Archimedia Studios

5 Lighting Still Life Tips

Lighting is the single most important element of “Still Life” photography. The way a photographer uses light for still life will add mood, give context, provide interest, and ultimately, create a dynamic still life photograph. Lighting for still life is not complicated. In fact, stick to these 5 tips, and you will nail your still life shots every time.

1. Use an simple backdrop: Wrinkles and ridges in a still life photograph – unless a part of the setting – will be distracting to your main subject. Be vigilant about keeping your backdrops smooth and simple.

2. Make your lighting contrasty: Whether you are using strobes, speedlights, or LED’s, it’s important that your “ratio” from one light to the next is varied. The main light should be strongest, and the second light should simply provide a nice fill.

3. Light directionally: Side light is always most effective for bringing out texture and creating dynamic variation between the highlights and shadows. Whether rings, or florals, side light will enable you to give dimension and depth to your still life imagery.

4. Pay attention to your angles: Two things to think about when faced with a studio lighting scenario. a). The position of the lights to your subject and b). the position of your subject to the camera. Side light will give dimension, but so also will the angle at which you take your shot [ie. side, above, below, etc.]. Don’t be afraid to experiment and change up angles. A photo is most interesting when you give a new perspective to something that is ordinary.

5. Light for shape: We see life 3 dimensionally. For this reason, the most dynamic photographs are the ones in which the audience could walk into the scene, or reach out and touch the subject. Lighting for shape will be most emphasized by side light, when your highlights spread along the edge of your subject and add that 3rd dimension.

Why do Brands Fail?

You know your brand may be  failing  when…

1. Your brand is mentioned to customers and potential customers, and there is strong negativity in their response.

2. Your brand’s external messages do not “ring true” with all employees.

3. Employees are not enthusiastic or consistent in recounting what makes their brand special.

4. The brand’s market share is decreasing.

5. Competitors never mention your brand as a point of reference.

6. The press does not write about your brand.

7. Your CEO does not have a strong vision for the organization and its brand. He or she talks more about financial targets than the vision.

8. Your organization’s leaders never seem to “talk the brand” and “walk the brand talk.”

9. Your organization fails to attract and retain high quality employees.

10. Your brand fails to build customer loyalty.

A Key Video Marketing Lesson from Old Spice

The Old Spice Guy campaign, one of the most popular viral ad campaigns in history,  has set the bar for how other companies and agencies can approach viral advertising, by focusing on the fans first. Old Spice has struck a perfect balance of content and advertising. The key to their video marketing campaign success is;

Put the focus on short, snappy video content.

A recent online video study shows that 82 percent of Internet users watch online video at an average of 5.6 hours a week. And if you have a video that wants to be seen, the best possible platform, according to comScore, is YouTube.

It’s generally a good idea to keep things short on YouTube, people don’t  want to sit through long productions.

The vast majority of Old Spice’s videos average at slightly less than a minute per video. Unless they are inspiration- or premise-driven videos, most ads and promotions uploaded to YouTube should hit this sweet spot between a minute and 90 seconds.

When you put videos on YouTube, you’re competing against every other YouTube video. It’s not like there’s a special category for commercials.

In summary, keep it short, keep it simple. If the marketing campaign doesn’t involve video—not sure why not, in this day and age—the ad should still be succinct and concise.

Shorter ads are easier to follow, digest, and on the development side, create.

What do Bieber and Britney have in common?

Artists and Celebrities traditionally invest in various side businesses such as clothing and restaurants. More Artists, however, have found a new and very profitable medium of expression.

From Bieber to Britney, celebrity fragrances are just part of the fame game and the packaging designs have become as expressive as the celebrity themselves.

A celebrity creation of a signature smell has taken over the fragrance business. Releasing a celebrity fragrance is as commonplace as an artist releasing an album or appearing in a film. Nowadays celebrities are taking it up a notch and really getting hands-on in the production of the product

If you’ve truly made it, people not only want to be you – they want to smell like you.

That’s the ideology behind the ever-profitable celebrity fragrance industry, and it works. Celebrity fragrances are rolling out faster than we can keep up. Music to our ears!

Country Artists, Faith Hill and Keith Urban already with a signature fragrance are joined by the newest entry ,  Taylor Swift and her fragrance “Wonderstruck” . These Country Artists join the ranks of  Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, David Beckham, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey and a host of countless other celebrities. We expect many more artists to get into this lucrative business. For the top 10 bestselling celebrity perfumes from 2010 alone have brought in $215 million in the U.S.

We wanted to share with you some of these designs.

Essential Video Marketing Tips for Indie Artists.

If you are an independent recording artist or band,  you are  a small business owner and more importantly you are a “Brand” and that brand is you!

If Video is not integrated into your marketing strategy, then you should start now!

Why?…

Because video engages, persuades and motivates like no other marketing tool. Not to mention that Youtube is statistically becoming the media of choice for your younger audience to listen to music.  It may be appropriate to alter YouTube’s tag line to “Broadcast and Brand Yourself !”  

However, not all video is good video. Once video enters into your marketing strategy, then it is part of your Brand, part of your portfolio. You must be very aware of the impression and experience you leave your audience when they view your videos.

Here are a few of our Essential Video Marketing tips for Youtube to get you  started on the right path.

1. Use a Keyword Rich File Name

Even though the file name is not exposed to viewers, the keywords in the video file name may count toward your ranking in the YouTube search results.  It’s better to use a file name such as youtube-video-cma-live-perfornace.mov rather than video-2011-08-25.mov

2. Set the Video to Unlisted During the Upload

You can change the default setting of Public to Unlisted while the video is uploading, so that the video is not public until you have had a chance to properly set all the options. Unlisted is better than Private if you want to send the link to a few people for review before you make the video public.

3. Use a 16:9 Aspect Ratio for Content

For video footage, use a 16:9 aspect ratio. 720p is fine for YouTube, since most viewers don’t change the resolution from a lower default.

4. Keep Your Video Short

People generally have short attention spans.

Video blogs should be no longer than three minutes. Some people even consider this to be too long and recommend two minutes as a maximum length.

Music videos are obviously the length of the track. However, concert footage should either be a montage of multiple songs or each song should be cut into a separate video.

DO NOT group multiple tracks in one video and produce a very long video. People will abandon it!

5. Consider Your Mobile Audience

An ever increasing number of people access YouTube videos via their iPhones, Androids and other devices. Avoid using any tiny print or any other elements that can’t be easily read on these devices.

Get the Audio Right

Even the best video production can be rendered ineffective by poor voice audio. This is probably one of the most annoying things we see on Youtube, A great video but audio that is either to soft, noisy, vocals drowned out by instruments,  or over modulated (distorted) .

Use audio effects, especially Auto-Tune sparingly! As you edit your audio remember just because you have effects available to use, doesn’t mean that you should. An overly Auto-Tuned production may send “red flags” that the artist may be hiding vocal weaknesses that could be uncovered in a live or accoustic perfromance.

Use a tripod!

Nothing is worse and more annoying and dizzying  to a viewer than a bouncy video resulting from a videographer ‘s unsteady hand.

Not all videos need to be posted.

You are your Brand!  Thus all materials that you present to your fans reflect on the type of artist that you are.

It’s not a numbers game. It doesn’t matter how many videos you have on Youtube but the ones that you are displaying should be your best!

Show only the videos with the best video and audio quality.

The videos on your Youtube Channel should be the most current snapshot of the artist that you are today.

Videos of you singing in a local talent show when you were much younger  probably will not interest a potential Label, booking agent, sponsor or fan.

 

 

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