Behind the Illusion: How Studio Set Construction Transforms Video Production
March 26, 2025
Have you ever wondered how TV shows get those perfect camera angles in tiny bathrooms, or how commercials transform ordinary rooms into extraordinary spaces? The secret lies in studio set construction, and it’s more accessible than you might think.
Welcome to a fascinating exploration of production possibilities as we pull back the curtain on how custom-built sets transform marketing videos from ordinary to extraordinary. From rolling walls that reveal casino scenes to entire rooms that physically flip upside down, we share the behind-the-scenes magic that elevates storytelling through controlled environments.
We dive into our experience creating modular walls for Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison commercials, where we shot 11 different scripts across multiple set configurations in just a few days—something that would have been logistically impossible on location. For Kelly Jackson’s powerful music video about domestic abuse, we engineered an entire 12-foot hinged set that could physically tilt backward, creating a visceral metaphor for instability that no amount of digital effects could match.
Even seemingly ordinary scenes benefit tremendously from studio construction. We recently built bathroom and living room sets for a commercial featuring dogs, allowing our team to position cameras at impossible angles while accommodating a large crew and managing animal talent comfortably. The control and efficiency gained from building these environments pays dividends in production quality and schedule management.
Whether you’re creating marketing content, filming a documentary with staged elements, or producing narrative video, consider how set construction might elevate your production value while actually streamlining your process. Subscribe to The Backflip Effect for more insights that prove there’s always a method to the marketing madness!
FREE KICKSTART GUIDE: https://letsbackflip.com/guide/
Topics in This Episode
- (0:30) Why Set Construction Matters
- (1:27) Ho-Chunk Casino Commercial Set Build
- (5:01) Managing Complex Multi-Scene Productions
- (8:55) Music Video: Creating Flipping Sets
- (10:56) Studio Versatility Showcase
- (15:29) Recent Dog Commercial Set Build
- (19:06) Studio Advantages for Production Value
Transcript
Ryan Freng:
Welcome to the Backflip Effect, the podcast that proves there’s a method to the marketing madness, specifically, a method that involves clever video strategy and a dash of creative mischief. Now, don’t be fooled by bland ideas or big budget fluff. Instead, we tackle real client questions and share how we’ve transformed businesses with strategies that actually work. Grab your headphones and join us as we explore the nitty-gritty of turning everyday marketing woes into story-driven success. Let’s get started, all right. So today we’re going to be talking about production value with set construction in studio. We have a studio here and just the value of what that can get you by creating whatever you want in a space like the studio. So, yeah, why don’t you kind of kick us off? Like, why are we talking about set construction in the studio at all? Like?
John Shoemaker:
why care? So maybe it makes sense to talk about the complex ones first and then wind up in. Why would we do a set construction that’s like a pretty standard space?
Ryan Freng:
Just like a room. Yeah, yeah.
John Shoemaker:
So a while ago we did some work with Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison and we did this series of commercials and we wanted to do a really cool, attention-grabbing thing. So we and I say the royal, we that’s Luke built-.
Ryan Freng:
We gotta get him a shirt that says the Royal we yes that’d be amazing. Hannah, alexis, can one of you make that?
John Shoemaker:
yes, the Royal we so we built this set. It’s. He built this set. That was a living room, but we wanted there was this break. In reality we kind of wanted to do like a what is it insurance commercial kind of thing, where something’s happening and then suddenly crazy things happen in the background. In this case the walls opened up like rolled away.
Ryan Freng:
To reveal that we’re in a casino, right.
John Shoemaker:
Yeah, revealing the casino floor behind them, so behind a living room or whatever.
Ryan Freng:
Which we did think about. Can we shoot this at the casino, like would so behind a living room or whatever, which we did think about. Can we shoot this at the casino, like would it be useful to shoot it at the casino, because that you know you want to explore all options when you’re producing yeah, and that wasn’t going to be good because we had a very limited period of time yeah, the answer was no and then like building things in this, in this, because we still would have needed the walls right, yeah, and it was like 3m to 7 am or something that we would be able to shoot in there.
Ryan Freng:
Yeah, in the casino, yeah, so 2 am.
John Shoemaker:
So we built the walls and just wheeled them away, revealing the green screen, and then did compositing, but that set needed to be built. We needed walls on wheels. And then the other thing about that one needing to build the set was we had 11 scripts to shoot, but I had a complicated grid of like. Here’s the actors. They’re not all in the same scenes. Here are the right. We want a variety.
Ryan Freng:
Yeah, we had like 11 scripts to shoot long and shorts. And then how many actors aside from us? Four, six, I think, like six.
John Shoemaker:
So six, and then it was you, me and yeah, so like 10 actors, yeah you me and Jeff.
Ryan Freng:
And then, how many scenes did we have Three.
John Shoemaker:
All the scripts were different. We had all different settings.
Ryan Freng:
They’re all different settings or different scenes, but we Variations of three settings.
John Shoemaker:
Yeah, so we had like three kitchens. Yeah Right, something like that. Like three kitchens, three living rooms, there’s a kitchen table, there’s a countertop.
Ryan Freng:
Yeah, living room that was arranged differently. Kitchens, three living rooms there was a kitchen table, there was a countertop. A living room that was arranged differently. Oh, there was the rec room.
John Shoemaker:
The rec room, the fireplace, wood room.
Ryan Freng:
So it had to be modular Right.
John Shoemaker:
But they weren’t well. I think maybe we did achieve keeping the kitchen scenes all shot on the same day, yeah, but basically we had to rip the walls.
Ryan Freng:
The royal, we again yeah.
John Shoemaker:
The royal. We over there we had to rip the walls off the set, yeah, in between the scenes. So it was that eighth inch panel board that was, just like Brad, nailed up onto the the frames.
Ryan Freng:
Rip those down and then reskin them, basically to make a different scene and moving doors and windows around from the left side to the right side, and even floor we had to roll out right yeah different, like linoleum style floor, wood, fake woods floor that we could roll out yeah, so we shot.
John Shoemaker:
That was cool, something like we did have to go back at one point yeah, yeah, yeah um I think we shot something like four different setups per day. Yeah, which?
Ryan Freng:
is a lot.
John Shoemaker:
you like people. If they’re not used to it like that, that’s a lot. But that gets to the point of the set, why we’re talking about sets Like I think that’s a thing that you can do with sets. If we had to go to different locations, that’d be impossible. You could do about one a day, maybe two, but not at that scale and what we were doing and that effect would require, you know, huge houses Like I think people don’t realize.
Ryan Freng:
when they see stuff on TV, they see like a room, they see a living room, that bathroom, whatever. If they start to analyze that space, they’re like it doesn’t make sense that a bathtub would be in the middle of this room. Well, that’s probably a set like the other the other shoot that we had where we had the bathtub in the middle of the bathroom. We would not be able to find that specifically anywhere without going to the bougiest house, the biggest house that had all the space for filming and lights and all that stuff.
John Shoemaker:
Yeah, so then I don’t remember if that one was first, I think that was first, and then I don’t remember if that one was first, I think that was first and then we did so. Then the next one was even more of a special effect. Uh, so that one, the the walls were pulling away. Then I’m thinking of the music video for Kelly Jackson Right, which had the, the whole set hinged.
Ryan Freng:
So we had a floor and then we had a wall and we could actually set, deck the floor and wall for a couple different scenes, three different scenes in fact, and that whole thing hinged on, I think it was some pulleys right, so the pulleys were holding it up to give it so that it just wouldn’t fall okay um luke built a.
John Shoemaker:
He made his own hinge system that was capable of supporting a. I don’t know how big it was 12 feet wide by 12 feet tall or something 11 feet wide by 12 feet tall set. So he built like a hinge out of uh, I think a pipe I think he used like pipe and like, um, whatever he knows the details.
John Shoemaker:
Yeah, uh, so that we could tip this whole thing backward, because the music video was about, like, abuse and and you know, unstability, right, and just kind of like we wanted to show portray the the world shattering that happens when you know instability, right, and just kind of like we wanted to show portray the world shattering that happens when you know somebody’s in these situations, right, and in a music video, like you often want to do something kind of crazy, kind of out there, like you know, what can we do?
Ryan Freng:
that’s visually engaging, right, your creative shtick, you can see, you know some of the different scenes. It looks like you know she’s in a room, you know looks like a real room, looks like a military office and the outside I think the outside is like the coolest Outside the bar.
Ryan Freng:
Look at these two sketchy guys. Was this Chaney? Yeah, chaney and Rob. But then things start to happen. The world gets flipped upside down. So, also sorry, this is tough material. It’s like domestic abuse. We deal a lot with these types of things and telling stories and helping communicate awareness and things. So sometimes we’re a little callous or I’m a little callous and sharing it and forgetting that it’s emotionally impactful. But anyway, you can see that the world is flipping over and the scene has, uh, kind of fallen over onto them. You see all the, all the items that have flipped over.
John Shoemaker:
so, yeah, I think that’s, and stuff has already fallen at that point in that in that video.
Ryan Freng:
And then actually this is like returning, so now the whole whole scene is coming back. It’s interesting because there’s a lot going on, but you don’t get as much of the effect as I, you know, would have hoped.
John Shoemaker:
Yeah, yeah, that’s the only thing that I would have done more there is, but I mean we had to be watching out for safety, yeah, just for actors, because they were actually falling back into that door, right, and then the props were actually falling from where they were set onto the back wall, so we had to make sure that they were set onto the back wall, so we had to make sure that they were not going to get hurt or something. But if we did it again, I would have, yeah, same thing. Try to find some ways to emphasize more of that movement. Right, maybe getting a camera to the side a little bit more.
Ryan Freng:
We did a little bit of that, but you never be able to do anything like that on set or you know on location. Yeah, exactly, do anything like that on set, or you know on location yeah, exactly, so that’s that’s the.
John Shoemaker:
Uh, yeah, that’s the effect of that. So, um, you know, I don’t know if there’s another example in in between example, but um, you know, we’ve we’ve.
Ryan Freng:
Well, I could start. We have an example of this sewer scene. Do you know where I could find that we helped this creative director shoot a really oh the studio reel? Do you know where?
John Shoemaker:
that is On our YouTube page. If you look for studio reel, I think you might find it there. Yeah, that was a really cool one we shot somebody was doing an indie film. They were what were they gonna do that? They wanted to, like, you know, fundraise it, kickstart it or something. Yeah, oh yeah. So you know, here’s some of the things that we’ve done in our studio you know that’s what it looks like on the inside.
John Shoemaker:
There’s nothing there, but you can just. You can just do cool things in a studio. That’s kind of like the the benefit of it. You can be in many spaces and, um, I was going to mention some of these like simplistic shots like yeah, these are great, uh, that those aren’t like fully set builds but they it gives you the effect of being in another space. You know those look like different rooms at different times of day and different space. You know those look like different rooms At different times of day.
John Shoemaker:
And different times of day and those are just like overhead shots of props, you know, from a shot from above. Yeah, that was a really cool, cool shoot, like a simplistic set that doesn’t have much of anything, but it gives you a little bit more feel, a little bit more, you know.
Ryan Freng:
Just to the story how do you show software?
John Shoemaker:
yeah, and make it personal and authentic you know we try to show that yeah, and we don’t have to be in an actual office space. It’s like, oh, there’s a desk and you’re like oh yeah, okay, I get it.
Ryan Freng:
The person in the desk and so then again, you know the puppet movie which you can find on Amazon, which is unfinished, but it’s a delight. There’s a lot of good content. You know all this done in studio. This was one of the cooler ones too, like all the screens and those things in the background. Another great job by we.
John Shoemaker:
yeah well in this and this set. You know there’s a lot about the screens. They wanted a SportsCenter kind of feel and wanted to.
Ryan Freng:
You know and this is we were able to come up with.
John Shoemaker:
That just is like all right. Well, what do we do? Get some TVs, turn them on their sides. Think we rented some rigging to hold them up and that desk. We rented that desk Like a $3,000 desk that’s a very expensive desk, but you can rent yourself a news desk for the low, low price of about $3,000. That’s just a virtual set done against a green screen. Oh yeah, there’s a little.
Ryan Freng:
Hey, there’s, luke right there.
John Shoemaker:
A little DIY composite, uh, done against the green screen. Oh yeah, there’s a little. Hey, there’s luke right there, little, uh diy composite. Uh, there’s the sewer scene you’re talking about. Yeah, this was really cool. There’s another one of those minimalistic sets. You know there’s nothing there, there’s just a few ropes, but, like you know, it’s like oh, it’s boxing yeah so and then this one’s cool you know to do some car stuff for the silver medal AF award.
Ryan Freng:
You know interviews, but then you throw GAC everywhere and mirrors and lights, and and then this this is the sports casting one year two. It was like an award show. So again you can kind of see what was done there. The number four and the WP and x4 are graphics yeah back, you know, back in the film days this is a fun one too with Keane.
Ryan Freng:
So some Death Star graphics again. Just minimalism the, the backgrounds black, but then we have these light bulbs hanging everywhere this is one of those where, hopefully, you’re watching this podcast with a video in front of you, because if you’re not, you’re just hearing a lot of like this year is cool. You’re missing thick Ryan here. A little thicker.
John Shoemaker:
You know, and that’s another one of those very minimalistic sets where you know it’s just a setting, it doesn’t necessarily fill in the background, you know, but it’s like oh, it’s just a setting, doesn’t necessarily fill in the background, you know, but it’s like oh, it’s a living room, yeah well, there’s just the, it’s just the psych behind that woman sitting on a couch with a table next door.
John Shoemaker:
But you get the idea. You get the idea he’s in a bathroom. He’s, you know, like trimming his beard in the mirror there yeah, this is another fun one.
Ryan Freng:
It’s the white psych. But then some, you know, some chairs a desk. This is for training material, all of the silly nonsense, yeah.
John Shoemaker:
So that. So that’s cool. You know like very much recommend checking out that studio reel. That’s really cool. Just kind of a quick example of like here’s all the things you can do in a studio, cause I think sometimes people are like what do you do with the studio? Right, I don’t know that. I have a studio shoot.
John Shoemaker:
Perfect segue into the most recent set building shoot we did, um was this we were filming with dogs and we needed a bathroom, a living room and then somewhere that we could get a black background and get a product shot, some photography.
John Shoemaker:
Then I did a little bit of looking and after a brief amount of searching and looking, I decided that we should just go ahead and build the set. And after a brief amount of searching and looking, I decided that we should just go ahead and build the set again, the Royal. We building the set because we had to move really fast and as I was looking at Airbnb and VRBO, different kinds of options like that, this particular shoot, we were gonna bring four dogs and 20, 25 people in and you know that would cause a lot of mess and be a lot to manage on location, not to mention the fact that getting the shots that you want was going to be a challenge, because if you think about how big your bathroom is, it’s not very big right, even a big bougie house like there’s, there’d be so much yeah stuff to contend with.
Ryan Freng:
It just didn’t make sense.
John Shoemaker:
We had to feature a dog in this tub. You know getting this dog shampoo getting washed, and you know we decided in the end like let’s just build this out A couple walls, some floor, and then not everything needed to work. You know, we didn’t need a working toilet and sink, we did need to figure out water in the tub. So Luke’s ingenuity there helped figure that out. But then that gave us the ability to stand back, way back where we wanted. On the shot we’re shooting, I don’t know what the estimate would be 20, 25 feet away from the back wall. You know, to get this great shot that you could not achieve in a real space and it’s like either the tub is in the middle of the room or if the tub was back in a corner somewhere. It’s just a bathroom, it’s just a living room, but the shots we’re able to get because we could be in the studio and control all the variables and then move really fast, have a ton of crew there, move around.
Ryan Freng:
We’re able to do a lot of different things in studio that you might not think is necessarily in studio, and it’s great during winter too, because nobody has to go anywhere, you don’t have to be outside, you don’t have to be cold, you can be comfortable, you can be inside. But you can tell a very specific story because of the capability that you have specific story because of the capability that you have.
John Shoemaker:
If you don’t have to be specific, you can get away with shooting on location. More If you have to have a shot in a particular angle or a particular shot scale or whatever, you’re always gonna be better off in studio. You know people see like shows and assume that they’re shot on location, and some of them are. Some of the modern shows are, but they’ll also combine that with like studio stuff where?
John Shoemaker:
yeah, most of the time you’re inside, you’re going to be in studio, yeah it’s like there’s no shot from that angle, from that side of the room, because you can’t get a camera right there without having no wall right there.
Ryan Freng:
So to bring it all kind of home, we’re talking about production value. With set construction in studio, you can just get a look that you can’t get with a lot more money on location with a lot more production. It just works a lot better in studio. So that should be an option when you’re considering how to produce whatever your content is and documentary is pretty easy to do, but also the narrative style creative.
John Shoemaker:
Yeah, and even in documentary there are times where you want to, you know even those examples that we show that were just pretty simple. You know, just a couch and an end table. It’s like that’s a set, that’s a space.
Ryan Freng:
That’s it. So consider a set. You can do it better. I don’t know, that’s it, that’s it.
