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I’ve been in the video production industry for over a decade and have done many projects for organizations like Baskin Robins, LG Canada, and Lego. You can check out our testimonials here.

Filming a promo video with Deanne Wilder and DOP Lucas Cheong. Photograph by Alex Chiu

Today, I will show you how to save a few bucks on your next project. As we all know, during a film/video production phase, it can get very costly. The studio has to pay for items and professionals like: DOP, make up, location fees, administration, crew, cast etc. That’s why sometimes it’s wise to cheat your shots or aka use recycled footage for your project (footage that you have filmed in the past and can use for your current project). Recycled footage can help reduce costs in a production because the studio does not have to spend time filming extra shots when they can use existing ones and modify them. An ad agency can also use same shots, or scenes to create different ad campaigns for their different niche audiences.

Check out these examples below on how Reebok used the same shots to attract the different kinds of people that will be purchasing their products:

#1 Inspirational Campaign – “Reebok Women”

#2 Being more Human – “Freak Show”

In the two above videos, you can see clearly that the first scene in “Reebok Women”, it is the same scene as the “Freak Show” at 36 seconds. Another example of using the same scene is at 58 seconds for “Reebok Woman” and at 10 seconds for “Freak Show”. There are several more in the clips above, feel free to pick them out! Reebok has done a good job in recycling footage to be placed into their different ads. If you click on their Youtube channel there are several more ads in which they used the same footage.

Another example of using recycled footage is in an older Sports Chek commercial where they followed a young girl training hard for a hockey game. They did one for Mother’s Day and for Father’s Day. In those ads, you can see that they only changed the voice over and text to match the occasion. Something that didn’t cost the company too much, but they were able to target specific audience groups. One for moms, and another for dads.

That is also why nowadays you see films creating several different types of trailers to attract the types of audiences that may be interested in watching the film. Check out the trailer from Gladiator, 2000; A film by Ridley Scott. Can you pick out the different types of trailers they’ve created? Some of them include one for the Scott fans starting at 3:30 minutes. One for the romance goers starting at 4:30 minutes.

Transformers the “Dark Side of the Moon” & “The Island”

Another example of using recycled footage can be found in Michael Bay’s Transformers, The Dark Side of the Moon. The studio intelligently used a shot from one of his older film, The Island and incorporated it into the new film. This saves the studio money because they do not have to spend time on filming the background plate. The plate will then have visual effects added on top of it.

So there you have it, save a bit of money by using the shots you’ve already filmed in the past, recycling matters! And the next time you film something, back it up, you’ll never know! Let us know if this tip helped and feel free to contact us for any video production questions that you may have. I hope you enjoyed the article and like always, happy editing!