It’s no secret we are in the age of mass media content consumption. As humans we process visual images in just 13 milliseconds, and it’s estimated more than 300 million photos are uploaded each day. 68% of Instagram users actively view brands’ photos, and brand videos have 66% viewership. Brands’ have never had such power to visually communicate and authentically resonate with consumers on such a regular basis and across so many different media platforms.
However, with the sheer volume of new and engaging content brands are constantly expected to generate, content strategies are having to work harder than ever before. Maximizing film and photography production budgets has become essential to the success of a brand’s marketing strategy, and at Kindred Communications this has become our forte.
With well over a decade of industry-leading experience in content creation for brands, creatively producing lifestyle campaigns, product photography, TV commercials and digital campaign assets, we pride ourselves in our ability to maximize our clients’ budgets, ensuring we provide high-end campaign assets that consistently and authentically communicate across all consumer touch points.
So here are our top tips on getting the most out of your brand’s film and photography production budget.
Strategic Planning
It sounds obvious, however, creatively, and strategically planning your brand’s photoshoot is key in maximizing a brand’s photography and video content creation budget.
The strategic planning process should detail all aspects of your shoot, the location, models, hero products, types of shots, poses, emotion, props, outfits, make-up, lighting, and mood. The creative planning process will consider all production and styling elements, pulling together all aspects that make a smooth running and successful shoot. Ultimately ensuring the highest quantity of quality campaign assets are generated on set.
At Kindred Communications, we are big fans of mood boards, which we create for each client shoot, to provide a key visual representation of the brand and product campaign. Along with developing a tight narrative and script, mood boards are essential in carrying through an authentic brand story on set.
Storyboarding is another key element in ensuring shoots run smoothly and result in successful content creation. Having a central visual point of reference allows all parties, from brand owners – to models – to collaborative marketing agencies, to be across the sequence of shots, ensuring all teams are rowing in the same direction. Professional storyboarding not only results in richer content, through communicating a cohesive brand story, but also results in fewer interruptions and retakes. Ultimately, allowing more time for shooting, which results in the maximum amount of quality photography and video content produced for your brand.
Location Sourcing
Through the years, Kindred Communications have shot in locations in every corner of the world. Obviously, grand scale scenic mountains and striking cityscape back drops produce stunning results. However, to maximize budgets, smaller multi-use locations are ideal. Sourcing locations that lend themselves to multiple lifestyles shoots really enables you to stretch a band’s budget. The right location can successfully provide lifestyle backdrops for summer and winter campaigns in one shoot, if managed correctly.
Negotiating location terms is also a key requirement in maximizing budgets. For example, requesting longer days, rather than having to film over several days massively reduces production budgets, not only for the cost of renting the location but also the models, make-up artists, crew and everyone involved.
Combining Photoshoots
To further maximize budgets, lifestyle and product shoots can also be combined. With experience and strategic planning, a brand can achieve a full bank of photography images within a day of shooting, successfully covering a variety of content creation objectives.
Shooting for Multi-platform
Let’s be honest, gone are the days where you need to specify what channels your brands content is to be distributed across. Content needs to be repurposed across an array platforms which means shoots must planned in such a way as to be highly productive and multipurposed. At Kindred Communications we have been shooting this way for years, often overlapping teams so as to produce campaign, social, POS, website and BTS assets simultaneously, maximising time on set and ticking thecontent boxes for all media platforms. We often see content distributed across media outlets that weren’t even mentioned within the initial brief (which is fine as long as you’ve cleared it with the photographer and models!)
Ensuring everything is shot for multi-platform use saves a huge amount of budget and time. It also ensures the longevity of your photography and video production investment. Furthermore, true multi-platform campaign assets improve brand authenticity, ensuring all campaign touch points are integrated and consistent.
Editing and Producing
Editing and post-production is the final component in photography and video content creation. This critical step brings the raw footage to life. To maximize brand budgets, it is essential during this phase to stick to an agreed post production schedule, meeting each of the feedback deadlines on time. Another great way to save budget during post production is to deliver consolidated feedback, that is to say at each of the agreed review stages, make sure all client feedback is collected andconsolidated into one document before sharing with your agency producer. This simple step helps to avoid circular and contradictory feedback and prevents every editors nightmare, the dreaded drip-feed, which is when feedback trickles in over 100s of different emails causing the editor to rapidly lose their marbles.
At Kindred Communications we work with brands and creative agencies providing industry leading film and photography production. Content creation is our passion. Should your brand or business require any support in this area we would love to chat.
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