Advertising Videos for all

Advertising Videos

Creating Advertising Videos

Make no mistake, we create advertising videos. Despite all the clever and creative ways we like to describe what we do, 99% of the time we’re creating advertising videos.  They’re videos, and they’re advertising something.

Some like to talk up our craft (and there’s nothing wrong in that) and call these “advertising films”. However, in almost every instance the intended outlet for the content we create for our clients is being distributed online.  That’s usually through YouTube of other social media platforms – and these are video channels.  So yes, we create advertising videos! Sometimes, however, we’re doing a whole lot more than that.

CAT Publications Advertising Videos

We’ve created many advertising videos for CAT Publications over the years.  These are mainly in the form of event documentaries covering either their M&IT Awards or their M&IT Agency Challenge events.  Whilst these videos are supposed to inform and entertain, their true purpose is to act as advertising videos for future events.  In fact, we’ve just completed the 2017 M&IT Agency Challenge video which is already being pumped out to encourage participation at next year’s event.

Where this assignment differs from others is that Video Artisan are not just there to make an event documentary.  We are very much part of the team building experience and provide delegates with a video challenge of their own.  Each team at the M&IT Agency Challenge has to shoot a short film within an hour (edited by us) – the judging of which goes towards points and prizes at a gala dinner.

Many forms of advertising videos

There are of course many forms of advertising videos.  Some are just straight promotional films that directly sell the product or service.  Others get the advertising message across in the form of educational content – or maybe purely entertainment content.  Whichever platform you choose, you should never lose sight of the aim to advertise.  Google Dictionary describes this as, “to describe or draw attention to (a product, service, or event) in a public medium in order to promote sales”.

This is why we generally describe Video Artisan as a, ‘Promotional video production company’.

Planning your advertising videos?

If you’re starting to think about how you can introduce advertising videos into your marketing mix, give us a call.  We like to think we can help any organisation to achieve their video goals – regardless of budgets and the complexity of the task.  The key to making this successful is to start to talk to your video production company at an early stage so they can advise on the most efficient and cost effective approach. If you’re at that stage now – call Kevin Cook on 020 3602 3356 or email kevin@video-artisan.com.

Advertising Videos Interivews
Shooting interviews for Advertising Videos

M&IT Awards 2017

Awards Event Documentary production

Yet another Awards Event Documentary

This is the third time we’ve been commissioned to create an awards event documentary for CAT Publications.  It was very special this time though as it was their 30th Annual Awards.  That’s some achievement.  It was also another great reason to create an awards event documentary to remember it by.

This is an amazing event, attended by more than 1,300 key people from the top organisations in the meetings and events industry.  Its purpose is to celebrate and reward the very best across a wide range of categories.  This includes hotels and conference venues, agencies, airlines and banqueting providers.  Like all the best awards nights, the winners are not revealed until the awards night itself to an ever-so excited audience.

Awards Event Documentary A&O

The purpose of this Awards Event Documentary isn’t purely for prosperity though.  CAT use these films as a part of their marketing activities for the following year’s event.  In fact, the film is one of their most powerful tools in sharing the atmosphere and scale of the event.  For anyone who has not attended the awards before, this short awards event documentary will give them a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Furthermore, the film plays an important role in attracting entries in future awards.  As the only awards scheme in the events industry which is voted on by the end user, they are extremely highly valued.  The film therefore had to show the impact that winning an award has on the recipient’s business.  Likewise, the film had to impress the value of brand association for future sponsors.

Production process

The narrative for this awards event documentary was pretty much set in stone.  Shooting was therefore straight forward, with three camera crews recording the general atmosphere shots.  We also had two fixed cameras covering the main presentations.  The main host was TV’s Eamonn Holmes – and along with various guest speakers, provided the main structure to the edit.  In addition, winners were pulled backstage after their presentation to be interviewed by another camera team to captures their elation.  Whilst this was an extremely quick turn round it also gave us the opportunity to ask them their views on the event in general.

The backstage interviews, along with the winner’s stage presentation, were also cut into individual short clips.  These were then sold to the winners post-event for them to use within their own marketing to promote their success.  This enabled CAT to recoup some of their investment in the creating the documentary. (see example here)

Editing the main Awards Event Documentary was made easier by the excellent neon drumming performance by Spark!  They were spectacular on the night and provided us with a dramatic up-beat soundtrack to cut to.

Video Artisan and CAT Publications

This is just one event we work on for CAT Publications each year.  Other events include their series of masterclasses for the events industry – and also the ever-popular Agency Challenge events at which we provide video team-building challenges for the delegates.  There’s another one of these coming up in July.

More information

If you are organising an awards event, or any other corporate event that really would benefit from being made into a short documentary, then give us a call.  You might be surprised at how a little investment in a video film could take your event to the next level.  Call Kevin on 020 3602 3356 or email kevin@video-artisan.com

Facebook Live

Facebook Live for business

Facebook Live – the benefits of broadcasting your business

The most recent development on Facebook, ‘Facebook Live’, is opening a whole new world of opportunities for businesses to engage with their followers. If you’ve got no idea what Facebook Live is think of it as a live video broadcast. These videos are posted directly to your Facebook page in real-time (almost) – be that your private page or your business page. Like any other Facebook posting, these can be liked and shared by your page followers – and as the administrator you can add tags and adjust privacies to help you get your broadcast to those you want it seen by.

Live, and not so Live

Obviously, your followers aren’t all just sitting on your Facebook page waiting for stuff to be posted – as nice at that would be! To cater for these absentees, once your live event has ended the video is then shown along with your other postings for people to view as and when. Over time your viewing number will rise as more people watch it, like it, comment and share it on their own Facebook wall.

Hopefully you can start to see how this kind of marketing tool could benefit your business and help you to generate social media followers. But what kind of things to people want to see? The answer seems to be pretty much anything! The most viewed Facebook Live is currently “Chewbacca Mom”. (CLICK HERE – and try not to laugh) To date, this has had 166 million views since it first appeared as a Facebook Live. At the time of going live it maybe had only one or two (or none more likely) viewers – but the Facebook Live experience is about sharing things as they happen.

This is obviously not an example of a business using Facebook Live. But what this example should do for you is to demonstrate the potential of Facebook Live. I’m sure you can also imagine the effect this had on the sales of Chewbacca-type masks!

Think business!

Shrewd businesses are now tapping into this by using Facebook Live to share all kinds of real-time events. The obvious ones are things such as product launches, conferences, exhibition stand tours, product training sessions… or any other event where you would naturally have a live audience. Facebook Live will enable more people to experience these and, more importantly, share their experience with others who might find your content of interest.

Whilst spontaneity is at the heart and soul of this technology, pre-publicising your event will enable you to increase real-time viewers who can engage with you at the time of broadcast. You can actively encourage questions from your viewers at the time and gain valuable feedback – as well as spreading the word about your broadcast and generally scattering your brand amongst their friends and followers too. The only real limitation is that your event can’t be more than 4-hrs long as a single stream.

How to Facebook Live – The basics

In its simplest form, a Facebook Live event can be created using just your mobile phone and the Facebook App. The only other requisite is an uninterrupted and reasonably broad-bandwidth mobile or Wifi connection.

If you want to post something to your private page, simply click the Live button and add the event details as requested. Within a few moments your phone will start sharing its Facebook Live buttonpictures and sound to your Facebook wall. (as demonstrated by Chewbacca). It’s a little less obvious on a business page, but still possible. In this instance, go to your business page, click the ‘Post’ button, and then select the ‘Live’ option.

The drawbacks of using your phone for a Facebook Live event are mainly down to the limitations your phone’s camera. Whilst the picture quality on most modern phones is perfectly adequate, the sound from the internal microphone is generally poor. This can be easily overcome with the addition of an external microphone.  But you’ll still be limited to the basic camera controls offered on your phone. This might be fine for a talking-head type situation, but if your ambitions are greater then you’re going to have to look at more advanced options.

As a business you might want to broadcast something a little more akin to a real TV broadcast.  This could include nice lighting, proper audio, autocue and possibly multi-camera coverage of your event. This is where you’ll need the services of a company such as Video Artisan.  You’ll also need some additional hardware to connect the output from a video camera or mixer and spit this out to Facebook.

How to Facebook Live – Advanced

For a single-camera broadcast our JVC cameras have the ability to send their output to the Internet through a WIFI, 3/4G or LAN dongle. They also enable us to assign the required values that will let Facebook see the camera’s output and broadcast it.

These settings are accessed within your Facebook business page. Within ‘Publishing Tools’ you’ll find ‘Video Library’ and the facility to set up a ‘Live’ event. This is where you give Facebook your camera’s location details as well as setting up other parameters to help you reach your audience. Our initial testing here at Video Artisan resulted in this little masterpiece – click here.

Another box of tricks is needed for multi-camera events.  This mixes the camera feeds and then encodes the signal into something Facebook-friendly. Using this configuration, the only limits to your Facebook Live event are your imagination and your budget!

Let’s go live!

