What is a mood board?
As a creative producer, developing a mood board is crucial to envision your result. Wether it be film, editorial or a fashion photoshoot, with the right mood board you will convey the concept and style of your production. So, what is a mood board? and how do you create a mood board?
Image by Karin Scholte
What is a mood board? Essentially it’s a collage of images, put together to convey a message and style. A mood board should communicate effectively the creative idea of the production itself. So, what do we need first? AN IDEA!
Write in one paragraph the concept of the video (or the photo shoot) with basic information: who, what, where, why, and how. Now that you have a clear idea of the project, gathering images will make a lot more sense and keep in mind to be selective, because you will run into inspiring images along your research, but not all will suit your needs.
Create your mood board in a Google Slides doc, so it’s easy to design and share with your colleagues. In it, explore your concept and create a clean compilation of mood boards, including:
Model mood board (based on your character)
Styling mood board (based on your concept)
Theme mood board (this is your what, where and how) *be picky on selecting these photos, space them out so that they don’t look sloppy
Don’t forget ! in your first slide of your presentation, narrate your idea, with a lot of adjectives, so that the feeling is palpable and self explanatory. At the end of your slides, you can always add a text slide outlining any other details you think the video should convey, I usually add: tone, style, or specific shots I want to make sure we don’t miss, for example, a glamorous shot of a woman running down an escalator.
Your theme board, for example, could look something like this:
Creative property of Mariana Valle-Mesen
Your mood board then goes through a revision, by your editor, your client or whoever is calling the shots. Before delivering this to them, revise your initial idea, and if the images are in fact communicating the written part. If this is a yes, go for it! Wait for the approval to come your way, there will always be a few suggestions of imagery - which is totally fine- feed back always makes us more creatives.
Then, you are good to go with the next steps of a production, like scouting, gathering the creative team and the oh so fun, contract signing. If you want to see what these steps look like, check out my latest experience shooting at Le Negresco Hotel for a holiday themed video.
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