What a prototype cannot do on camera
The single most common surprise on product work is that the object arriving on set is not the object in the renders. A pre-production unit behaves differently, and every one of these costs a shoot day if it is discovered on the day rather than before it.
- Finish. Prototype surfaces show tool marks, seams and parting lines that the production run will not have. Under film lighting those read enormously, and lighting around them costs hours.
- Colour. First-run colour rarely matches final. If the film goes out before the product ships, the difference is the thing customers notice first and complain about.
- Function. A hinge that works four times, a battery that lasts ten minutes, a screen that has to be composited later. Anything that has to work repeatedly on camera needs to be known in advance.
- How many exist. One unit means no second angle while the first is being reset, no backup if something is scratched, and a slower day. Two changes the schedule more than any equipment decision.
None of this makes a prototype unfilmable. Sitpack’s Campster launch was shot this way. It means the constraints have to be on the table when the shot list is written, not discovered at nine in the morning.
Studio, real world, or animation
Three ways to shoot a product, with genuinely different costs and different jobs.
Studio gives total control of light and background, and it is the only way to get the hero detail shots that make something look expensive. It is also where a product looks most like an advert, which is exactly right for some things and wrong for anything sold on being practical.
In the real world is harder and more persuasive. Weather, permits, people and light all become variables, and the payoff is a viewer who can picture themselves using it. The EyeQue and Sitpack films both work this way, and it is why they read as products rather than props.
Animation is the only option for what a camera physically cannot see: what happens inside the device, how the mechanism works, what the software is doing. It is not a cheaper substitute for filming, and treating it as one produces the generic explainer look. Used for the thing that genuinely cannot be photographed, it is the strongest shot in the film.
Most product films use two of the three. Deciding which two before the shoot is what keeps the budget where it was.
Product Video Production
Luma Creative produces product video in San Francisco for companies launching something physical. We cover it end to end: concept and storyboard, studio or location, the shoot, then editing, colour and motion graphics.
What is a product video?
A product video shows a specific product working, and its job is to remove doubt before someone buys. It is built around the object itself, which is what separates it from a brand video, where the subject is the company rather than the thing it sells, and from a software demo, where there is no physical object to light and the screen is the product.
That distinction decides the crew and the budget. A product shoot is a lighting and surface problem: how a material reads on camera, whether a finish flares, how many angles are needed before the edit has a cut. A brand film is an interview and location problem. They are priced differently because they are not the same job.
The product films companies commission
- The launch film. One product, one release date, usually with a campaign already booked around it. The schedule runs backwards from the launch and there is no second chance at the date.
- The crowdfunding video. Its own discipline, because the film has to carry the pitch as well as the product. The Sitpack Campster project below was one of these. We keep a separate page on crowdfunding video production.
- The feature or explainer piece. Shows how the product works rather than what it is. Often the film that reduces support tickets as much as it drives sales.
- Studio product photography and short-form cuts. Vertical, sound-off, produced in batches from the same setup, because the economics only work if one day yields a month of posts.
Shooting a prototype is not the same as shooting a product
Most launch work reaches us before the product is finished. A pre-production unit may be the wrong colour, carry visible tooling marks, or exist as one fragile sample that cannot be handled the way the shot needs. That is normal, and it changes three things: we shoot around the unfinished surfaces rather than hiding them in post, we schedule the hero shots first while the sample is intact, and we agree in advance which frames will be corrected in colour or rebuilt in motion graphics.
Asking which units will exist on the shoot date is the first question we ask on a product brief, and it is the one that most often changes the schedule.
What a product video costs
A single-product shoot in one location generally starts around $5,000. Multi-day or multi-location work with a larger crew runs $15,000 to $100,000, and commercial-scale campaigns range from $10,000 to $300,000 depending on scope. What moves the number is shoot days, how many product variants need covering, whether the piece needs animation to show something the camera cannot, and how many cuts come out of the same shoot. The full breakdown is on what video production costs.
Product Videography Case Studies
Sitpack
Sitpack came to us looking for help to launch their Campster chair. A chair that puts a spin on the traditional camping chair. They had a wide group of target customers, so we came up with a storyline for a product video that tied them all together!
