From the course: Social Media Video Strategy: Weekly Bites

Aesthetics: Location, staging, and wardrobe - Premiere Pro Tutorial

From the course: Social Media Video Strategy: Weekly Bites

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Aesthetics: Location, staging, and wardrobe

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- When you shoot video, you are in control of everything in your frame. This means that the decisions you make about your location, objects within the frame, any props you use, and your wardrobe are all things that can either add or subtract from your branding and your message. So let's first talk about location. When deciding on where you're going to shoot your video, there's a lot to consider. We've talked about this before, but I'll say it again. You want to find a place that is on brand. This just means that your space should fanatically or aesthetically match the details that you've drawn out for your brand. Does it look like a space where you and your target audience would relate to? In other words, if your target audience is made up of business professionals, an office is probably better than a living room. If your target audience is an artsy crowd, then an art studio is probably better than an office. So you should analyze the colors and shapes and lines within the frame and make sure that everything looks the way that you want it because, even when you've chosen a location, you're in charge of where you point the camera. Find the most interesting angle to accentuate the depth and texture of a room, rather than shooting against a flat wall. In choosing a location for this course, for example, I've chosen to shoot in an office because my target audience is made up of all types of business professionals. I chose a room and an angle that had quite a bit of interest visually, and I positioned the camera so that I had a bit of foreground, mid ground, and background to offer some interesting depth. In addition, the space should be quiet so that you don't run into audio problems. It should also be large enough to accommodate your production needs in terms of production equipment and crew and, of course, the camera angles that you intend to get. In many cases, you'll need to add some physical items to the space in order to stage the area appropriately. This type of decorating is part of production design, and it can be very important in making sure that the location becomes as much a part of the video as the people and things within it. When staging, again, stay on brand in terms of what you're showing, as well as the colors, shapes, and textures, and feel free to add objects to create layers within the scene to help make the scene more multidimensional. Finally, I'll just mention wardrobe. Choosing what to wear is important to support your brand, as well, so select a style and color scheme that is going to match well with the aesthetic that you've worked so hard to design. As you do this, there are some general dos and don'ts when picking clothes for a video. I'll mention a few here, but just make sure to run some tests with various wardrobe options before you record to make sure that it's going to work. So when it comes to wardrobe, there are several categories of things to be aware of, and most of it comes down to color, contrast, pattern, and fit. So for color, yes, you want your basic color palette to be on brand, but there are some things to look out for. Sometimes very bright colors, especially reds and oranges, can glow on camera, so they're usually not recommended. Also, be careful with straight whites and blacks, especially when there's a large contrast between skin color and clothing color. That is, very light-skinned talent should usually avoid wearing very dark clothing and vice versa for very dark-skinned talent. It can create exposure problems for the camera. In terms of clothing pattern, avoid close high-contrast patterns like pinstripes, herringbone, very busy plaids, and corduroy. These types of patterns can create wavy, rainbow-colored patterns on camera. So all of that said, blues, grays, and greens, and burgundies, earth tones, either solid or subtle patterns work best. Accessories like ties and scarves can add a pop of color to an otherwise neutral look, and go for simple, tasteful jewelry, as anything shiny can be too reflective on camera. So once you have your location and general aesthetic planned out, you're well on your way to defining the look for your video.

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