How To Make A Jewelry Commercial Like A Pro
In the winter of 2021, the marketing managers of the jewelry brand Buddha to Buddha reached out to me. They asked me if I would be interested in directing a commercial project celebrating the brand’s 25th birthday. Of course, I was more than happy to help, and three months later, the projects saw the light of day.
I wanted to discuss my experience directing this gold and silver jewelry commercial project with you in this article. I will discuss why the marketing managers asked me to direct this project, the challenges we had to overcome, and how my team of creative collaborators and I brought it to life.
Table of contents:
Why I was asked to direct this jewelry commercial
Let’s start at the very beginning and explain how this project landed on my lap and why I was asked to direct it.
In 2016, I got in touch with the marketing managers of Buddha to Buddha via a connection in my network.
At the time, the marketing managers were looking for someone to bring their latest craftsmanship campaign to life, so I pitched my vision for their campaign using a director’s treatment and won the job!
In the following months, I directed various projects for Buddha to Buddha, including this production that we filmed in Bali, Indonesia.
Another project I directed for the brand was a collection of product videos of their most popular jewelry collections displayed on TVs in the stores where the jewelry was sold.
Five years later, in 2021, the marketing managers contacted me again to create something similar to those product collection videos.
And because they still liked the videos I had made for them in the past, I was asked to pitch my vision for this project.
A behind-the-scenes video of this production.
The Jewellery commercial brief
The difference with that previous project was that the product videos weren’t going to be shown on TVs in the jewelry stores this time. The goal of this project was to target an audience online.
The perfect jewelry marketing
The marketing managers at Buddha to Buddha told me that they could precisely target what kind of person would buy specific items from their online store with today's technology. For each jewelry collection, they created a fictitious customer profile.
The only problem was that these profiles were an assumption. It had never been tested to see if those profiles were a 100% match with reality.
So, to shape the perfect avatar for their future marketing strategies and target their customers with matching personal marketing material, the marketing managers needed content to explore the data and discover if their assumptions were correct.
The requirements for this jewelry commercial
They came up with the idea of creating six videos about six different jewelry collections to use on various social media platforms and collecting sales data via click funnels.
Every video had to have a duration of 15 seconds. It had to highlight the Handmade-in-Bali heritage.
The first three seconds of every video had to show the specific collection, and everything needed to be delivered in four different formats (16:9/9:16/4:5/1:1).
Six different jewelry collections
In terms of choosing the perfect jewelry collections, the marketing managers pitched me the following concept:
"For 25 years, we've crafted pieces that embrace life and its cherished moments. Our jewelry connected us with ourselves and the place we call home. Our roots!
Let's honor our roots and the big five family members who made us who we are today—the Batul, Edwin, Nathalie, Ben, and Chain.
From bold to refined and from silver to gold. They were there to keep us grounded at all times.
Celebrate 25 years with us. Embrace life."
The idea was to use the brand's first five jewelry collections and one new limited edition collection. Their next question was, how to shape all this input visually excitingly?
That's where I came to the rescue!
My director’s vision for this jewelry commercial
I have always been a big fan of the perfume commercials of the luxury brand Tom Ford. What the creators of these commercials do well sell a scent through visuals by creating a particular feeling.
They created a visual spectacle with the perfume’s unique ingredients. I thought that concept (using ingredients to create a visual spectacle) would be the perfect foundation for this project.
But the only ingredients of gold and silver jewelry are the actual raw materials, gold and silver. Working with these raw materials (cheap alternatives included) has many practical problems, so I decided to re-use a concept I also used in this Buddha to Buddha commercial.
The concept was—according to Buddha, the four elements (Earth, Air, Fire & Water) form the foundation of everything in the physical world. So my idea was to create a visual spectacle around the jewelry based on those four ‘ingredients.’ (Earth, Air, Fire & Water)
I neatly formulated my vision and directorial approach in a director’s treatment and pitched my idea to the marketing directors.
Luckily, they liked what I had in mind, and two days after the initial commercial brief, I received a GO for the production!
To help set up this production logistically and meet the deadline of two weeks after receiving the GO, I gave the New Amsterdam Film Company producers a call.
And together with them, the production train took off.
A few pages from my original director’s treatment for this commercial.
