Vertical Recipe Videos & Bonus Photos

HyperBiotocs came to me because their previous recipe videos, shot with a major Los Angeles photography and video studio, unfortunately lacked energy and looked the same as all of their competitors. They wanted dynamic content for Instagram Reels and ads that could be turned around quickly, was vibrant and full of energy, but also came in on a budget. 

All my contact at Hyper needed to do was to send me a bottle of their Prebiotic product and a selection of their top-rated smoothie recipes and I handled the rest.  I chose materials, backgrounds, and props to brightly feature the brand’s product and color palette, lighting that was clean, interesting, and modern, and picked recipes that were the most interesting and vibrant. 

In order to optimize the brand’s tighter budget, I planned to prepare and shoot the recipes entirely by myself.  This would save resources and speed up production but pose some additional difficulties for creating dynamic videos.  It’s easy to shoot with multiple cameras during a shoot but, without a dedicated shooter, it can be hard to focus on what’s important, create variety, or add movement. 

I tackled the two videos in different ways so that the client had more variety in their final production.  One video had me behind the table preparing the smoothie in a more natural way.  This video used wider shots and focus from the front to elicit a familiar in-the-kitchen or cooking show feel.  I mounted the secondary camera on a motorized slider and repositioned it throughout the shoot to capture important details and moments.  As a bonus, this video was also shot to allow edits in 16:9 and 1:1 aspect ratios as well. The other video utilized a more close-up production style with the second camera mounted on a rolling camera stand and readjusted for each ingredient to bring first-person and detailed views of the action.  I also always go out of my way to include audio in my recipe videos as I think that the natural cooking sounds ground the viewer and make preparing the recipes feel more real. 

Once each recipe was completed, I took additional time to style scenes with the product, smoothies, and props for photos to act as a companion to the videos.  This was a feature that the HyperBiotics team previously had to book a separate shoot for so it provided an additional service with faster turnaround. 

When the shoot was complete I could immediately move onto editing the videos, adding ingredient titles and graphics, and getting cuts ready for the client.  After receiving the videos, the team at HyperBiotics was ecstatic and only needed to provide some additional copy so the videos could be used immediately in an upcoming promo.