Product Advertisement In a Studio

We had another studio session today, containing information all based around product advertisement. Product advertisement is a good way to improve camera skills, such as selecting the correct settings and using artistic approaches and shots.Selecting the correct camera settings in a studio is very important due to the use of lots of different artificial lights and props, and in different parts of the shoot, there will be different lights used, different levels of lights, and different scenery and props for the particular shoot.

Today in this session, we were looking to get 1 or 2 proper good shots that we could perhaps use for our websites or portfolios. This in mind, we decided to use products with glass in them. This was to ensure that we could make the most of the lighting we had available to us, as well as products being made of glass already look impressive, making some shots look more interesting without much thought. The use of these products had immediate trouble though, with the cologne bottle we were using have lots of finger prints on it, of which were very visible in pictures with lights shining on it. I tried cleaning it but it wasn't very successful. Using brand new products would have helped massively and this will be kept in mind for next time. To tackle this issue, we used dimmer lighting.

For the locations and props, we attempted to create an infinity curve for the products, but the only papers we had available were yellow, green and black. We tried using yellow but it didn't suit the cologne very well, as it didn't bring out the blue liquid inside, Instead we went on to use a laptop screen as the background for the product. The cologne is Hollister brand of which is a beach company. So we used a dancing water background, with the cologne laying on top. These shots came out pretty well, with the back-light of the laptop combining with other lighting in the studio to light up the product well, and the artistic shot ranges we tested out were very good. We also tried to create a few shots for our other product of jalapenos. We did this by changing the water background of the laptop to flames on a black screen, and positioning the camera below the jalapenos, to make them look more powerful, trying to emphasize the strength of the jalapenos and that they are spicy. This shot also looked pretty good.

In the future, a clear plan on how the studio will be decorated and how the products will be shot will be needed to be made before we start shoot day, because we wasted a lot of time at the start of the session and we didn't' really have a great direction for what pictures or videos we wanted for out products.The method of using a laptop screen was one we all really enjoyed and came out with good results. A larger screen would have helped, but using this sort of screen also made us want to try professional acrylic designed screens. Slow motion also works really well for product advertisement, as it is very engaging for the audience and makes the products look more interesting than they actually are. Here is a short montage of what we achieved in this studio session.