Corporate video and company film production services for businesses of all sizes
Tag: Essex Video Production
Essex Video Production Services based in Loughton
Are you looking for Essex Video Production services? Look no further than Video Artisan. We are a specialist provider of business video services throughout Essex and East London region. Essex Video Production is what we are all about!
Furthermore, are looking to harness the power of YouTube or website video to improve your search engine optimisation? Maybe you want to develop a series of public information films – or create a one-off company film? Therefore Video Artisan has the skills, resources and creative talents to deliver an imaginative and cost-effective solution for your next company video.
Essex Video Production Location
Our location is perfect for servicing London, Essex, Harlow and South Eastern England with London Underground connections, the M25 and Stansted Airport very close to our studio edit facilities on the edge of Epping Forest.
In addition, we offer freelance camera operator and video editing services to client producers, agencies and other video production companies. With various cameras, lenses, camera mount systems, rails, sliders, dollies, lighting and sound kit we can cater for most video assignments.
The rapid rise of Video Marketing has been good for Video Artisan – but this also presents its challenges. To create content for a truly-effective video marketing campaign it’s no longer sufficient just to create any old video. The novelty of video has, almost, worn off; the stakes have increased.
You’ve now got to be able to tell an amazing story in order to make your video marketing shine through. Thankfully, there’s an amazing story within any business or marketing task. Video Artisan’s role is to help you find it, wrap it in video and tell it.
A video marketing story worth telling
Quite often, finding the story is the biggest part of our challenge. But every now and then a commission comes through where there’s a really good story to tell and a client who knows that a video marketing film is the best way to tell it. The Chris Fletcher ‘Stretcher’ commission was an excellent example.
The purpose of this marketing video is to tell the story of former Royal Marine, Chris Fletcher – and how this Afghan/Iraq conflict veteran came about inventing an in-uniform stretcher system to help speed up casualty extraction and save lives. Its potential audience is wide and varied – and hopefully the film carries enough interest to captivate anyone. This includes those who are never likely to need to be extracted from a battle zone. Whilst the roots of the system are in the military field, it could be just as beneficial to those involved in any kind of rescue or emergency service.
But more importantly this marketing video’s role is to help Chris, and his investor, Jon Hunter, to tell a consistent and compelling story when presenting the system to those who are likely to adopt it. This could be during a formal presentation or simply shared online.
A timely story
One of the challenges, especially for online video, is to compact your video marketing story into the shortest possible time. But sometimes you need to break through that magic 120-second time limit (the maximum duration Google advise for video marketing). At 5 ½ minutes the film is probably too long to be called an ‘Elevator Pitch’. It’s actually better described as a ‘Pilot’. It sets the scene and tells their story so far, but there’s much more to come from Chris and Jon and they plan to use video marketing to tell the ongoing story too. Keep an eye on it!
The cover price of Video Marketing
Video marketing needn’t be an expensive option. This film took just four days to produce – including setting up a very basic website for the video to sit on. You’ll be able to workout the rough costs for this kind of commission by looking at our Rate Card.
If you’re ready to tell your video marketing story now – please get it touch for a no-obligation consultation and discover how little you might need to invest. Call +44 (0) 20 3602 3356 or email kevin@video-artisan.com
If you are looking at making capital from your premium video content? This detailed blog should cover all the basic information you will need.
What is Premium Video Content?
Every now and then a client asks us how they can monetise their video content. This is generally because they believe they’ve got an idea for a film which they think there’s a paying audience for. This is a perfectly understandable desire as video is a great way to share valuable information – but ‘Premium Video Content’ has to have certain aspects about it before it can generate income and profit.
Content is King
It’s an old saying but vitally important – “Content is King” when it comes to creating truly profitable premium video content. An audience is only going to pay to watch or own a film which has value to them. Two great examples include:
Professional Development – content that will enable a professional or craftsman to do their work better, quicker and/or more economically. The viewer must believe that by watching your premium video content they will be more successful professionally.
Personal Development – content that will enable a hobbyist, artisan, sports person or novice to carry out their activities to a higher level of achievement and/or enjoyment. Your premium video content must be inspirational and empowering.
