Keeping it under CTRL! Creative Photography and Video Production for energy drink brand CTRL
How we injected visual energy into this set of creative content delivery
This is our first project for CTRL Energy, who asked us to deliver photography and video production for their new products and updated branding.
As the client’s product pack shots were being provided by their packaging designer, this gave us scope to create highly visual product photography and video production snippets to add to their new website and for social media. The brief was to align really closely to their branding, which is a complex blend of graphic characterisation, a bit of neon and quirky iconography. The starting point was to build around a ‘candyland’ theme – think Katy Perry in California Girls – pink clouds, candy floss, lollypops.
Second to this was adding in some lifestyle content with a model. The idea behind this was to match an element of usage and mirror the target audience by being slightly aspirational, but at the same time very real.
In true Pocket Creatives style, we worry less about the shot numbers and more about the creative delivery when working on photography and video production projects like this. We don’t charge per image or per video, as we can offer much better value for money if we charge for our time and resources when working towards photography and video production – and this project acts as a great example of when this works really well.
Our outputs would need to be a selection of still imagery focused around CTRL’s two new product flavours: strawberry laces and fruit salad. We would enrich this with a set of slow motion video clips subtly moving that play with colour, shadow and light. Combining both photography and video production services into the same shoot means that we can produce a really wide variety of content, maximising the volume and flexibility of the outputs.
The lifestyle content would reflect typical gaming scenarios. If you consider the Instagram grid, these shots are designed to break up the heavy reliance on products.
If we had to sum up the most important aspect of this photography and video production project in one word, we’d say ‘vibrance’. Producing content that mirrored the excitement that the branding tried to exert is really important here. Knowing where to stop probably comes a close second! 🙂
One aspect of this project that was different to some of the other photography and video production projects we’ve worked on of late is having almost free-reign to play with this one. As long as we stayed loosely around the candy land theme, the rest was pretty much down to us.
We shot this photography and video production project in our London Waterloo studio, which gives us the level of control we need of the lighting, and room enough to make a mess without having to worry! Shooting this on location would cause numerous challenges so running this project from a studio is the best way to guarantee quality of results. This is especially important when switching back and forth between photography and video production, as you need to have some consistency that’s not impacted by the daylight.
The key to getting this right was in creating a structure to work around, otherwise you end up risking providing loads of unlinked images that could feel a little disparate and out of sync. So we chose to create a small set made up of colours and textures, set against a base and background that visually confirmed our candy land theme. Once we had enough time in place to build this, we could then effectively only have to worry about variety, moving the products around and encouraging depth and blur, using the set to do the heavy lifting.
Timing-wise we allocated a specific time for the build, and then a period of 3 hours were shared between the photography and video production teams who alternated by shooting one product at a time.
Lastly, the lifestyle content session with the model brought us up to a full day time allowance. We knew that this would be the simpler part of the day, and that 2-3 hours overall would be sufficient to complete the limited number of shots that allow us to bring that human element into the frame. We worked with the wonderful Danielle to help bring this segment to life.
Production ran incredibly smoothly on this combined photography and video production shoot. That’s testament to a supportive client, and our process of solid planning to ensure that we can get the results that we need. Working towards delivering both photography and video production does threaten the time to run away with you, so it’s important to stay focused and keep an eye on the clock!
The toughest aspect was the set build, which is picky and takes time, and when you consider the complexities of lighting something like this too, the only way we could organise this was to provide adequate time – this helps to keep everyone happy and relaxed and usually ends up making the day run that bit smoother.
Quality for us is more than just the visuals we deliver at the end of a project. It’s the strength of communication, and the depth of organisation. For this specific project, its success was dependent on the quality of the build – and the fit of the model, and we worked hard to ensure that both of these aspects were well considered.
Happy with the results? We are, for sure! Briefs like this are fun – the freedom you have to play and experiment, knowing that the more creative you are in the approach, the happier the client will be!
As always, if you have any questions or would like to chat about your photography and video production needs please feel free to get in touch.
Steven Mayatt, Creative Director
“Fun, innovative and unflappable. Pocket creatives are great to work with – whether it’s finding the perfect lighting for trifle to capturing GoPro footage on a whisk, they always approach every situation with a steady yet game-changing attitude. I see the whole team as trusted creative partners to make great content together.”
Kitty Aldis, River Group
“I have been working with Steven and the brilliant Pocket Creatives crew for 3 years – in fact since they started out. They have captured in excess of 100 recipes, produced 7 videos including 2 crowdfunding campaigns, their work, professionalism, and commitment to client satisfaction second to none. What’s more is how they have developed, evolved and grown in creativity, experience, and inspiration.
On a personal front the individuals in the team have to most wonderful personalities – an absolute joy to work with!”
Tanya Robertson-Lambert, Tanya’s Just Real
“I worked with Steven and his Pocket Creatives team to create a recipe video, and I couldn’t recommend their services enough! From the ideation stage, through to filming and editing the finished product, at every stage, the whole team were first-class, going above and beyond to create a compelling, high-quality recipe video that generated heaps of engagement. I would definitely work them again.”
Ben Cullen, OLIO
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