Filming products/gadgets

[chelseasian]

Hi!

I am producing a segment for product reviews for a website, and i am wondering how can this be done:

We are looking to have a video of the product- i.e. an iPod Touch standing upright in the middle of a turntable, and against a white background.

How I envision the shoot is that the iPod on the turntable will rotate as the camera zooms in.

I am wondering besides a video camera and a tripod, what do I need to accomplish the shoot?

i appreciate any tips.

 

[uptherighttree]

a light tent maybe? You'll have all kinds of reflections going on if the object is reflective

 

[chrisbrockhurst]

Hi!

I am producing a segment for product reviews for a website, and i am wondering how can this be done:

We are looking to have a video of the product- i.e. an iPod Touch standing upright in the middle of a turntable, and against a white background.

How I envision the shoot is that the iPod on the turntable will rotate as the camera zooms in.

I am wondering besides a video camera and a tripod, what do I need to accomplish the shoot?

i appreciate any tips.

go on ebay and get one of these

http://cgi.ebay.com/PHOTO-STUDIO-KI...ltDomain_0&hash=item2c56e82000#ht_3148wt_1139

as for holding up the ipod touch, you could go for a desktop stand, when I got my first gen ipod touch it came with a tiny, clear desktop stand, something like that would be perfect, again probably a ebay job?

 

[MacMovies]

The problem you may run into is how to light the device and not get reflections on the screen which block the screen content. Can I recommend my iOS app, KeeMe?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/keeme/id356116160?mt=8

It's basically made for situations like you describe. You can prop the iPod Touch up on the turntable, then set a matte color and virtual corner markers within KeeMe. That way, you can replace the iPod's screen contents in post-production using After Effects/Motion/etc. (keying and corner point tracking).

After you get this shot down you can reuse it again and again by substituting in new screen content (you can shoot the screen content separately, without worrying about moving the device, and light it to optimally display the screen content).

One more tip: rather than zooming while shooting, if you can shoot in a higher resolution than the final product, you can just scale the footage in post.

 

[neutrino23]

Do you have a turntable? If not maybe you could scavenge an old record player from Salvation Army or some other junk shop.

You can hang any kind of incandescent lights but you do need to hang some bed sheets or t-shirts to act as diffusers. Maybe you could put one small spot light on the dingus without a diffuser to make some highlights and shadows. Maybe a flashlight would work. If you use high wattage incandescents be careful not to get them too close to the diffusers so you don't start a fire.

Product lighting is a huge topic. If you watch a professional shoot you see them taking a long time getting all the lights just right. Take a digital camera and try taking pictures at different angles to see what happens to the reflections and shadows when viewed on a computer. Might be quicker than processing and reviewing video. Watch the position of the camera. Even a small shift can make a difference.

Before shooting set the white balance of the video camera using a bright white piece of paper.

I'd also set the exposure and focus to fixed values. You don't want the auto features hunting around while you are rotating the object.

How will you rotate the object? If you use an old turntable perhaps you could wind some string around it. Then someone could slowly and steadily pull that string to turn the object.

Have fun.

 

[FroColin]

You could also animate it

 

[puckhead193]

if your going to be talking, get a decent mic. I hate watching "youtube reviews" with bad audio