Set Build vs Virtual Production: Which Is Best For Your Brand?
In today's competitive ecommerce landscape, compelling lifestyle product photography is crucial to stay ahead of the competition. It drives conversions and establishes brand identity. For businesses looking to produce professional, photography for products, there are options available on where to shoot. You can either shoot in a custom built studio set, or use a technique known as virtual production.
Virtual production in this context involves photographing a product in front of an LED digital screen that displays a background image. The technique blends the reality of your product with the digital background image to show it in an environment. A combination of foreground and midground props and styling helps to blend the individual elements into one image. This results in lifestyle photography without the need to build a set.
Both approaches have distinct merits and drawbacks that affect everything from budget to final image quality. In this article, we weigh up the pros and cons to help your brand make the right strategic decision.
Planning Your Shoot
The planning of a lifestyle photoshoot is often the first and most critical factor to consider. The pros and cons of each production method should be considered against your brief, allowing you to get the best outcome.
Planning A Virtual Production Shoot
The biggest consideration of whether virtual production is even an option is to assess the size of your product. Large products will need a far larger screen, and therefore the costs increase, whereas smaller products are more manageable.
A second consideration should be the scope of your brief. Virtual production does have certain limitations. You are restricted on the variety of angles you are able to capture in one particular scene. This also affects any use of video which, although can be shot in virtual production, it doesn't have the same creative freedom as shooting on a set. This is because the camera has little scope for movement. This can be mitigated by moving images on the screen to create a narrative or engaging visuals.
However, the key advantage of virtual production is often the lower cost of the project, particularly for a high number of different backgrounds. Virtual production allows your background environment to be changed quickly, as the images are generated in AI. Contrast this with the adaption of sets, or even multiple sets, and the cost savings soon add up!
This means you can shoot your products on multiple different backgrounds in just one day. This is ideal for appealing to varying customer groups who may have different style tastes.
Planning A Room Set Shoot
The main advantage of commissioning a room set is the flexibility you have with the design, your shot list, and additional creative options. In a set you have freedom to ask for different camera angles, which provides more options for both stills and video.
There's no issue with placing large products such as furniture in sets, and it's far easier to create compositions that show a range of products throughout the room environment.
However, building a set requires dedicated time, material, and specialist labour before shooting can begin, and this requires necessary budget. Once built, the size and structure of the set are fixed, which restricts the amount of variation between shots. Changes to the styling and subtle set adaptions can mitigate these issues, but significant changes need set reconstructions or multiple sets for one shoot.
Costs And Budget Considerations
Understanding the true cost of each option goes beyond the day rate of the photographer; factoring in labour, studio time, and essential contingency budgets.
Photography Set Build Costs
The cost of a set build is required for materials, labour, and props. These costs can vary significantly and are affected by the scale and complexity of the set. Once the set is built, shooting subsequent days becomes highly efficient.
Virtual Production Costs
There is a cost to create the environment for your images, however, as this is digital it is an affordable process for many brands. It can involve using AI to create an environment, or using existing images if these are appropriate to your brief. There may also be initial costs for props that sit in the foreground alongside your product - these help create depth of field in the image which allows the foreground and background to be blended together effectively.
A digital environment is also reusable. Once created, subsequent shoots can use the same virtual background for new launches and product adaptions.
Image Quality And Creative Freedom
There are distinct differences between using a room set, or virtual production when it comes to what you can capture in-camera and any compromises you have to make.
Set Build
A studio set offers the highest degree of creative control, flexibility, and scope for your project. A key advantage of a physical set can be the details in the environment that complement your product - for homeware, this can be the inspiration for customers to 'get the look'. When introducing models to the shoot, they're able to interact with the environment as well as your product -this makes for a more authentic feel to the final images and video.
Virtual Production
There are several key compositional elements needed for virtual production to look realistic. This includes an out of focus background to mimic depth of field, foreground elements that help to blend the shot, and careful composition. If the restrictions are navigated, images can show products in an environment that appears real in final images and videos. Additionally, the LED screen not only displays the environment, but also emits light that illuminates the product and foreground props. This light creates an ambient light and reflections that add to the lifestyle feel of the image.
Despite this, the authenticity of images will never fully match up to those captured on a set build project.
Weighing Up The Options
The production method you take to create lifestyle product images will depend on your products themselves and the scope of your brief. Commissioning a custom set allows you far more creative options for your product compared to virtual production. However, your project may be better suited to virtual production due to budgets, particularly if variation in the lifestyle environments would be beneficial in your marketing.
