Creating Lifestyle Stills Without the Limitations of Location
When Ryan Kanaly with Small Hands Creative came to ARC, the ask was clear, but not simple.
His client, Ancient Nutrition wanted to capture a series of lifestyle stills centered around active, on-the-go women in their 40s–60s, showing how their supplements fit naturally into a full day of life. The creative needed to feel real, aspirational, and varied without feeling staged or repetitive.
The challenge? The shot list called for multiple environments, specific lighting conditions (including a tight window of blue hour), and a “day-in-the-life” feel that would traditionally require extensive travel, tight timing, and a stretched production budget.
As Ryan framed it, the question quickly became: how do we fabricate blue hour on a tennis court, and everything else that comes with it, without sacrificing quality or consistency?
Why the Studio Made Sense
Rather than chasing locations, the team made the decision to build them.
Using the LED wall and LED cart inside of ARC studio allowed the creative to simulate multiple outdoor settings including athletic courts, lifestyle backdrops, and environmental moments, while maintaining full control over scale, lighting, and consistency. Scenes that would normally be limited to minutes in real life could now be explored over hours, without the pressure of weather, daylight, or travel logistics.
From a budget standpoint, the studio approach eliminated the need for multiple crew travel days and location moves. From a creative standpoint, it opened up more room to experiment without increasing risk.
The result was the ability to achieve an “on-location” feel for stills, at a fraction of the complexity.
A Thoughtful, Flexible Approach
Planning was intentional from the start.
The creative team collaborated closely with the ARC team to stress-test ideas ahead of the shoot, talking through what plates would work best, how talent would interact with each environment, and where flexibility could be built into the schedule. ARC Studio rentals includes a content test day that was essential and allowed everyone to view scenes on screen, make refinements, and reimagine angles before cameras ever rolled.
Ryan and the client team were involved throughout the process, bringing creative input at every stage rather than reacting after the fact. That collaboration made it easier to adapt in real time, tweaking environments, adjusting compositions, and finding new ways to bring each scene to life.
Instead of fighting the clock, the team was able to slow down and be thoughtful.
“In real life, blue hour lasts about 15 minutes,” Ryan explained. “At ARC, we could shoot that same look over half a day and keep it consistent.”
Maximizing the Shoot
Efficiency wasn’t about rushing, but rather it was about range.
Across five total scenes, the team captured 75–100 final assets, including both product-focused imagery and lifestyle portraits. Individual environments were reworked multiple times by adjusting talent placement, practical elements, and framing to create variety without rebuilding from scratch.
The result was a diverse set of stills that felt cohesive, intentional, and far from repetitive.
The Outcome
The final imagery is now being used across print, web, social, and packaging, delivering a unified visual language across channels. Beyond the quality of the assets themselves, speed and consistency became major wins allowing the client to move quickly from production to rollout.
“We weren’t fighting the clock or the environment which meant we could actually focus on the images.” Kanaly recalled.
By cutting travel and condensing production into three focused days, the client was also able to conserve budget for future initiatives without compromising on creative ambition.
A Smarter Way to Shoot Stills
This project reinforced something simple but powerful: virtual production studio-based stills aren’t just a backup plan. They’re a creative advantage.
By approaching the studio as a partner rather than just a space, the team unlocked flexibility, control, and scale that would have been difficult to achieve on location. The end result wasn’t just more assets. It was better ones, delivered with intention.