If you’d like to talk about your Facebook broadcasting ambitions, please give us a call now. Before you know it, you could be the very next Facebook Live sensation! Call Kevin Cook on +44 (0) 3602 3356 or email kevin@video-artisan.com

Filming an Awards Ceremony

Filming an Awards Ceremony Title
M&IT Awards – Filming an Awards Ceremony

Filming an Awards Ceremony

Earlier on this month we were filming an awards ceremony at Battersea Evolution in the heart of London’s beautiful Battersea Park. The M&IT Awards were organised by Meetings & Incentive Travel magazine and celebrated the very best of those from within the business meetings and travel industry – including airlines, hotels, conference centres and those providing specialist services to the industry – both in the UK and overseas.

The awards consist of 19 main categories, plus a special award celebrating the M&IT Personality of the Year. What makes these awards even more credible and extremely valuable to the participants is that they are voted on by the customers of the nominees and independently verified.

Filming an awards ceremony can come in various guises, but in this instance our brief was to produce a short video diary which captured the essence and excitement of the event. Whilst serving as a memento for the organisers and participants, the main purpose for the film is to show potential sponsors just how glamorous and spectacular the evening is, highlight the profile of the entrants and help convince new sponsors that it’s an event which they should associate their brand with. Whilst they are never short of organisations wishing to enter the awards, the film should also demonstrate the value of winning an award and ultimately help them to continue to attract the very best entrants within the industry.

In addition to the main video diary, we also filmed short interviews with the winners of each of the main categories as they came off the stage. These interviews were editing together with the winner’s stage presentation and packaged as standalone films which the winners could purchase from M&IT to use as publicity tools and further promote their success in the awards.

The Challenges in Filming an Awards Ceremony

With nearly 1,300 attendees at the event, and various entertainment features taking place throughout the evening, the main challenge was in ensuring we obtained adequate coverage in order to tell the story and show the event off in the best light. During the reception period and up until the first presentations we were running three DSLR cameras. Light levels were very low during the drinks reception so DLSRs were the obvious choice.

Three shots from a single camera position
Three shots from a single camera position

During the main presentation we had one camera position front of stage operated by Dilip Patel – from which he was recording on three separate cameras. The main camera was our JVC GY-HM650 which was used as the main follow-action camera for the stage presentations. The second was a Canon 5DMkII capturing a stage wide shot. The third camera was a JVC Action camera looking back at the audience to capture reaction shots and red carpet walk-ups.

The JVC was recording ambient sound from its internal microphone plus a front-of-house mix from the staging company’s mixing desk back stage – fed to the camera via our Sony UWP-D11 radio mic system. The AV company was running several radio mics on stage so during set-up we worked with them to set our system to a frequency which wouldn’t interfere with them and gave us perfect sound – even though we were transmitting through the stage to our camera position which was about 50 meters away.

Back stage we had a black drape studio set up which the winners were directed to once they’d been presented on stage. The main camera here was another Canon 5DMkII with a Canon 550D used to capture a “dirty-two” of the set just in case I needed a cutaway at the editing stage (it turned out to be a godsend!). Live sound here was recorded using a boom directional mic connected to our Tascam DR-60 recorder which fed back into the 5D for synchronised sound. A safety back-up was also recorded on the Tascam in dual mode giving us an additional two levels of recording just in case there was any peaks in the main mix.

The back-stage set
The back-stage set

The costs and benefits of Filming an Awards Ceremony

There’s no standard rate card for filming an awards ceremony because each commission will vary according to our clients requirements and the resources needed to achieve it. However, for a simple one-camera shoot this could be as little as £1,000 for a single-camera 1-day shoot and 1-day edit. Whilst this is feasible, more extensive coverage from multiple cameras will give you a much more comprehensive result and is more likely to represent the event more accurately.

Capturing the celebrations backstage
Capturing the celebrations backstage

The benefits are manifold, but the main reason companies choose to invest in having the event filmed is to use it to promote future events and attract sponsorships and entrants. Whilst still photographs are great for organisers and winners alike, recording the event on film is far more engaging and useful.

If you are thinking about filming an awards ceremony, and would like to talk through the various levels of service we can provide, please give us a call on 020 3602 3356.

Filming exhibition stand interviews at #BVE14

Filming exhibition stand interviews
The story behind Video Artisan filming exhibition stand interviews at BVE

I’ve been super-mad-busy in the past week following my adventures filming exhibition stand interviews at BVE at Excel in London on 25th Feb. This morning I finished editing the last of 11 short films that have now been uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo – and the viewing figures have started to go ballistic!

Whilst it’s not unusual for a video production company to be involved in filming exhibition stand interviews, this particular project was self-generated, self-presented and funded through me selling the service to my old industry contacts who were exhibiting at the event. Essentially, they pay me a modest fee (cough) and I shoot a quick interview with them at the event and then share the film through my various online channels and connections.