Do you have a Viable Market?
You might have the best possible premium video content idea, and the expertise to deliver a valuable video, but it is equally important to know who and what your target audience size is. These are not things you can guess at – they must be researched!
You must know how many potential viewers there are and how much they would pay to watch, or own, your video. You must also have routes to this market to enable you to communicate and market your premium video content to them. It is only when you know the cost of producing, distributing and marketing your premium video content that you will understand its viability.
If your content is of general interest and purely for personal development then it is unlikely going to attract a substantial amount of revenue per customer. You’ll therefore need a substantial audience – maybe in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Conversely, a premium video content video that contains top-tips and industry secrets aimed at a highly-paid profession might well attract substantial revenue per customer. To make these profitable might only require a handful of customers.
Controlling Distribution
You have basically two ways in which to distribute your premium video content to your audience – either on physical media (i.e. DVD or USB stick) or online (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo or your own servers). Each has its strong points – and each can be offered in combination with the other – which will be expanded upon later.
One of the greatest risks to your profitability, whether releasing on physical media or online, is copy protection. It is a major concern for all creators of premium video content and you should adopt every practical measure to ensure your content is only consumed by paying customers. Even the biggest media corporations struggle to achieve this, so the very least you can do is follow their example and account for this shrinkage within your pricing structure.
All digital content is relatively easy to copy – even for the novice. Whilst there are copy-protection technologies and systems out there an experienced media-copying specialist (a Pirate), with a modicum of investment in technology, will be able to defeat them. Piracy is still theft though, so you need to make it as difficult as possible to guard your premium video content – or at the very least make it unattractive for the pirate to steal by pricing it attractively so they do not bother to try an undercut you.
Let’s look at the benefits, drawbacks and features of the two main distribution methods.
Physical Distribution
Whilst there is a move away from disc-based media (DVDs and Blu-Ray), the saturation of disc players (set-top boxes, computers, games consoles…) means that it will be with us for quite some time and provide you with a widely acceptable means of distributing your premium video content.
DVD players are far more widely available, but limited to standard definition content. Blu-Ray discs are capable of delivering high definition content, but players are far, far less prevalent. Though you should always consider quality when selling premium video content, the fact that it is not high definition might not matter to your customers – as long as you’ve remembered that ‘Content is King’.
If you believe your customers will want high definition (or beyond!) the alternative would be to supply your premium video content on USB sticks. File-based delivery is growing very fast and most modern TV sets will play video straight from a USB stick – as will nearly every computer. The other added benefit of USB sticks is that you can easily include other digital files and assets on them. For instance, an instructional video might also benefit from having some additional printed notes or diagrams to aid the customer.
Whilst it is still easy to copy a disc, and somewhat easier to copy a USB stick, the main benefit of supplying your content on physical media is that it gives a greater sense of value and ownership to your customer. It also gives you additional means of branding your product within packaging. Furthermore, customers who have purchased your premium video content are less likely to copy and share it.
Though a physical product will attract a higher price, there’s also additional costs and time involved in production and distribution. The cost of blank media is generally going down (a recordable DVD is pennies rather than pounds), but you also have to consider cases, postage and the manpower involved in processing orders and maintaining stock levels. That being said, the payment mechanism is reasonably straight forward… They pay you – you send them the product!
Online Distribution
The biggest advantage of distributing your premium video content online is virtually zero costs in distribution per unit. Once you have created your video and uploaded it to a server each viewing or download will be almost cost free – depending on the payment mechanism or platform you’ve chosen to host it on.
The biggest drawback is that once your content is ‘online’ it is extremely easy to copy and share. DVDs and USB could also easily be uploaded and exploited the same way, but with online content you are only a couple of clicks away from your content being copied, shared and duplicated everywhere. Projecting margins and profits therefore must take into consideration a much higher level of shrinkage. Maybe only 1/1000 people who get to watch your content might have actually paid to do so – but on high-volume, mass-market premium video content this might still be enough to generate profit.