The difficulty of this jewelry commercial
Looking back on this production, I believe the difficulty of this production was time. The number of days to film these six product videos were limited to just one.
On that day, we had to film 84 pieces of jewelry from six different collections in four different settings, including the build-up and the build-down, and add special effects.
This meant we only had 15 minutes to take one shot from every collection per setting without room for error. And because you’re filming small items, you need to film everything in close-up, and in close-ups, every detail matters.
Printscreens and a difficult workflow
To add some extra complexity, the jewelry in every shot had to be placed so that the editor could take stills from the raw material and the marketing managers could use those stills as online banners on the brand’s website.
This extra layer of complexity also added some additional delay to the workflow. For creating the visual spectacle and effects, I wanted to use a super slow-motion camera to capture things at 1000 frames per second. And because the stills also had to be 4K resolution at minimum, we needed to go for the Phantom Flex 4K camera.
Filming with this camera is not just pushing a record button to get the shot. You need to hook the camera to a computer, capture the action, rewatch the shot, and select what piece of the take you want to save to the memory card.
The bottom line… it made the timeframe for filming and the margin for errors even smaller.
How we pulled it off
When you need to film so much content, it helps to simplify and streamline the process as much as possible.
The more you can simplify in advance, the easier it is to tick boxes while filming, making handling the immense time pressure easier.
Four different time blocks for filming
We decided to split the day of filming into four different 1.5-hour time blocks (6x15 minutes for each jewelry collection) and dedicate each time block to one ingredient (Earth, Air, Fire & Water). For every element, we designed one setting with one visual effect that was easy to repeat.
In the days leading up to the shoot, the art director did many tests on different materials to determine what we could use and what not.
On the day of the shoot, we divided the film studio into two separate sections so we could film in one, and the lighting and camera assistants could build up the following setup in the other area.
The jewelry commercial filming schedule
In practice, the simplified schedule for the film shoot looked like this:
09.00 - 11.00 - Build-up
11.00 - 12.30 - Fire element
12.30 - 13.00 - Lunch
13.00 - 14.30 - Water element
14.30 - 16.00 - Air element
16.00 - 17.30 - Earth element
17.30 - 19.00 - Break down
While the marketing managers switched the jewelry items between takes, the cinematographer switched lenses or camera positions to add variations to the edit.
Production Overtime & Jewelry Commercial post-production
During the post-production meeting, we discussed the limited production timeframe and informed the marketing managers of the potential overtime. Luckily, we managed to control the damage and only went one hour over time.
After filming, I joined the editor for two consecutive days in Amsterdam, and for the music, we used six different stock audio tracks from a platform called Artlist.
Once the edit was locked, color grader Yori van Gerven in Den Haag made all the different format exports and delivered the project one day before the deadline!
You can watch all the final results on the Buddha to Buddha YouTube channel.
Conclusion
It was an exciting experience working with the Phantom Flex 4k camera for the first time and doing a product shoot focused on visual effects.
I wish we had had an extra day of filming to experiment more with the settings, special effects, and jewelry, as that would have made it a more creatively challenging and fulfilling product shoot for me.
A few weeks after the release of the product videos, I contacted one of the marketing managers again to see how the project was received and if the click funnels were providing them with the data and results they were hoping for, and they did!
It was a very successful first data experiment with promising results for profiling and targeting their future clientele.
Frequently Asked Questions About Jewelry Commercials (FAQs)
What is a jewelry commercial?
A jewelry commercial is a promotional video or advertisement that showcases jewelry products to potential customers.
What is the purpose of a jewelry commercial?
A jewelry commercial aims to promote a brand or product, create brand awareness, and increase sales.
What are the elements of a jewelry commercial?
A jewelry commercial typically includes a storyline or narrative emphasizing the product's unique features, design, and craftsmanship.
Who creates jewelry commercials?
Jewelry brands, advertising agencies, and video production companies create jewelry commercials.
What are the different types of jewelry commercials?
There are different types of jewelry commercials, such as product-focused, lifestyle, and promotional. Product-focused commercials showcase the features and benefits of a specific jewelry product. Lifestyle commercials portray the lifestyle and values associated with the brand or product. Promotional commercials may offer discounts or special promotions.
How long are jewelry commercials?
Jewelry commercials can vary but are typically between 15 seconds to 1 minute long.
