· Dre Castillo
What a two-day shoot turns into
People book a shoot thinking about one video. The better way to think about it is a month of posts. The clearest example I have is Bourbon Beef, a ranch in Kentucky: one two-day shoot with a drone and three cameras became 20 vertical reels, cut from nine minutes of finished picture, and a month of social content.
Why one shoot should feed many posts
The expensive part of video is getting everyone and everything in one place: the crew, the gear, the location and the people on camera. Once that’s paid for, extra footage costs very little. The edit is where you turn it into volume.
How I plan for it
The plan starts from the posting calendar, not from the video.
- Count the posts. If you post five times a week, a month is about 20 posts. That’s the number to shoot for.
- Cover every subject more than one way: wide, medium, close, and a moving shot. With three cameras rolling, one moment gives you three angles.
- Fly the drone for openers. An aerial of the place makes a strong first two seconds.
- Record clean sound. A short line from the owner or a customer, recorded properly, carries a reel better than music alone.
- Frame for vertical. Keep the action where a 9:16 crop from the middle still works.
What the edit looks like
I cut the long version first — for Bourbon Beef, nine minutes of finished picture — and then cut the reels from it. Every reel gets its own hook, a single idea, and captions, because a lot of people watch with the sound off.
The same logic on a corporate shoot
The interview-and-commercial pairs on my video page work the same way. One day with a company gives you a full interview, a short commercial, and a handful of clips for LinkedIn and Instagram. For the segments I delivered for PBS, CNBC and Fox, each location visit had to produce the whole segment.
If you’re planning a shoot
Tell me how often you post and where. I’ll plan the day backwards from that number, so the shoot turns into weeks of content rather than one video.