There are a number of online facilities which will enable you to host your premium video content, take payments for plays and downloads, create audiences and enable you to communicate with them. The two most notable are YouTube’s ‘Paid Channels’ and Vimeo’s ‘Pro’ accounts. Each has its own payment and charging model and restrictions but either could suit both mass-market and specialist market premium video content.
You could of course use your own website to distribute your content – with your media located in password protected areas which paying customers can only access. The videos themselves could be hosted on Vimeo Pro and Plus accounts which can restrict the video from being embedded on anything other than your designated URL. You can also elect to enable or disable downloads – or even add password protection so that your premium video content can only be played by those in possession of a password.
The best of all worlds
There’s one thing that every customer appreciates today, regardless of the product or service, and that’s ‘choice’. Once you have gone to the time, effort and investment of creating your premium video content then you should release it using all distribution methods available to you. Give your customers choice – and fewer reasons not to buy!
Giving away ‘teaser’ content online is also a great way to drive sales of complete programmes. Short extracts can be edited to freely distribute online which give viewers an insight into the value of information your films contain. If you make this free content available by request (maybe by subscribing to your website) you will gradually build up a database of potential customers for you to market. This is even more important for those who believe they have material for an ongoing series of premium video content. Customers who buy part I in a series are much more likely to buy series II, III, IV & V!
The cost of producing premium video content
So… you’ve got the idea, know your market and understand about distribution – now all that’s left is to work out how much it is going to cost to get your premium video content created! This is where Video Artisan comes in.
The tricky bit is that there is no such thing as an off-the-shelf cost for video production – no matter who tells you otherwise. There are standard packages broken down into number of days to film and edit – but the all-in costs can range dramatically depending on what you are trying to create and how much work and involvement you are looking for from your video production company.
We have produced another guide which should, hopefully, give you a better idea of how video production costs can vary (see here) but your next step is to contact us for a no-obligation consultation to see how Video Artisan can help you to start profiting from your premium video content.
If you’ve got something to say… say it with video! This is especially true when it comes to launching new products. As video gains more and more traction as the preferred means of absorbing information over the internet, a product launch video has become the favourite communication tool for many manufacturers and marketing professionals. And it’s not just ideal for manufacturers – but also services industries, hospitality-based businesses and all manner of professional service providers. If your offering is all shiny and new then you’ll want to show it off in the best possible way.
What’s so great about a product launch video?
The overriding benefit of product launch video is that it can communicate your message, your brand identity and the key selling points of your product or service in a few minutes or less. Your client’s attention span is becoming shorter and shorter, and with so much information available to them online they are always looking for the shortest possible way to make their purchasing decisions. They say a picture can tell a thousand words, well video has at least 25 pictures every second!
A product launch video has many more advantages though. Another significant one is that video now plays a major part in search engine optimisation. If your website doesn’t include video content then it is going to rank lower than one that does. There are also some very neat tools on platforms such as YouTube that will help your product launch video to get seen – and by the right people. These include the addition of audience-pulling metadata, product and customer-focussed tags, geographical information, subtitling and embedded links. Video has become a whole lot cleverer these days, making it the perfect platform for spreading news about your new products and services.
Sharing and syndicating video content has also become very popular. Social media platforms have responded to this and offer various ways to help distribute a product launch video and facilitate onward sharing by users with similar likes and interests. Whilst YouTube and Vimeo are brilliant places to start sharing your content, the likes of Facebook offer additional free and paid-for promotional tools to get your video out to those who are likely to want to see it.
Apart from your own use of your product launch video, your distributors and resellers will also appreciate the benefits of this powerful promotional aid. They too will be able to share the video via their website and through their social media platforms – ensuring your product launch video reaches the furthest corners of the market. And it doesn’t have to be limited to online delivery as Blu-ray and DVD distribution, or large-screen playback at events or exhibitions, are still great ways of getting your message out.
Planning and costing your product launch video
When you launch a new product you have a very small window of opportunity to spread the news – whilst it’s still news! The time it takes to create a product launch video can be extremely short but it is better to plan this into your initial marketing activity and leave plenty of time for your video production company to come up with the best possible creative ideas on how to get your story told.
