3 Key Ingredients For A Successful Brand Photoshoot
Hi, Glad you are visiting our colorful corner of the internet. Taking on a brand photoshoot can be a daunting task, no matter if you are planning a product, portrait or lifestyle production. Lots of details need your attention, from team coordination to creating a great briefing and shotlist. In this blogpost we would like to share 3 key ingredients, that turned out to be a huge help in creating a smooth shooting day and fantastic results. Here we go!
Create a clear briefing
This may seem like a pretty obvious one - but I assure you, it isn’t. A lot of times clients create a very vague brief, which is often a sign that they are not 100 percent sure what they want. This creates insecurities and misunderstandings during the entire shooting process - from creating the right mood board, finding a team, styling the shoot and so on. Worst case is, that clients are disappointed by the results. Well, we are quite emphatic, but not mind-readers. Which is why a clear, structured briefing is essentiell for fantastic photo- and videography.
How to create a good briefing?
Ask yourself the following questions concerning your upcoming brand photoshoot:
What is the main goal I am trying to achieve with the imagery? Am I launching a new product, do my social media channels need an update or do I want to create catchy content for Instagram ads? Define clear goals the visuals need to meet. It will decide what formats we work with, in what visual communication style we can address your target group and also how much we are going to charge for licenses.
What message do I want to come across? Ideally, we are telling a story in the visuals we are going to create. This should include your brand values and brand story as well as the idea you have in mind for this photoshoot. Tell us what’s on your mind and let us be a part of the contextual process you are going through. This way we consult you how we can visually translate your ideas best.
What key elements should be included? If you need a certain brand color scheme to be included in your production, or a certain visual element, such as a logo or illustration, include it in your briefing. It well help when creating the mood board and general concept of the photoshoot. Also: if you would like to include text in your imagery, we can plan the composition of the imagery accordingly.
Any extra points we should know? Too much information is better than too little. Feel free to include any other thoughts that come across you or your team’s mind when setting up the briefing.
With a clear briefing you set yourself up for greatness: we as your photo-and video team can get our creative juices flowing based on the information you provided, let the team know exactly what you have in mind and begin to get an idea of where we are going. Speaking of - it’s time to put all these words into visuals - let’s create a mood board!
Create a mood board
So we do know what values, stories and elements should be included in your photo- or video shoot. One essential step is done! Now to the fun part: creating a mood board. Lots of time, the mood board is created by our clients to give us an idea of what they are looking for. And this is extremely helpful to get a feeling for the aesthetic, ideas and expectation. After going through the briefing and having the first calls and talks with our clients, often we like to create another mood board to illustrate our ideas, give new input and show our side of the story. Most cases, the final mood board is a mixture of the ideas every party has provided, but it still has to capture a consistent visual idea for be really helpful.
If you are planning a bigger production and/or want to be very thorough, create a main mood board and add detail mood boards to illustrate styling ideas, hair and make up ideas, possible prop ideas, set-design ideas - the list goes on. You can illustrate your ideas as detailed as possible - and this is often very helpful for each member of the photoshoot team.
We love mood boards that really illustrate the photoshoot’s look and feel. This can be achieved by mood boarding textures, posing ideas, location ideas, hair and make up , scenes from movies or series or similar imagery.
The final step: the photoshoot concept
Since we are no clear on the visual style as well as the contextual background, we can know put everything together into the photoshoot concept. This the the holy grail for each team member of production day: all the info neatly lined up and combined into one big idea, defining goals and shots as well as illustrating the shoot style and ideas.
During the pre-production meeting we discuss the final concept, make final adjustments and get feedback from each team member if the timeline is realistic and matches the goals we defined. This is also a great time to talk about possible concerns, what could go wrong and what Plan B’s are in place.
You see, photography is a much creativity as it is planning. Depending on the size of your team, your art director, project manager or production team will handle these parts. Briefing your team strategically and detailed is one of the most important things when it comes to creating a fantastic photoshoot. Photoshoots are creativity between the guidelines of a client’s concept, so we should all know what we are working with.
Thank you for stepping into our colorful world - see you soon!
