Hybrid Production: A Flexible Approach to asset generation in a social media world
The Landscape of social media and advertising in 2025
There’s no denying social media has completely changed the landscape of advertising and marketing not only in Cincinnati, but every corner of the world.
This year more than ever our clients want us to produce a variety of assets that can be used across socials, website, print and more. The age of producing with only 1 medium in mind is slowly coming to an end. This doesn’t mean quality has to suffer. It just requires changing the mindset of what a typical production day looks like.
Hate it or love it: It’s no longer possible to ignore shooting vertical is equally or even more important than the horizontal frame. We are shooting wider and wider frames every year. Often times we find ourselves shooting 100% vertically for a “socials first” production.
Just because today’s productions require the flexibility of creating for multiple destinations, doesn’t mean quality has to suffer. Productions in the past were built around 1 deliverable in mind. Trying to translate the same production style to today’s modern requirments doesn’t work because yesterday’s productions were never built around a social media world.
Today’s world requires a “hybrid” approach to production environment that is built around multiple formats, with socials being a critical one.
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Our “Hybrid Production” approach
Traditional sets have highly specific roles: Gaffer, Grip, DP, Director, Camera Operator etc… this works great for larger productions like TV Shows and movies where the repetitive nature of the set favors this setup.
Today’s fast-paced consumption of media, requires a team of “full-stack” specialists that can play the role of creative director, DP/Photographer, social media marketer, and camera operator as needed. We believe 2-3 of these highly skilled experts can produce a better return on investment than a traditional crew of 8-10 people all only focused on their specific role of DP, gaffer, director etc etc.
Need to turn around a mix of assets for your next marketing campaign?
When Cincinnati Social Media approaches a project the first piece of the puzzle we look at is how to maximize the production value with the budget allocated.
In about 33% of our work the gearlist and shotlist is fixed and our goal is to focus on getting the best content out of our subjects. Sometimes that means taking a few extra steps to make sure they are comfortable in front of camera, or taking a little extra time in pre-production to make sure we have the right crew on shoot day.
Most of the time we are given creative control over the camera, lighting, and equipment. Our approach is to take the simplest set of gear that allows us to meet the requirements of the job and deliverables, while still leaving room for the unexpected. This approach allows us to focus on creativity and taking advantage of organic opportunities.
On a recent production we were tasked with helping generate some proof of concept ads for an IT company that wanted to establish a presence in Cincinnati. We used the Ronin RS4 Pro’s ability to have a second operator control the camera movement while the first operator held the camera and tracked the subject. Check out some of the work we’ve done for our clients by keeping the setup simple and getting creative.