Studio space can often be the perfect place to produce stunning visual content. It is a place of creative freedom and efficiency: A key tool in breathing life into your ideas, whilst also incredibly flexible with a sliding scale of production capabilities to ensure your project comes together perfectly and as cost-efficient as possible. Here are a few reasons why.
A BLANK CANVAS
Firstly, a studio is effectively a blank canvas for you to do whatever you like with – within reason of course!
Versatile and dynamic, a studio allows ultimate control over the environment. Acquiring a few props to create a chic office space, or more abstract concepts such as back-lighting a blacked-out subject to cast a silhouette or using projection mapping to bring the outside world into the space, you can create a number of different looks in the same space by effectively using the tools at your disposal: the light, the camera, and the action.
With a bit of concept development and pre-production, you can gain a real creative edge over the competition. As a result of your studio shoot, your content won’t just look amazing, it will also sound fantastic. Studios are purpose-built and feature soundproofing and dampening technologies to ensure that there are no disruptions. No location hubbub from rogue construction sites or traffic sounds that hold up shoots and waste precious time.
We understand that time is incredibly valuable and we want to ensure that you get every drop of value from pre-production all the way through to final delivery.
TO INFINITY COVE & BEYOND
A popular feature of many studios is what is called an infinity cove. This is where the floor and wall are often painted white or black which creates the impression of endless, or “infinite” space with no horizon.
White-out infinity spaces can be used to focus on your subjects, particularly when there is a lot of activity, providing a clean, bright background to work with. Our work with BP on “Energy Illustrated” demonstrates this perfectly. The illustrators used a white canvas in a white infinity cove to literally illustrate the scale and intricate details of BP’s sustainable energy plan in a simple and thought-provoking way.
A black-out space, however, is the moodier older-brother of the white-out space. With a more imaginative lighting and colour set-up, a darker, more mysterious effect can be produced. This works really well in showcasing tech products, creating ambience for a serious interview, or epic dramatic character-led pieces.
Our recent work with Broadsword Experience and the Canal & River Trust are two excellent examples utilising a black-out space, but with two very different messages.
Broadsword is a bespoke Military-style experiential program designed to enable clients’ self-improvement through special forces style scenarios… We wanted to showcase a special forces team preparing for an operation to show this parallel between the prospective clients and the world’s best operators.
To create a dark and ominous atmosphere, we employed high-contrast lighting and smoke to anonymise our characters. Shots were framed tightly on props and focussed on the actions of configuring specialist equipment such as guns and night-vision goggles. This exaggerates the mystique and encourages audiences to put themselves in the shoes of our characters, about to embark on a dangerous mission.
The Canal & River Trust’s campaign to promote Charlie’s Code involved playing a recording of Charlie’s story, told by his father, to a selection of young adults in Manchester. On camera, our subjects listened, reacted, and discussed their thoughts surrounding the dangers of drinking near waterways. The outcome was a particularly powerful display, with nowhere to hide, the raw emotion was bare and visible to see. It is in these moments of discomfort, the gravity of loss and pain is evident.
Technically speaking, we kept the set-up simple to let the story drive itself. We employed Rembrandt style lighting to cast shadows and therefore amplify expressions. This drew attention to even the most subtle facial movements such as an eyebrow raise or an elongated gulp. The lack of cutaways prevents distraction from the speaker and emphasise the tragic outcome of what would be normally considered a good night out.
Regardless of light or dark, the studio space creates a clean, and polished effect, showing the care and consideration taken to showcase your subject or product in the best possible light.
THE COVID “ELEPHANT” IN THE ROOM
Above all, the studio allows us to shoot in a COVID-safe way, which many of our clients didn’t realise we could do.
Instead of hiring a cramped meeting room, or using your 5-megapixel webcam, a spacious, purpose-built studio will assure the safety of on-screen talent, crew, and client. We adhere to a number of policies in accordance with government guidelines and enforce thorough social-distancing for all on-set. Crews are COVID trained to assure you and your team that safety is our number one priority.
If you’d like any advice on how to level-up your content with our wide creative toolset, get in touch with our team today.