My Interview Theme – BVE for the Videographer

BVE is predominantly a broadcast event but it also encapsulates an element of professional videography. Whilst there’s a lot of video content already created by the guys at TVBay who are there every year filming exhibition stand interviews the emphasis of these is really on the broadcast audience. My idea was to create content squarely aimed at the professional videographer.

JVC interview
Interviewing BVE exhibitor who had something for the videographer

This is one of the very few occasions where I’ve tapped into and profited from my past life as the IOV’s (Institute of Videography) Executive Administrator. Having spent 17-years in that role I’d obviously built up a long list of contacts amongst the manufacturers and dealers – so why not? I’ve also maintained a reasonably high profile in this part of the industry too through writing articles and reviews for various publications – as well as gathering a reasonable following for this blog and my social media channels.

The IOV’s executive committee also agreed to help me by sharing the content through their IOV News Stream channel on their website – which in turn gave them some video content to share via their IOVTV channel too. I’d like to think therefore that everyone was a winner!

The IOV also got an additional bonus as the guys at TVBay asked me to gather a panel of videographers together on the second day of BVE for a live chat show presentation from their Broadcast Show studio on the exhibition floor. Within that session, amongst other interesting stuff, my panel members shared their views on the value of being a member of the IOV. The program is 30-minutes long, but it’s time well spent if you are interested in hearing how other people do things in videography. Please note, you’ll have to turn the volume up to hear it properly (unless they’ve corrected it now!!!)

The challenges of filming exhibition stand interviews

Filming exhibition stand interviews is never easy as you don’t have time nor space for niceties such as lighting or crowd control. The H&S guys are pretty strict on that sort of thing at exhibitions. The interviewees, whilst obviously interested in me ending up with something that works for them, are really there to deal with the many customers that have come to see their new wares. Whilst booking a timeslot helps you to manage your time, in the real-world environment of a show these times can slip as events take over and you have to grab your opportunities as they arise. I say this as not all the interviews are as technically perfect as I’d like but, given the conditions and time allowed, the content should soon outweigh any shortcomings in picture quality and composition. I might be underselling them a little here but please don’t expect to see anything near to the usual end results of our other corporate work.

If you missed the individual releases of the interviews, here’s a list along with a brief intro of the contents. They can also be seen on my Vimeo and YouTube channels and are presently featured on IOVTV.

AKM Music – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Anthony McTiffen from AKM Music about their attendance at BVE in February 2014 – and gives an insight into their range of copyright free and royalty free music aimed specifically at the professional video producer and videographer.

DVC (David Vincent Clarke) – WATCH NOW!
An interview with David Clarke from DVC about their attendance at BVE in February 2014. This short film gives an insight into their range of purpose-built nonlinear editing systems aimed specifically at the professional video producer and videographer.

Genelec – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Andy Bensley from Source Distribution about their attendance at BVE in February 2014 and the introduction of the Genelec 8010 studio audio monitor. This short film gives an insight into the main features and benefits of this compact and cost-effective studio monitor which is designed specifically for smaller and mobile edit suite environments.

Holdan – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Richard Payne from Holdan about their attendance at BVE in February 2014. This short film gives an insight into the vast range of products from Holdan, including new camcorders from Panasonic and Blackmagic Design – as well as accessories and production tools aimed specifically at the professional video producer and videographer.

JVC Professional – WATCH NOW!
An interview with John Kelly from JVC Professional about their attendance at BVE in February 2014 and the launch of their new 800 series camcorders covering their many features and specifications. John also gives an outline of the range of camcorders JVC have that are aimed at the professional video producer and videographer.

Portaprompt – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Jim Keating from Portaprompt about their attendance at BVE in February 2014. This short film gives an insight into their range of tele-prompting and presenter cueing systems aimed specifically at the professional video producer and videographer.

Production Gear – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Simon Beer from Production Gear about their attendance at BVE in February 2014. This short film gives an insight into their range of new products that were shown at BVE – concentrating on the DJI Phantom UAV, its accessories and the regulations facing UAV use in the UK.

RØDE – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Alex Theakston from Source Distribution about their attendance at BVE in February 2014 and the introduction of the RØDE VideoMic Go. This short film gives an insight into the main features and benefits of this compact and cost-effective microphone designed specifically for DSLR shooters.

Sachtler – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Nino Leitner of Nino Film e.U based in Austria who is a Brand Ambassador for Sachtler. Nino talks about his relationship with Sachtler and reveals what features and qualities he looks for in a tripod.

Sony – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Álvaro Ortiz from Sony about their range of camcorders, monitors and audio products aimed specifically at the professional videographer.

Thear Technology – WATCH NOW!
An interview with Rod Thear of Thear Technology about their attendance at BVE in February 2014. This short film gives an insight into their range of servicing and repair services offered by Thear Technology and explains their ethos and values in providing for the professional video producer and videographer.