Studio World Building: Creating Immersive Spaces that Bring Horror to Life

This project was about designing immersive studio sets that showcased a wide variety of Halloween products in bold and atmospheric ways. Each set was thoughtfully styled to provide a visually engaging backdrop that highlighted the products, while embracing their unique qualities. From life-size animatronics to spooky décor, the goal was to create versatile, high-impact scenes for compelling seasonal content.

Inspiration

The vision was to create a setting that captured the unease of a graveyard while feeling like a whimsical yet forbidden forest. A mix of structural and soft elements, varying textures and shades of natural greens and brown would be layered to build the illusion of true depth in this small space. The intention was that the resulting pictures would feel like you stepping into an enchanting woodland straight out of a spooky story.

STUDIO # 1: Forbidden Forest/Graveyard

Execution

Starting with a realistic backdrop helped establish the benchmark of the desired depth of the setting. By adding large draping fabric and greenery to both the floor and ceiling the set was naturally brought forwards and created a true foreground, middle ground and background in the space.

The largest hurdle to overcome in this shoot was the wide variety of products. Some items were nearly 7ft tall and others barely left the ground. Focusing on both the ceiling and floor details was a big priority in order for the different items to be properly showcased.

Result

The results of this photoshoot far surpassed expectation. The setting took the products to a new level and highlighted all of their the unique features

The meticulous details in the foreground, middle ground, and background enhanced the believability and captured the vision for the room perfectly. All of the design decisions lended themselves to building an illusion of a much larger space than what was available.

Real World Applications

Brand stores • Product Pages • Social Media

Amazon Product Page

PDP Marketing Video

Amazon- A+ Category Content/Banners

Wayfair- Category Content/Banners

Inspiration

The intention for the circus/carnival set was to create a space that felt unsettling rather than the “kitchy”. The inspiration balanced levels of extravagance and chaos to resemble a sort of “circus gone wrong”.

STUDIO # 2 : Creepy Carnival

Execution

To begin, the red and tan fabric was hung from the ceiling, about 6ft from the wall, then billowed back to the wall to create the illusion of a circus tent. Streamers were used to accentuate the rooms verticality because they were much lighter and easier to manipulate than fabric. The balloons, tinsel, and playing cards were tossed and hung up intuitively to create the chaotic mess drawn from the inspiration.

Results

The resulting content felt intentional and not at all “corny” (which clowns can quickly become). Lighting and placement became very important while shooting because many of the animatronics red hair got completely camouflaged into the red background. Those additional efforts behind the scenes helped ensure the product was the focal point of the captured media.

Real World Applications

Brand stores • Product Pages • Social Media

Amazon Product Page

Social Activation/Engagement

PDP Marketing Video

DTC Website Pages

Inspiration

This setting was heavily inspired by The Addams Family (1999) home, lavish victorian patterns/colors, and old apothecary quirks. By choosing many different patterns, textures, and silhouettes the space would be able to feel old and curated.

STUDIO # 3: Haunted Living Room

Execution

Being the least abstract of the three sets, the styling decisions were much more literal and less intuitive. The space needed to adhere to the vision of a lived in/abandoned home, so the small finishing touches and details were the most influential part of bringing that to life.

Results

The space felt three dimensional, witchy, and expansive. All the nuances and details that spread across the set allowed for dynamic, unique content as the items were placed around the room.

The set acted like a sponge for each product that was brought into it, seamlessly taking them in as if they had always been a part of it.