Behind-the-Scenes Content — Why Brands Are Filming Their Own Production Days
BTS content has moved from accidental bonus to deliberate strategy. Here's why it performs well, and how to capture it without slowing down your shoot.
Scroll through enough brand social accounts and you'll notice a pattern: alongside the polished final ad or product video, there's often a second, rougher video — the making-of, the setup process, the bloopers, the crew at work. This behind-the-scenes content isn't a byproduct anymore. For many brands, it's becoming deliberate strategy.
Why BTS Content Performs the Way It Does
Audiences have become highly attuned to polished advertising, and that same polish can now read as slightly distant or impersonal. Behind-the-scenes content works against that by showing the effort, people and process behind a finished piece — which tends to build a different kind of trust than the finished ad alone.
It also satisfies a specific curiosity: viewers who enjoy a brand's finished content are often genuinely interested in how it gets made, especially when the process itself involves visible craft — lighting setups, camera rigs, a creative team problem-solving in real time.
What Counts as Good BTS Content
- A time-lapse of the set being built or lit
- Candid moments between takes — genuine reactions, not staged ones
- A split-screen or before/after comparing the raw setup to the final shot
- Quick interviews with the crew or talent about what they're working on
- Genuine mistakes or funny outtakes, if your brand voice allows for that kind of openness
How to Capture It Without Slowing Down the Main Shoot
The easiest way to get BTS content is to assign it to someone specifically, rather than hoping the main crew remembers to grab it between setups. A single phone or a small secondary camera, operated by one person whose only job that day is documenting the process, produces far more usable BTS footage than trying to capture it as an afterthought.
It's worth briefing this person on what to look for in advance — key setup moments, interesting equipment, genuine reactions — so they're not just filming randomly and hoping something usable comes out of it.
Where BTS Content Actually Gets Used
- Instagram Stories and Reels, as a teaser before the main content is published
- LinkedIn, particularly for B2B brands wanting to show the team and process behind their work
- Recruitment and employer-branding content, since it shows real people and real work culture
- Case studies and client pitches, where showing production quality and process builds credibility for future work
The Two-Video Strategy
Some brands now plan every shoot to deliberately produce two pieces of content from the start: the finished, polished asset, and a short BTS recap published alongside or just before it. This doubles the content output from a single studio day without requiring any additional shoot time — just a second person documenting the process.
Final Takeaway
Behind-the-scenes content has moved from an accidental bonus to a deliberate part of many brands' production plans, because it builds a different kind of connection than the finished piece alone. Assign someone to capture it on your next shoot, and treat it as a real deliverable rather than an afterthought. Plan your next production day with DyWix Studio's content production team, including time for BTS capture.
