Four CGI Project–Planning Tips
Pre-production for a computer-generated image (CGI) is not unlike that of a photo shoot. Many of the steps are, in fact, the same. There are, however, a few differences to consider in order to make sure your project goes through our process smoothly and meets your timetable and expectations. This will help us help you!
Define Your Project Goals
We should all have a solid understanding of the projects expectations and use. Some important things to ask yourself are:
- Who is the viewer?
- Who is your audience? Consumer or B2B?
- Is this a product image or for a branding piece?
- Does the product line have an established look to follow?
- What are your competitors doing in this market?
- What would you like the image to accomplish?
- What story do you want to tell?
A few other things to start considering at this point are the deadline and your budget—more on those in a moment. The answers to these questions help the PIX-US team start your project in the right direction.
Resources and Inspiration
Next, we’ll want to talk about assets you may have on hand, such as CAD files, drawings or photos, and other product information. We would love to hear about inspiration for this image, see colors that tie to the brand, or take a look at photos your team has gathered. These are all very helpful to us.
Production Values
We can talk about production for CGI in the same way we do for commercials. Every image needs to be well-executed, and sometimes simple is better. At other times you may need to pull out all the stops. Planning where to spend your imaging budget and understanding your expectations helps you get the most for your investment and gives us a clear path to succeeding on your project. We want to help you spend wisely.
There are many reasons to choose CGI over traditional photography—the location can be anywhere, there’s less of a need for shipping product or renting props, and we can create images for your marketing even when there’s no product available. Later on, we can come back to the set and have everything still in place ready to make changes. With studio photography you need to ship all the product, buy set pieces, rent props, pay for returns and even throw away the set. With CGI, it’s still here next year ready to go.
Budget and Timeline
These two really go hand-in-hand. With proper planning at the beginning of the process, PIX-US can help you get the right product at the right price.
Computer-generated images take time to create. Even small changes late in the process can affect both timeline and cost. We spend many hours getting the set and product looking just right with good design, lighting and camera placement. We get all the models correctly shaped and make time for the post-production work that makes the image sing.
Delivery
The PIX-US team goal is to help you succeed; we want the images we create for you to make your product a visual star. Planning and pre-production are the main things we can do to accomplish this. Please give us a call, and let’s start planning.