Behind every polished promo is a stack of decisions most viewers never see. For the Colony promo campaign, a series of social-first brand videos, our team worked through those decisions before a single frame was shot. Here is a look at how Click Play Films approached the pre-production and production, and why the technical choices we made on set gave the edit room the flexibility it needed later.
Framing for social first, without boxing ourselves in
The Colony promos were built for the social media spectrum, so the first question was aspect ratio. Do you frame everything for a square Instagram crop? Shoot native 16:9? Or hedge and capture both?
Our answer was to shoot 16:9 while actively protecting for square. In practice that means composing every shot so the important action lives inside a center-safe square, while still capturing the full widescreen frame. One capture, two usable deliverables. It keeps the shoot efficient and hands the editor clean options for Instagram, stories, and standard 16:9 placements without reframing compromises or a costly double shoot.
Resolution and codec: capturing room to work
We shot 2K in 4:4:4 ProRes. That combination gives the post team full color information to push and pull in the grade, which matters when the same footage has to hold up across multiple crops and platforms. It is a deliberate balance: enough resolution and color depth to finish to a broadcast standard, without generating unwieldy file sizes that slow the edit.
Shooting Log C for maximum control in the grade
Rather than baking a look into the footage on set, we captured in Log C and applied a LUT for monitoring. Shooting log preserves the widest possible dynamic range, so colorists can shape the final look in post instead of being locked into an on-set decision. A burn-in look might have saved a step, but it would have cost us the ability to fine-tune later. For a campaign that needed a consistent, brand-accurate look across every cut, that flexibility was worth protecting.
Why these choices matter
None of this is technical trivia for its own sake. Each decision, protect for square, capture in 4:4:4, shoot log, exists to serve the end product: brand videos that look intentional on every platform and give the client room to repurpose the footage well beyond the first campaign. That is the difference between a videographer for hire and a production partner who plans the shoot around how the content will actually be used.
Produced by Click Play Films
The Colony promo campaign was produced by Click Play Films, with Jacob Tanur serving as Executive Producer. Our team handles corporate and commercial video to a broadcast standard, from pre-production planning through production and finishing. If you are planning a social-first video campaign and want a team that thinks about the edit before the shoot, get in touch for a quote.
