process and organize a concrete shot list. My shot list for this specific video looks like this, nothing too complicated, just the basic shots with enough detail in their descriptions that'll help me recall how I imagined them while brainstorming. I also like to specify which camera and lens would work best for each shot, that way I'm not fumbling around for the right equipment while shooting. All right, now that the pre-planning is done, we can move on to tip number two, which is to determine the setting or environment where we want to showcase our product. Every good brand or product has a certain look or a style that it tends to follow. For Alpha Theory, that's usually a darker matte black moody setting, and that's the look we're going to be emulating today. Now it's important to make sure that a brand's identity stays consistent. For example, if we were to put this product anywhere other than a dark moody setting, it'd look a bit mismatched and not really fit into any of the other content that the company uses to promote itself. Now this isn't always the case, especially if you're introducing something completely new that's meant to stand out from the rest of the product line, but in this case, that's not what we're trying to do. Now the main environment that I've thrown together for this product is actually super simple. It consists of a backdrop, which is just a dark fabric with a brick design that I got off of Amazon for around 20 bucks, and then a couple of acoustic foam panels that I found lying around the office. You can obviously use something a little bit more professional like a black cloth or a dark tabletop, but I saw these, set them up, and they worked perfectly, so I just kind of stuck with it. Now the last piece to the puzzle in setting up this environment is plexiglass. This stuff is great for creating those subtle reflections. I just kind of laid it over the top of those acoustic foam panels, so as you can see, when I set the product down, there's a nice clean reflection. The secondary environment that we used for this shoot was actually in the bathroom of our office because there's a shower in the corner, so it wouldn't make a mess when we did the shots that involved pouring the pre-workout liquid out from the shaker bottle. Now for this setting, I taped a black background to the wall so we could kind of match the other moody shots that we'd already filmed in the main location. Now these setups would be nothing without lights, which leads to our third tip, proper lighting. Now keep in mind that different products will require different types of lighting. For example, one of our students, Austin Paul, just made an awesome product video for a brand of whiskey. Now if you just shine the light directly on that whiskey bottle, you'd actually lose the amber glow of the liquid, so you need to shine the light from the back so that it amplifies the contents of the bottle. Our product is a bit different though, so for this, I just set up the main environment with a four-point lighting setup. There are tons of different lighting setups that you can use for product videos, and it's ultimately determined by the product that you'll be shooting and what lighting makes it look its absolute best. That being said, feel free to use our setup as a template, but you might find that your product looks better with a different lighting setup. Now to really isolate our products and have full control over the lighting, we turned out all the lights, then started building our lighting setup from there. Now first we wanted to put some emphasis on the height of the bottle, so we added a tube light on each side. Tube lights work really well with tall, slender objects, especially bottles, so I definitely recommend using those if you have the option. Second, we added our key light so that the label on the bottle would pop just a little bit more and not be hidden in the shadows. I also threw on a honeycomb grid so the light would be a bit more isolated directly on the product and not bleed too much onto the backdrop. Lastly, we set up a spotlight that could shine directly onto the back of the bottle and kind of separate it from the backdrop. This adds a nice rim to the edges of the bottle and the lid and really completes the setup. Now most of the time you'd want at least one light on your backdrop, but it really depends on the overall look of your video. Since we were going for that moodier look, I didn't think the backdrop needed anything, but your case may be different. Also when we added the mangoes and started setting up the final shot with the shaker being slammed down, we realized that we'd need another light so that our pre-workout bottle would be properly lit and the shaker bottle once it came into the frame. For this we brought in another little spotlight so you could clearly see the Alpha Theory logo on the bottle. Alright tip number four is adding special touches that are specific to your product. Now since the flavor of this pre-workout is peach mango, I went to the store and bought some mangoes so we could add that to the scene for a couple of shots. I know it's pretty obvious, but I think this helps the viewer visualize the flavors that they could expect if they were to drink the product. Also I would have gotten peaches, but I guess they're out of season so we just had to stick with mangoes. Either way I love how this looks because it adds a lot more contrast to those shots with the mango color bouncing off of the deep black reflections and I just think it looks awesome. Also since our product is a drink, we obviously need to show a lot of condensation and give the impression that it's a cold crisp beverage. We did a few shots without any condensation and even though it looks pretty good, it looks way better simply because you'd expect a