As a video production company with roots in Silicon Valley, we’ve built an extensive portfolio of videos showcasing digital products and technology. Explainers and commercials for SaaS products like Gong, Mint and PagerDuty paid a lot of bills over the years.
As much as we love producing videos for digital products, there’s something special about shooting something that exists in the physical world. When we can hold it, and discover creative ways to showcase it through different lighting, angles and compositions, we sense a connection with our childhood dreams of making films.
Here are some of our favorite videos featuring a physical product.
Dropcam
Much of what Dropcam does is in the digital world, but their device is what makes it all happen. What was fun about this shoot? We rented a cool house, cast a couple of talented actors, and found interesting ways to place and show off this device. With motion graphics support, we told the entire story without a single line of dialogue.
JanoLife Petal
We’ve worked on a variety of health-tech videos – again, mostly digital. So we were thrilled when we got a chance to produce a commercial for a physical health-tech product. This product video was shot under $10K in one day at one of the executive’s homes. As a startup, they didn’t have much budget, but we were able to create an interesting look and effectively tell the story with the available resources.
Swarm
The Swarm explainer is another successful video for under $10K. It’s not every day we get to hold an actual satellite that will eventually be flying around in space. Shot in Mountain View, CA, at their warehouse where they design, manufacture and store these satellites, we had a great time learning about how it works and how to make it look amazing on video.
Pebble
When smartwatches were still a new thing, there was Pebble. We shot this web commercial on a soundstage with the watches on a special rig. Unlike latter watch videos where we primarily used motion graphics and 3D animation, we did everything practically and with an actual person activating the features.
MetaSensor
Everybody needs a MetaSensor! You basically stick it on anything that you don’t want to lose and you can track it in case someone tries to snatch it. Now, I personally wouldn’t leave a laptop or a bike unattended and unsecured even with a MetaSensor, but that’s irrelevant. What’s important is that it was a cool product and we had a lot of fun developing the concept, securing the location (a café down the street from our office) and finding interesting actors to make it come alive.
Every physical product needs a video. Whether it’s for an Amazon listing or a Super Bowl Commercial, a product video shows the product in ways – creative and practical – that still images can’t.
Product videos can be made for almost nothing on a phone, or have a budget in seven figures, so there’s no reason not to make one.
Picturelab is a full-service creative video production company. To learn how we can help bring your product to life, contact us at info@picturelab.com.