All the new things we’re doing for Monarch Mobility
One studio shoot in Yorkshire now becomes photography, product films, lifestyle campaigns and presenters for the UK, Europe and the USA. Here’s how.
Ten years of photographs, and then everything changed
I’ve photographed Monarch Mobility’s scooters and powerchairs in my studio for more than a decade. Over the last year that work has grown into something much bigger.
For most of those years the job was simple to describe. A new product arrived, I photographed it on a clean background, and the pictures went on the website and into the brochures.
Today the same studio session is the starting point for a whole campaign. The stills become product films. The product is placed into lifestyle scenes anywhere in the world. Those scenes become films too. And now we are filming real footage and changing what’s in it.
Monarch sells in the UK, in Europe and in the USA, and customers in each want to see the product somewhere they recognise, used by someone they can relate to. This post is a walk through how we now do that, and what’s new.
One thing hasn’t changed. Everything still starts with the real product, properly photographed. AI is a new set of tools on top of the photography and film-making, not a replacement for it.
It still starts in the studio
Every product is photographed in my own studio, on white and on black. Those pictures are the foundation for everything else.
The white-background stills go straight onto Monarch’s website and product listings. They show the real scooter: its shape, its finish, its controls and all the small details a customer wants to look at before they buy.
The black-background set is shot at the same time. It gives a more dramatic, premium look, and together the two sets become the reference material for the films and lifestyle images that follow. Because the source is a real photograph, the product stays accurate in everything we make from it.
The stills now move
We animate the white and black studio stills into 30 to 45 second product demonstration films.
A still photograph can only show one view. By animating the studio pictures we can turn the product round, move in on the controls and show how it folds, all from the photographs we already have.
Monarch uses these films on social media and on its website. There is no second shoot to arrange and no product to send back to the studio. One photography session now does the work of two.
We bring the world to the product
Each scooter is placed in a lifelike setting created with AI, with people created to suit the audience.
A photograph of a scooter on a white background tells you what it looks like. A photograph of someone enjoying a day out on it tells you what it would be like to own one. That second kind of picture used to mean a location, a model and a crew.
Now we build the scene around the real product photograph. A British garden centre, a Spanish promenade, a Texas ranch, the deck of a cruise ship. The people in the pictures are created with AI too, to the client’s liking: their age, size, ethnicity and clothing can all be chosen to suit the market the image is for.
The scooter itself is never redrawn. Its frame, wheels, controls and lettering are held to the studio photograph, so what the customer sees is the product they will actually receive.
Then the lifestyle scenes move too
The lifestyle stills are animated into 30 to 45 second films, made in different versions for different countries.
Once a lifestyle scene exists as a still, we can bring it to life. The rider sets off, the camera follows, the background moves the way a real location would.
The same product can appear in a film for the British market and a completely different one for America, each with its own setting and its own people, without anyone getting on a plane.
A presenter for every country, in every language
We can now add AI presenters who speak to each market in its own language.
Some films need a person talking to camera: introducing the product, explaining a feature, delivering an offer. We create that presenter with AI, along with the voice.
Each presenter is designed for the brand and the audience. Their age, appearance, clothing and tone of voice are chosen to suit the people the film is speaking to.
The same film can then be adapted for another territory. The script is translated and the presenter delivers it in that language, so the message stays the same while the voice sounds local. The sample here was made for Monarch’s UK market.
Play filmAI presenter and voice-over sample, Monarch UKReal filmed footage, transformed
We film the real scooter being used by a real person, then change the person, the weather and the location with AI.
This is the newest thing we are doing, and the one I’m most excited about. Instead of starting from a still, we start from real film.
We shoot actual footage of the product in use, in any location. The scooter stays exactly as it was shot. We relight it, and then add or change everything else around it: who is using it, where they are, what the weather is doing, even the car it is being lifted out of.
Because the movement, the camera work and the timing are all real, the result holds together in a way a film built from a still image can’t. One short shoot becomes a version for every market.
The example below started as a clip of a man lifting a shopping trolley out of a car boot on a dull day. Follow it through the four changes.
Play filmOriginal: a man opens the car boot and lifts out a trolley
Play filmChange 1: trolley replaced with the client’s mobility scooter
Play filmChange 2: the man changed to a woman
Play filmChange 3: location changed to a park
Play filmChange 4: location changed again, car changed to a red American SUVCost and speed
An overseas shoot with a film crew can cost more than £20,000 a day. A change to one of these films takes a day or so.
The honest reason for all of this is cost. Taking a product overseas, hiring a crew, finding locations and paying models is out of reach for most campaigns, and filming on a cruise liner is harder still. Multiply that by three markets and several products and it simply doesn’t happen.
The second reason is speed. If Monarch wants a different setting, a different person or a version for another country, we can turn it round in a day or so instead of weeks of planning and travel.
It also means more can be tried. A new idea costs a day’s work to test, so campaigns can change as products and markets do.
And it all rests on real photography and real film-making. If you have a product that needs to be seen in more places than you can afford to take it, I’d be glad to show you how this could work for you.
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