How to Maximize Your Time and Budget At a Shoot

Time is money. As old as this phrase is, its meaning is as important now as it ever has been in the world of marketing.

Recent technology has opened up new avenues to showcase your products and services. But how do you choose the right medium and produce the necessary content to feed them while staying within ever-dwindling budgets? This is a conundrum marketers deal with on a daily basis.

A while back, Overskies teamed up with Ansell, a global leader in hand protection solutions, to showcase some of their latest products. Their marketing manager had been tasked with capturing new video footage as well as stills for various pieces of marketing collateral. The goal of the footage and stills was to show their single-use gloves “in use” in a variety of different settings and applications.

We had the unique opportunity to gain access to the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) in Maryland with a day and a half window where we would be allowed to shoot. The PDA is a teaching facility with many options for shooting the gloves in use. Ansell and Overskies needed to figure out how to capture the most footage and stills without sacrificing quality in the amount of time we had.

Here are 3 ways we were able to maximize our time during this on-location shoot and capture some great imagery:

1. Plan, Plan, and Plan Some More

If you are going to make the most out of a day-and-a-half-long shoot, the importance of pre-production planning can’t be overstated. In a technical setting such as the PDA lab, knowing the product and environment is key.

Become a master of the product and its applications. Make sure you create a detailed shoot schedule and supporting shot list. Cross-check everything against the script five times to ensure every detail is covered. Then, on set, be sure you stick to the schedule and execute on your shot list.

These may seem like simple ideas, but they're essential. Once you get on location, being highly organized will help you switch quickly between setups and make the most of your time.

2. Two Crews, Two Productions, One Team

In order to capture both stills and video at the same time in the same location, you must have 2 crews. Hiring the right crew is of the utmost importance. You need to be certain the director has a good rapport with both the product photographer and the director of photography. There must be a trust that the job will be done right so the director can bounce back and forth between setups.

This also goes back to planning. Being well-prepared enables you to efficiently switch in and out talent and product and also change applications so that video production and still photography can run simultaneously and not hold each other up.

3. Think About the Future, But Don’t Forget the Past

With an opportunity like we had in Maryland, Ansell had the forethought to get as much content as possible even if it didn’t yet have a “home.” We have done this on many video shoots by capturing more B-roll footage than is necessary. With Ansell having so many different glove products that can be used in countless applications, we are always shooting different gloves in difference scenarios and then going back to update existing videos. By building an asset library for our client, we can also leverage these assets for future projects.

Though planning for location shoots can be time-consuming and tedious, if done correctly, the results will be worth it. Due to the flawless collaboration between Ansell and Overskies, Ansell came away with nearly 400 photographs as well as a ton of video content to update old product videos and create new ones. Not too shabby for a day and a half!

Watch the final product below:

For more information about our video production services, contact us today!