How to Shoot a Jewelry Video

Right now, if you were to search, “How to use video for my jewelry store” you would likely find article after article telling you how critical it is that you use video for your jewelry store. I guarantee that, by now, you’ve heard other jewelers, marketing experts, web developers, and your peers in the trade all say that if you want to compete in today’s digitally-driven economy, it’s either “Use Video” or fall behind.

And they’re correct! Just look at these statistics:

• Publishing a single video is reported to be more effective than posting 60 photos
• Videos can boost conversion rates of jewelry by more than 85%
• 57% of consumers say that videos gave them more confidence to purchase online
• You’re 53x more likely to show up on search results if you use video
• 68% of people would rather watch a video than read about the same subject

I’ve produced and made thousands of videos that have collectively grossed hundreds of thousands of views. I’ll help guide you with helpful tips, techniques, and know-how so that you can start reaping the rewards that straightforward jewelry video production can offer you and your store. After reading this article, you should be able to start using video for your business. These steps are practical, simple, and will help you start your journey toward using the aforementioned statistics to your advantage!

In this guide, you’ll learn how to do the following:

• Choose Your Subject
• Choose Your Style
• Create Your Video
• Release Your Video

 

Choose Your Subject

“At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far.” -Yann Martel, Life of Pi

This may sound self-explanatory, but it’s also one of the most critical pieces of any video production. The subject of the video is that visual piece to which you want the most attention paid. A good video will capture attention by inspiring wonder in the viewer.

In the case of this video: (Spinning Ring)

 

The subject here is the large ring in the center of the frame. The wonder is created by seeing a thing that is both breathtakingly gorgeous and intimate at the same time. Unlike jewelers, most people don’t get to hold diamonds every day, and to them, it is a wonderful thing for them to see clearly and up close.

In the case of this one:

 

It is the model and the earring dangling from her ear. In this case, the wonder comes from the model, her gazing and lifestyle. Her beauty draws you in, and you notice the earrings that she, this mysterious girl is wearing. Why did she choose those earrings? Would I choose those earrings?

In either case, there is a dominant subject that you are trying to draw the viewer’s attention to. What you use to do that will come down to your preferred style.

For the purpose of this exercise, we will assume that while you might not have a model to use at present, you probably have a nice piece of jewelry. That will be your subject.

Pro-Tip: Start strong. If you’re going to string together multiple pieces of jewelry in the same video, make sure that the most captivating or impressive piece is shown in the first 2 seconds. Everything after that has more leeway to be less striking, but if you’ve captured the viewer’s attention in the first few seconds, they will hold with you significantly longer and are more likely to say that the entirety of the video and jewelry were impressive.

 

 

“Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.”
-Rachel Zoe

 

 

 

Choose Your Style

Secondly, you’ll need to create your signature style. There are several means by which to discover exactly what your style is, but I’ve found it’s typically done one of two ways:

• Decide on a style you like or have admired. Be intentional. Like any artist, you have the freedom to choose how your jewelry is presented. It doesn’t need to be on a plain white background, nor a plain black background. It can be whatever has inspired you, and you can create whatever style of video you want—so long as it still achieves the goal of capturing the wonder of your viewer, because these videos are for them, not you.
• Develop an aesthetic. It can be done by testing, learning, iterating and retesting until you achieve the style your customers or viewers like the most. It takes time but develops a proven ‘look’ that consistently attracts engagement from your viewers.

 

 

Personally, I use both approaches. Like any craft, one must learn the basics before branching out and trying something new. Expertise grows with time. As you practice, your skills should continuously improve, and your style and aesthetic will develop into something truly unique.

A great place to start would be learning how to produce a rotating 360-degree video. Whether it be with rings, earrings, necklaces or whatever, this is an incredibly effective way of showing off your piece. It takes practice but isn’t too terribly difficult to do. Done right, it can be stunning.

The color of the background is up to you. In preparation for filming a ring, for example, I would suggest buying a rotating display table with a reflective top. This has two advantages over a non-reflective top.

 

 

 

• The table itself will reflect whichever color you use as a backdrop. If you have a pink background, the table will also be pink. White = white, black = black, and so on. The added background color helps your subject stand out.
• You also have the added bonus of the jewelry itself being reflected, which is a particularly beautiful thing to see.

 

 

For our experiment we will use a reflective top with a black background. We can repeat this process and configuration a hundred different ways, and it will still look good.

 

Create Your Video

You might say to yourself, “But I don’t know how! I don’t have a nice camera! I don’t have a fancy lightbox!” And that’s OK. Truthfully, you don’t really need any of those things. Just follow these simple steps, and you’ll be on your way to capturing incredible jewelry videos.

 

 

In this example, let’s shoot a video of an engagement ring:

1. Place your table in a well-lit area. If you have overhead lighting, fantastic. If not, place a table near a window and put your rotating display table on top of it, and let the light from the outdoors illuminate the ring.
2. Place your background behind your subject (the ring). A suggestion: One of my favorite backgrounds to use is foam core. It is inexpensive, looks great, and can be used to add light to or take it away from the scene. For our purposes, we’ll use black foam core.
3. Stand your phone up next to your table. The best way to do this is with a tripod, one with a phone holder. Simply take the phone and get it as close as possible to your subject. Pro Tip: Under settings, if you can, make sure you’re shooting in 4K at 24fps.In most cases, this should give you the highest amount of detail.
4. Place your ring in the center of the rotating table
5. Record as it rotates (for a few revolutions)

That’s it! If you don’t like how it came out, move some things around your scene and try again until it looks the way you want.

 

Release Your Video

This is the most important part. You can shoot a gorgeous video, an amazing commercial, spend thousands and thousands on production, but if no one sees what you’ve produced, then you’ve wasted lots of time and money.

Releasing your video to the world is the part where those statistics we talked about in the beginning start working for you. It’s time to put that video somewhere people can see it.

I suggest going to your Facebook Page and your Instagram profile and publishing the same video directly to each of them with an engaging question in the caption, such as, “Where would you wear this?”

All you have left to do now is respond to people’s comments!

Engaging with your audience encourages folks to keep liking and commenting on your content, because you’ve recognized their input. It also plays to the strengths of the Facebook and Instagram algorithm, which is responsible for deeming what content to show people based on overall engagement.

Pro Tip: Don’t just post your video to YouTube and then copy and publish the link onto your Facebook Page. Facebook and Google (who owns YouTube) are actually competing platforms, so Facebook has a tendency to throttle the ability for your videos to be found if they’re hosted on a competitor’s video platform.

Put simply: If you publish on one platform, you’ll need to separately upload and publish your jewelry video to the other.

With that, you’re on your way! There is so much more that I could teach you about creating effective jewelry videos, but for now, the most important thing is that you begin practicing. As the old saying goes: If at first you don’t succeed, try, and try again.

I hope this has helped you, and I can’t wait to see what you create!

Source: BriteCo, Robbie Haddad is the Director of Education at Jewelry Video Pro.