Zak Michaelwaite

Honestly, I’m not a big CBD advocate.

The song came up on my Spotify and I instantly thought I needed a video with 4 of the same product, just in different coloured packaging or flavours to cut between, so that’s what I did.

Based on how difficult it was to get a rotating product shot in the LoveRaw video, I decided to buy a ‘jewellery display turntable’, stack the can on top of some building blocks and mask them out in post – it makes it so much easier to have that consistent speed.

I had 3 concepts for this before landing on one that I could actually film in my house with no budget. The idea developed from camera movement to product movement for this exact reason.

Looking back I wish I’d filmed the rotation the opposite way so the front of the packaging is visible for longer but I’d eaten half the product after realising that. Also wish I’d found a smoother way to record the rotation, but I do these things to learn so I guess it worked.

The main goal of this video was to learn more about masking/rotoscoping, so a rotating product was the perfect choice to help me figure this out!

I brought the Chai Latte in Minor Figures pay what you want sale a couple of weeks ago, and after tasting, decided it needed its own video.

As a response to the Huel video I made a few weeks ago, I invested in an RGB light so I’m not relying on my warm-white desk lamp as the only light source.

Some BTS insight:
🥾 The backdrop is actually an old Timberland box.
💡 I had to balance the light on top of a water bottle for the correct angle, and it fell off just before the last shot.
⌛️ I spent at least half an hour looking for the right ‘liquid pouring’ sound.

I had Huel for lunch.

A few things I learned making this:
💡 Buy a light! The LED lamp plugged into a portable charger doesn’t do much, and it’s surprisingly easy to knock over.
🍅 Filming a food video when you’re hungry is torture. Eat first, film after.
🖋 Don’t delete anchor points after you’ve masked a video, it’s an easy way to ruin a day.

I went a bit more in depth with sound design compared to previous videos, downloading files of a kitchen timer, a lid being screwed on/off, the sound of rice being transferred between containers and water pouring. This added a lot of time to the editing process, but I feel that it helped to improve the overall quality of this project.

As one of the world’s most recognisable, aesthetically pleasing foods, I thought it would perform well. A few sheets of paper taped to my desk and a lamp covered in masking tape set up, I got to work.

I decided to experiment with it as a reel, which would’ve been great to know before filming everything in landscape, but you can see that on my Instagram.