As many of you know, video production has long been a passion of mine.
From my early days in TV news with ABC, to working as a videographer at UCLA, and even starting - and selling - my own live streaming media company, I’ve always managed to find myself behind a lens.
While working with SNHU, I produced over 30 TV commercials. At National, our work was Emmy Award-winning. And today, with Kanahoma, we own and operate our own production company - Kanahoma Productions.
Earlier this month, while on a week-long shoot for a client, I was asked:
“How do you get the most out of a production?”
And while there’s a lot of ways one can answer that, here’s what I had to say:
First, Understand Your Objective…
Great productions aren’t just about art, they’re about architecture. We’re not just trying to scratch a creative itch, we’re trying to build a catalogue of content we can use all year long.
It’s a tenet we hold tightly at Kanahoma, when we tell our partners:
“We Don’t Just Shoot Commercials. We Produce Content Libraries.”
Because the days of a 30-second TV commercial carrying your marketing campaign are dead.
These days, you might still need that 30-second spot, but you also need a slew of 15’s, 10’s, 6’s, and 5’s; as well as more paid social video content than you can count; all formatted and exported for each platform, resulting in literally hundreds of videos being produced in batches at any given time.
And to produce that much content - and ensure it’s tailored to the audience you’re targeting - marketers need a volume of video and photo assets that exceeds anything we’ve ever seen before.
So How Do You Produce A Content Library?
The thing about production is your shoot days are fixed, but how much you actually shoot is variable.
So the game every time isn’t to just add more shoot days, but rather to get more out of the shoot days that you already have.
To that end, here are…
5 Simple Production Tips Every Creative Should Know
#1. Limit Locations to Reduce Moves
The first - and most critical component - is to reduce your locations. The more locations you try to fit into a single day the more time you spend traveling and the less time you spend with the cameras rolling.
So find great locations with a lot of variety. That way, you just have to “push” from one set up to the next without loading gear in and out of vehicles.
My simple solve for this is often either renting an elaborate AirBnB with a plethora of rooms, or booking out a co-working space with a wide variety of looks. In either case, we can stay in one location all day and only have to load and unload once.
#2. Use Multiple Talent for the Same Setup
Next, we want to focus on maximizing our setups. A “setup” is any environment where we come in and setup our camera and lights. This could be anything from a home or office to a science lab or athletic field.
Any time we take the time to put together a setup, we always strive to utilize multiple talent back-to-back. By flying in different talent into the same setup we can double the content we’re capturing without doubling the time it took to get the location ready to film.
#3. Use Multiple Cameras for Each Setup
In addition to using multiple talent for a single setup, we also always look to use multiple cameras. Starting with our high end camera system, once we have captured the content we need we’ll next fly in our still photographer, followed by tossing our talent iPhones to capture user generated content.
This approach allows us to capture high end video, still photos, and UGC content, all without having to relight.
#4. Expand Wardrobe to Extend Talent
Next, we try to carry our talent for at least half a day - if not a full day - so we can utilize their participation in additional setups. To help ensure it’s not obvious in the final product, we’ll rotate who is the “hero” talent and who is “supporting,” based on setup, changing wardrobe each time, so talent are shot from different angles and look like new.
#5. Follow the Light
Finally, as great as elaborate lighting set ups can be, work with your gaffer and grip to look for ways to leverage natural light to enhance a scene. Whether it’s shooting outside at golden hour or inside just as the light comes through a window, the more you can leverage natural light the faster you can have each setup set up. And that means more time filming.
Conclusion
So the next time you set out for a shoot, remember it’s not just about what you’re shooting, but how much time you’re spending shooting it. Because while your shoot days are fixed, how much you actually shoot is variable.
About the Author
Seth is the founder and CEO of Kanahoma, a San Diego-based performance marketing agency on a mission to build a better agency for organizations building a better world.
You can learn more about who we are and what we do at www.Kanahoma.com.