Every video production company prefers their clients to come to them with clearly defined aim and an approximate budget for achieving it. This way the video production company can limit or expand their ideas in order to provide a treatment which ticks all of your boxes. There is no useful answer a video production company can give to the question, “how much will a product launch video cost?”. Without knowing what’s involved they simply will not know the answer. So, as soon as you’ve think that a product launch video might be right for you, get in touch so you can talk through your aims and objectives in detail.
If you’re in that place now, please give us a call on 020 3602 3356.
Notes: Read the story behind the Nipper Clipper product launch video here.
Video production in Essex definitely seems to be on the up, with a surge in activity amongst on-line marketeers, businesses and government institutions looking to exploit the power of video on their website, within their social networking platforms and in direct video marketing activities.
Video is no longer just for larger corporations and businesses, but has fast become the marketing tool for organisations of all sizes. It’s not just about driving direct sales either, but is fast becoming the preferred method of delivering all kinds of information – be that news bulletins, instruction manuals, internal communications and any story which can be shared through this very engaging and highly effective medium.
What’s all the interest in video production in Essex?
Video production in Essex is proving so popular for a number of reasons. Firstly, Essex is booming – especially in areas surrounding Video Artisan’s studios in Loughton, Essex. Situated just inside the M25, we’re well within the London catchment area and are well positioned to serve businesses and organisations in Central London and beyond. With the UK’s motorway network on our doorstep we can be anywhere in the UK with ease whilst at the same time connected to Central London via Loughton Station which is on the London Underground Central Line.
Video production is, and always has been, a very competitive service industry. Modern high definition cameras and technology are becoming ever more affordable – making it more and more accessible to everyone with a story to tell. Stepping just outside of the Central London video production industry our clients can save many thousands of pounds in production costs without losing any of the benefits of having a highly targeted and professionally produced film. At Video Artisan you get London agency productions at out-of-town rates.
Video production in Essex is therefore not about making compromises – but rather about making huge savings and yet still being able to tap into all the advantages that commissioning a video production can offer.
We’re not just local though – and regularly travel throughout the UK and beyond to help our clients create video content which helps them achieve their goals.
Look no further for video production in Essex
To find out how Video Artisan can help you to harness the power of video, and for a no-obligation appraisal and quotation, please contact us today.
Look no further for Video Production Facilities in East London and Essex
We offer clients and other video production companies a comprehensive shooting and editing service on all video formats from our video production facilities studio in Loughton, Essex. We benefit from excellent road links to Central London, the M25 and Britain’s motorway network and from having Loughton Underground station only minutes away and Stansted Airport within 30-minutes.
Editing Suite
Our Edius editing system is fully HD and 4K capable with both DVD and BluRay authoring and duplication. We can ingest all tape, card and HD formats and export and encode to almost anything. We also have voice over recording facilities in-house.
Please call for daily, half-day, hourly and weekend rates.
Format Conversions & Copying Services
We provide a comprehensive range of digital media conversion and copying services to businesses and members of the public. This includes converting PowerPoint and Slides to DVD, stills to DVD, video encoding and file format conversions. We also have data recovery systems for extracting images and video from corrupted media.
Shooting Services
We have fully kitted out JVC GY-LS300 Super 35 sensor 4K camera with a range of lenses – plus DSLR shooting kits running Magic Lantern – along with JVC GY-HM650 camera with Vinten/Sachtler Tripods, Sliders, Hood & Rails, Action Cameras, Mini Dolly, Steady-cam, various lenses and accessories. Available on a wet-hire basis only – with full-day and half-day rates. CLICK HERE to see our Freelance section.
Video to DVD
See our new dedicated information page on our popular VHS to DVD conversion services – CLICK HERE.
Drop-in and collect by appointment to our edit suite which is located off Clays Lane, Loughton. 30-minutes from Central London and Stansted Airport – 5-minutes from Britain’s Motorway Network – 1-minute from the beauty of Epping Forest.