The Campaign Asset Matrix: Planning One Shoot for Every Placement

A campaign shoot gets expensive in the gap between what was asked for and what was planned. The asked-for list is long: every placement, in each format, at each length, with each end-frame. The planned list, if it exists at all, is the hero film and "some cutdowns". The matrix is the document that closes that gap, and it is built before the day, not on it.

This is general practice, not a platform guide. Specifications for each placement change, so check the platform's current spec for the numbers and put them in the matrix when you have them. The method does not depend on them.

What the matrix is

A grid. Down the side, the placements the campaign will run in. Across the top, the things that vary: aspect ratio, length, version and end-frame. Each filled cell is a deliverable, and each deliverable traces back to a set-up and a shot. A placement with no cell has not been planned. A cell with no shot is a gap you have found for free, on paper.

Its job is to put the whole campaign in front of everyone with a say before anyone is paid to stand on a set. Planner, creative, producer and client read the same grid, and the argument about whether a placement needs its own shoot happens in a meeting rather than on the floor.

Build it before the day

• List the placements, named the way the media plan names them, so everyone reads the same words.
• Give each placement its formats: vertical, square, landscape, and whether it is a still or motion.
• Give each its lengths. A short cut is a different edit, not a trimmed long one, and it is usually where the hook lives.
• Mark which cells share a shot. Most will. The ones that do not need a set-up of their own.
• Count the set-ups. That number is what the day is booked on. As a rough guide, a half day of four hours holds one or two and more than two points to a full day of eight; the running order works through the arithmetic.

Shoot wide, and protect the middle

Vertical is its own frame, not a crop of landscape, so decide the master. If the campaign leads with 9:16, frame for it and let landscape be the crop. If it leads with landscape, frame wide enough that a vertical crop still holds the subject and the product. Put the crop guides on the monitor before the first take, not in the edit.

Interface elements sit over parts of the frame on every platform, so keep the subject and the product clear of the edges and check the platform's current spec for what is covered. Shoot at the highest resolution the camera and the delivery allow, because a crop spends pixels. A white cove helps: with no horizon or corner to give the crop away, the same plate serves every ratio. What an infinity cove is covers why.

Sequence by look, not by placement

A matrix reads by placement; the day runs by lighting state. Re-sort the grid by look: every cell that shares a background, a lighting set-up and a wardrobe becomes one block of the call sheet, and each relight happens once. Inside each look, shoot the longest version first, then the shorter ones, then the hook alternatives, while talent is warm. Shooting a placement at a time means five relights in the order the media plan was written, not the order the light was built.

Lighting is the line that moves with the number of looks. In every room but the DJ room, lights are charged separately from the room rate — please enquire about our lights and we will quote for what your shoot needs. Give the studio the sorted grid and the quote can be built on the number of looks rather than guessed.

The matrix reads by placement. The day runs by light. Sort the grid by look before it goes anywhere near a call sheet.

Hooks and end-frames

The opening seconds of a social placement are often worth shooting as their own piece of work. Treat hooks as alternates: the same idea opened three ways, so the edit and any test have something to compare. Shoot them in the look they belong to, while the set is lit, and slate each one so the edit can find it.

The end-frame is a held clean frame for the logo, the line and any supers. Shoot the clean plate: product alone, no talent, room in the frame for the type, held for longer than seems necessary. Supers change by market and by version, so the plate must carry no copy of its own. One rule is long settled: ads must be clearly identifiable as ads in the UK. The current detail belongs to your compliance team and the platform's own rules.

Versioning logic

Decide before the day what varies and what does not. Where you can, change one thing per version; change two at once and the approval chain doubles. What varies decides what you capture.

• Copy or offer changes: nothing on set. It lives in the end-frame and the supers, so shoot the clean plate once and move on.
• Product or colourway changes: every variant in the same set-up and framing, back to back, so only the product changes.
• Language changes: anything spoken on camera is a re-shoot or a dub, so decide before the day which it is.
• Talent changes: a separate look and a separate set of releases.

Name everything on the day. A slate and one naming rule that maps each clip to a cell of the matrix will save the edit more time than any shortcut in it. Deliver masters rather than platform exports: why social video looks worse covers compression and banding.

What the day needs from the room

A matrix day is mostly set-ups and review. Studio B has an edit and playback area, which is where the agency can check cells against the grid between set-ups, and there is a client lounge for everyone else. Studio A suits the product-led day on the cove. Set-up and pack-down sit inside the booked time, so the grid decides the block: count the looks, then price the room from the published rates.

For the commercial side of the same job, shooting paid social video ads is the guide for the ads themselves, and how agencies brief and book a studio covers the booking. Scope's page for this buyer is studio hire for social and content agencies.