Campaign Photography: Creating Stills and Videos

*The Crowd Supply Guide:** Campaign Photography: Creating Stills and Videos

You’ll need to provide stills, and perhaps videos, that introduce your product and show it in action, solving users’ problems. This section will help you create high-quality visual assets that tell your story.

Still Photography

High quality product photography is very important. Images are a great way to show off your product and help tell your story while building confidence in your campaign. A well balanced campaign should have a combination of detailed product shots on a plain white background along with lifestyle/demo shots showing off the product in use in the real world with real users.

Crowd Supply also offers product photography on a project by project basis.

Image Requirements

No text should be embedded in the image.
A clean, white background is highly recommended.
All images should be at least 1000 pixels in the shortest dimension.
Should be in PNG or JPG format.

Avoid using in-image text, like the below:

In-image text has no SEO value, isn’t searchable or selectable by the viewer, would rarely be used by online media, and hurts the user experience, as it does not scale well to smaller devices such as tablets and phones. In addition, in-image text violates best practices for web design for accessibility; text in a graphic is inaccessible to sight-impaired and other users who access the web with screen readers. It’s also less than ideal for non-English speakers.

Note that we do not support GIF images. Their file size is unwieldy, especially for animated GIFs, and better image quality can be realized with PNG or JPEG. If you need moving pictures, you’ll get far better results using an actual video format (e.g., MP4).

Video

Your campaign video is one of the first things your potential backers will see. It needs to pique their interest by telling the story of your project in an engaging, pithy manner. You don’t need to include every detail or function, you just need the broad strokes of why you think your project can help people.

Before Shooting

You’ll want to create a script and storyboard to plan out your shot list. The simpler you can make your video, the better it will be. Keep it short and on task - ideally under a minute. Refer back to the exercises you completed in Milestone One to help you stay on mesage. Make sure your video addresses the points you made there and explains how your project can solve real problems your potential users have.

Using in-video text rather than voice-overs is overall cleaner, easier to follow, and more usable for international viewers. Your Crowd Supply team will provide feedback on your outline and help you polish it.

Here’s a simple, well-tested outline for a crowdfunding campaign video:

Outline

Intro: Start with a simple shot of your item. Provide some intro text and a teaser. People should know within first 10-15 seconds what it's called, what it does, why it does that, and for whom.
Top Features: Highlight how the most important features can uniquely solve your users' problems. An actual demo of the project over several scenes works best for this.
Use Cases: this can be a mix of demos and examples that highlight how your project helps users. Make sure you cover at least some of the use cases you came up with in Milestone One.
Features/Specs List: what else is interesting? Functional details, size, power, speed, etc.
Outro: Include a "call to action" to encourage viewers to learn more by signing up for campaign updates.

See examples of well-contstructed videos

Shooting Tips

Shoot with a 16:9 aspect ratio. In other words, if you're shooting with a phone (which is fine), hold horizontally (landscape view), not vertically (portrait view).
Shoot at least 720p, 1080p is preferred, and 4K is welcome. The minimum acceptable resolution is 1280 x 720.
Whether using a phone or camera, always use a tripod or camera mount. It makes a huge different when compared to hand-held footage.
If possible, use off-camera lights. You can put together a home-grown lighting kit for under a $100 USD using supplies you can find at a big-box building supply store.
Don’t use the camera’s digital zoom. Instead, move the camera or the object to get a closer shot.
Use exposure/focus lock. Otherwise, the camera or phone will refocus constantly and distractingly.
Less is more. Keep your shots simple and uncluttered. It should be blatantly obvious what the viewer should be focused on. Clean up the desk or bench where you're filming.
Only move the camera when absolutely necessary. When you do, focus on moving slowly, smoothly, and deliberately. Never change your mind mid-movement.

While Editing

videos should be 1-2 minutes at max. short attention spans
There are many free programs you can use to do this.
If you must use them, text overlays should be short and straight-forward.
Any footage that doesn’t make it into the main video can be embedded into the campaign page (as examples, etc.) or used in updates.
The right music can help set the pace and tone for a video. Make sure you have the necessary permissions to use the music you want. Contact Crowd Supply if you need help finding appropriate music, we have access to a library of copyright-free tracks.