Planning a Single or Album Release Content Day in a Studio

A single or an album is not one asset. It is a spread of them: press stills, cover art, a performance clip, a run of vertical teasers for the weeks before release, backdrops for lyric cards and enough behind-the-scenes footage to fill the gaps. Shot as separate jobs over separate weeks, that is a lot of bookings. Shot as one day in one building, it is a call sheet.

This is how to plan that day: what to capture, which room does what, a sample run of show, and what to shoot twice because you will wish you had.

Write the asset list as outputs, not shots

Start from the release calendar and work backwards. Teasers are needed first, the cover has to exist before anything can be designed around it, and press want stills before the record is out. List what leaves the building, then decide how to shoot it.

• Press stills and cover art: portrait and wide, with the cover framed for its own crop rather than pulled out of a press frame.
• A performance clip: one song, played through, in one take or a few.
• Vertical teasers: 9:16 is the vertical frame, so shoot it vertical instead of cropping a horizontal shot later.
• Lyric-card backdrops: clean frames with room left for type.
• Behind the scenes: a second camera or a phone, running while everything else happens.
• An interview: the artist talking about the record, for the press pack or the feed.

Sequence the day across rooms

Each room does one job well, so give it that job. Studio B is the look: sound-treated, blackout capable, with a colour-washable cove, an adjustable backdrop system and make-up and styling zones, so the artist can be made up in the building and changed between looks. Stills, cover art, vertical teasers and lyric-card plates all come from the same corner with a different wash. The music video studio page shows how the rooms stack.

The music studio is the sound: a treated vocal booth with a large-diaphragm condenser and nearfield monitors, for a vocal take; ask whether the booth suits filming before you plan a clip. Dry, it is £80 for a half day and £150 for a full day. With an engineer it is £140 for a half day and £280 for a full day. Dry hire against an engineer is a question of whether you want someone else watching the levels while you direct. No camera or lighting kit is published for the room, so bring your own camera and ask whether the booth suits the frame you have in mind. Lights are charged separately, so please enquire about our lights.

The podcast room is the interview: acoustically treated and camera-ready, with professional microphones and audio interfaces, at a flat £40 an hour. If the artist is a DJ or producer, the DJ room films the set: a hand-built concrete booth with CDJ and DJM kit and film lighting rigged and included. It is £75 an hour with a four-hour minimum, and it sits outside a whole-building buyout, so it is booked on its own even on a buyout day. Filming a DJ set covers what that shoot needs.

Shoot the asset the release cannot do without while everyone is fresh and the make-up is new. Behind the scenes can be caught at any hour; a cover cannot.

A sample run of show

Rooms book separately and can run back to back, so confirm the sequence when you enquire. These are lengths and an order, not clock times, because they depend on the artist and the crew. Set-up and pack-down sit inside the booked time, so they come out of each block.

• Load-in, then hair and make-up in the dressing and prep room while Studio B is set for the first look.
• Studio B, first look: press stills and cover art, while the styling is untouched.
• Studio B, second look: change the wash and shoot the vertical teasers and the lyric-card plates.
• Music studio: the vocal or live-take clip, with an engineer if you booked one.
• Podcast room: the interview, with a break first so the artist is not hoarse.
• DJ room, only for a DJ or producer: its own block of four hours or more.
• Behind the scenes runs through all of it; it is not a slot of its own.

On the published rates, a Studio B half day at £220, a dry music studio half day at £80 and two hours in the podcast room at £80 come to £380, or £440 with an engineer. In every room but the DJ room, lights are charged separately from the room rate, so please enquire about our lights. That is ten booked hours end to end, a long day for an artist. Drop a room before you ask a singer to give a second interview at hour nine. The wider sums are in what studio hire costs.

Delivery formats

Decide the formats before you shoot, because they decide the framing. Spec numbers move, so for resolution, length, file size and safe areas, check each platform's current spec rather than a blog post, this one included.

• Stills: edited files for press, plus the originals if the label or the designer asks for them.
• Horizontal clip: the frame rate you shot at, with a clean version and a version with the title card.
• Vertical teasers: 9:16, composed with the subject clear of where the platform draws its interface.
• Lyric cards: the backdrop plates delivered without type, so the designer can set the words.
• Audio: the master you played back from, with the clip's own audio kept as a separate file.

Name every file by shot, look and version before the day ends, and keep the vertical and horizontal versions of each look side by side. The edit on Monday will be quicker for it, and the person cutting teasers in week three will not be guessing which take was the good one. The wider planning a content day guide has the folder habits.

What to shoot twice

• The hero look, tight and wide, so the cover and the press frame are not the same picture.
• The performance, once to the master and once with room sound, so the editor has a rough version to cut against.
• Every vertical angle natively, because a crop of a wide frame loses most of the picture.
• A clean backdrop with nobody in front of it, for the lyric cards.
• The artist saying the title and the release date to camera, in more than one tone.