How do you film a med spa or laser treatment?

Capture plenty of coverage — high and low angles plus tight detail shots — and stay out of the clinical explanation, which belongs to the practitioner. Bring a little of your own lighting, since treatment rooms are lit for the work, not for a camera.

Why shoot both vertical and horizontal video at a shoot?

Because they don't crop from each other cleanly. Vertical shot natively looks made for Reels and TikTok; horizontal DSLR footage is the polished layer for a website or ad. Shooting both in one session gives the client two libraries from a single appointment.

What makes procedural or treatment video look professional?

Detail and close-up shots. A wide shot shows what's happening, but tight macro shots of hands, equipment, and product are what make procedural content feel premium and considered.

Filming a Laser Treatment: A Med Spa Video Shoot

Some shoots you walk into knowing the subject cold. Others you're learning in real time, camera already rolling. This was the second kind.

I was back at SlimFit Studios in Newport, same client I shot stills for a few days ago (that round is here). This time the assignment was video, and the subject was a laser skin treatment I knew almost nothing about going in.

Filming something you don't fully understand

Here's roughly what I gathered on set: before the laser runs, they apply several layers of lotion and liquid so the light can penetrate the skin properly. The treatment is meant to boost the skin's youthfulness, and from what I could tell it produces a slight warming, a controlled, mild burn. That's the extent of what I'll claim, because I'm the camera, not the clinician. When you're filming a medical or aesthetic procedure, staying in your lane matters. You capture it accurately and let the practitioner speak to what it does.

That's actually a useful discipline for this kind of work. My job isn't to explain the science, it's to make the process legible and appealing on camera, and to shoot enough coverage that the client can build whatever story they need in the edit.

Shooting for two formats at once

I deliberately captured the treatment two different ways, because the client needs both and they don't crop from each other well.

Mobile, vertical. Shot native on the phone, 9:16, the way it'll actually live on Reels, TikTok, and Stories. Vertical content shot vertical looks native; vertical content cropped down from a horizontal frame looks like an afterthought, and audiences can feel the difference even if they can't name it.

DSLR, horizontal. The Sony A7S III with a couple of lenses, mixing wider establishing shots with tight close-ups. This is the polished layer, the footage that goes on the website, in a produced ad, or anywhere the brand wants to look premium rather than casual.

Capturing both in one session means the client walks away with a casual-native library and a cinematic library from a single appointment. That's the same batch-efficiency logic I keep coming back to: get everything you can while everyone's already in the room.

Coverage: angles and detail

My focus was variety. High angles looking down at the treatment, low angles looking up, and a lot of detail shots, the hands, the equipment, the product going on the skin. Detail shots are what make procedural content feel expensive. A wide shot tells you what is happening; the macro close-up of a droplet or a gloved hand is what makes it feel considered and clinical in the good sense.

Bringing my own light

Treatment rooms are lit for the practitioner's work, not for a camera. So I brought in a bit of my own lighting to lift it, nothing heavy, just enough to add some shape and cleanliness to the footage without making the space look like a film set. In a clinical environment, the goal is to enhance what's there, not overpower it. A little control over the light is the difference between footage that looks accidental and footage that looks intentional.

The takeaway

You don't always need to be an expert in the subject to shoot it well. You need to be an expert in coverage, enough angles, enough formats, enough detail that whatever the client decides to make later, the footage is already there. Show up, respect the room, light it just enough, and shoot for the edit you can't fully picture yet.