beverage to have water dripping down the sides. So to do this we actually didn't use water. An industry secret is to use glycerin which you can find in a pharmacy. This is just a clear fatty oil that looks like water but it has a slightly thicker consistency so it doesn't just drip down whatever you spray it on. It'll stick to it for the most part similar to a natural condensation that you'd see on a cold drink. Another special shot that we added was this macro shot of the pre-workout flowing through a shaker bottle. I saw this in Austin's video and we thought it was super creative so shout out to him for the inspiration. But to make this work I actually had to saw through the bottom of a clear shaker bottle so we could slide the ProBlends through and have a big enough opening for pouring in the drink. Let's talk about that shot in tip number five which is shot variety. Now this tip basically encompasses all of the different camera movements, angles, and focal lengths that we use to capture a variety of shots that can showcase the product in a creative and flattering way. So for camera movements we use just a couple of different tools. First we set up a slider perpendicular to the table for those smooth push-in camera movements. Now with a tripod head mounted on the slider I was able to tilt the camera up and down if I needed to reframe the shot as I move closer or further away from the product. Then I mounted the camera on a normal tripod then set the product on a turntable which gives you this smooth rotation. Now we got this one on Amazon so we'll drop a link down in the description if you want to check it out. For focal lengths we used three different lenses. First was the Sigma 85mm f1.4. This focal length is easily one of the most flattering for filming both people and products. If you compare the bottle shot on an 85mm to a 24mm it just looks so much more natural. Second focal length was the Canon 100mm macro. This lens was great for getting those tight macro shots of the product's label and other little details. Lastly we had the Laowa 24mm probe. This lens came in handy for the close-up like the ending shot where the camera flies above the mangoes and then the shaker bottle is slammed down. As well as this shot of the liquid flowing through the shaker bottle. Definitely a unique lens so we'll drop a link below if you want to check that out. Alright I know that some of you watching this video probably want to get a quick look at the editing process so I figured I'd sit down and at least show you my favorite shot and kind of break it down a little bit. Now honestly there was not a lot of work put into the editing process of this video. I'm a big believer that if you put in the work to pre-plan and shoot clean images straight out of camera you won't need to correct very much in your editing. That being said my favorite shot has got to be the one of the pre-workout bottle with the condensation dripping down the side. We actually shot this one static so the camera was just sitting on a tripod with no movement. Then in post I added some subtle key framing on the position scale and rotation. What this does is it adds a little bit more of an engaging movement to your video. And when you add a similar movement to all of your shots in a sequence it really just pulls you in and keeps the flow of the video moving. By the way for those of you who are wondering the second screen I'm using is the ScreenPad Plus on the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo that we showcased in our 10 Tips to 10X Productivity in Premiere Pro video from a couple weeks back. Now we already gave a full review of this laptop so obviously I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here but this touchscreen is easily my favorite feature ever on a laptop because I can just throw my timeline right there on the bottom. Plus this computer just has incredible specs so Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, everything you want to run runs smoothly. But anyways I'll drop a link below if you want to check it out. Alright besides that subtle camera movement I did throw on a color correction and people always ask what settings I adjust when coloring a clip. And lately I've been adding just a touch of blue in the shadows down here. Then really punching that contrast pulling up the whites and then pulling down the highlights. So now if I toggle this you can see the before and after. Now the last aspect of this clip is the sound design. I honestly browsed all over just trying to find that perfect juicy water flowing sound effect and then finally I stumbled across a clip titled intestines or something gross like that and it actually worked pretty well. Now hopefully I didn't ruin the video for you but it just goes to show that sometimes the sound effect that works the best is the one that you'd expect the least. Well guys that pretty much wraps up this shoot. Hopefully this video was able to steer you in the right direction for your next product video. I'll also be putting together an editing breakdown for this video which is one of over 300 videos inside our full course full-time filmmaker where we help filmmakers from all over the world go from knowing nothing about filmmaking to becoming professional full-time filmmakers. Even if you're not a rookie this course will still teach you new techniques help you brush up on old ones and also connect you with a community of over 10,000 filmmakers just like you. We also have a completely free one-hour filmmaking training where we give you our top 10 tips to creating cinematic videos so links to both of those will be in the description below. Again that pretty much wraps it up thanks so much for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and if you have any further questions please let us know.