08 April 2010

Selling showers – without getting wet

Peterborough design agency t2 Studios uses cinematography techniques to drive sales

What do you normally take into the shower with you? Soap? Shampoo?

How about a camera and microphone?

When Creda needed a video to help promote its multi-entry shower range, the company turned to design agency t2 Studios to write and produce it.

Putting a camera and microphone into a shower is technically possible, of course. And we could have put a presenter in there as well.

Instead we chose to shoot the shower and the presenter separately.

The location for the video shoot was Martin Bird’s photography studio in Market Deeping. With Martin’s studio and professional lighting rig, we were able to turn around an urgent weekend shoot at very short notice.

Jay Hill, director at t2 Studios, says: “We have collaborated with Martin on several jobs over the past couple of years. We really appreciated his willingness to go out of his way to help us achieve the best possible commercial result for our client on this latest project at such short notice.”

The green screen technique made it easy for us to overlay the footage of the presenter onto separately-filmed footage of bathrooms and showers.

Harvey Hartley, graphic designer at t2 Studios, explains: “The green screen technique means that in post-production we can separate models from the background and add in anything we like as a backdrop.

"With this cinematography technique we can ‘transport’ our model from a film studio onto the moon or a tropical island if we wish. So if a client wants a change of location at the last minute we can do so without the hassle and expense of re-shooting all of the footage.

“Using this technique in a more subtle way for Creda we were able to choose the designer bathroom the presenter should appear in. We were also able to add in diagrams and animations to use interactively as backgrounds.” The presenter we chose for the video was Laura Britten (aka Sophie), a well respected model with whom we have worked in the past. She once again excelled herself as a competent and talented presenter. Dressed in clothing supplied from ASOS she hit her cue each time, even though the shoot was a full 12 hours with multiple outfit changes.

That full day of filming, though, still left us with plenty to do.

Harvey explains: “Using commercial standard Adobe video software products to ‘key-out’ the green screen from the footage, we could choose what image or indeed what other video clip to use as the background. At this stage we could also colour-correct and add any number of effects if necessary, including re-introducing shadows and atmospherics.

“After we had this edited footage we could then sync it with the high-quality sound that we recorded separately at the video-shoot.”

As mobile devices and better connectivity drive the demand for online video, the t2 Studios design agency is at the forefront of technology trends that are capable of driving sales and brand building for our clients. We have been shooting green screen video for ‘talking heads’ style video promotions and delivering them to online audiences for nearly ten years. Using high definition footage we have developed the best quality and most cost-effective approach to engaging online users through cinematography.

And using a green screen means we can take a shower without getting wet.