Tips for creating product videos which look CGI-slick, but are mostly made with in-camera techniques and careful pre-planning.
In his series of tutorials, product video creator Austen Paul shares a range of creative techniques, tips and tricks. Interestingly, much of his polished-looking results are achieved in-camera, using hand-made setups and strong colour design, and with relatively basic compositing techniques in post-production.
This video goes into more technical detail about the lighting techniques used to achieve his made-at-home product video:
Don’t have a backdrop? Perhaps you have a TV (and, ideally, a few decent lights)…
… or even coloured cardboard – which, together some planning in pre-production and a little masking and basic transformation in post, can be used to re-create static product shots with CGI-like animation:
Further Viewing
Standard disclaimer: gear is not the most important thing. With that said, if you’d still like to know what Austen uses and recommends:
We’ve rounded up a bunch of creative product video tutorials from creators and channels including Daniel Schiffer, Indy Mogul, Cinecom, Parker Wallbeck, Shutterstock, and Steve Giralt: