This week I had an interior design enquiry for a home office with a difference. The difference being the client wanted to run her Tik Tok shop from the space. This is a key difference because while a space is 3D, video and photography is 2D. Here’s how to design your room for perfect video.
Designing a room for function first
I understand the appeal of creating a space that looks good for video and photography. But when I design a space I design it for how it’s used most of the time.
Many clients request multi-functional spaces. For example, a home office that can become a guest room if possible.
In this situation, the function of the space most of the time is work. The secondary function is guest room. To understand this difference impacts, furniture layout and furniture selection.
This client wanted the space to work as a home office for desk work, such as responding to enquiries. As well as packaging orders. Packaging orders can get messy, so not ideal when recording video.
Although, for ‘behind the scenes’ or ‘day in the life’ type content, including the mess of packaging orders might work.
However, for the business to be successful the desk work aspect of the space needs to be functional. This is the three dimensional aspect of designing.
Design a room for 2D
Whether for video or still photography there is a 2D consideration to interior design. In a post I wrote about getting the best results from interior photography I mention a grid.
This grid is relevant in video too. The grid is a series of squares that make up the shot on screen. All these squares need to be considered.
Something needs to be in each square that makes sense in terms of foreground, background, focal point.
You can try this out on video call platforms such as Google Meets. When I see myself in the camera, I also notice what’s in the background. What’s to my left and right.
Below is a screenshot of me at my desk in my home office on Google Meets. You can see the shot is messy. The background is too busy.
Behind me to the left is a white plastic back which is visible. To my right in the background is the coat stand. To my right in the middle ground there are temporary Christmas decorations.
You can also see in the background the blue and white striped towel on the sofa for the dog. Also the lighting isn’t good. While I have a desk lamp for computer work, this isn’t sufficient for video. So ultimately, this is not a good shot, not for still photography and not for video. I also need makeup.
So while my home office works for me from a functional three dimensional perspective. It doesn’t work for video. It will take some practice to get your space right for video.
Before shooting you might have to move things. Consider placing your camera in different locations and angles.
Once you get the core function sorted and can work from the home office comfortably. That’s when you can tackle how to design your room for perfect video. By carefully considering the screen grid, focal point, middle ground, background and lighting.
Cover Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash
