Corporate video and company film production services for businesses of all sizes
Category: Video Production
Video Production Welcome
A collection of articles and blog posts by Kevin Cook aimed at professional video production companies and videographers looking for advice and information on the world of corporate video and company film production.
This includes video techniques and processes to help you develop your video business and make it profitable. Furthermore, this includes tips on marketing and promoting your video production business to new and existing clients.
Kevin Cook was the former Executive Administrator of the Institute of Videography. At the time the IOV was the UK’s leading body for professional videographers, corporate producers and industry leaders. Kevin was the editor of Focus Magazine, the main contributor to the IOV’s Video Skills online course and learning material. In addition, he organised the IOV’s annual convention and trade exhibition.
In conclusion, please feel free to contact Kevin if there’s a subject that you would like covered in this category – kevin@video-artisan.com or call 020 83602 3356
Last month saw us filming at the 2016 M&IT Awards Ceremony (Meetings & Incentive Travel magazine) at Battersea Evolution where more than 1,300 guests were celebrating the very best within the corporate events industry. With nineteen main categories, and a host of special awards and charity fundraising, this spectacular event showcases the very best in corporate travel, venues, catering and agencies aimed at the corporate meetings and incentive travel industry.
As in previous years our brief from M&IT was twofold. Firstly, we was commissioned to create a short highlights film that captured the mood and scale of the event to be used as a promotional tool in generating future sponsorship and ticket sales. In addition to this we also filmed short interviews with category winners as they exited the stage after their presentation. M&IT then sell these short films to the winners post-event to enable them to promote their success at the awards.
Other M&IT Commissions
The filming of the M&IT Awards is just one of three video production services provided to the company by Video Artisan each year. We also film their Masterclass Seminars which are aimed at event professionals and include subjects such as Data Protection, Health & Safety, Contract Law and Social Media. These videos are made available to their readers on a pay-per-view basis.
We also produce a short event documentary of their very successful Agency Challenge networking events – with the next one taking place in July at The Lensbury Hotel in Teddington. In addition to the short documentary, Video Artisan also delivers a team-building exercise for delegates at the event which sees them creating their own short film.
M&IT Awards Ceremony winning with video
This is an excellent example of a business which uses video to its full potential, clocking up many thousands of minutes of viewing through social media and video delivery platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo.
If you would like to discover how your business can start to benefit from using our many video production services, please contact us today on +44 (0) 20 3602 3356.
Filming Masterclasses for M&IT…
Over the next couple of months we’re filming masterclasses for CAT Publications at The Mermaid on the banks of the Thames at London Blackfriars. These M&IT (Meetings & Incentive Travel) Masterclasses cover various subjects aimed at the event industry as part of their continual professional development – and our video production services are now helping to bring them to a much wider audience.
Filming masterclasses… what’s the point?
Due to their popularity and high level of interaction, spaces on the M&IT Masterclasses are limited to ensure that each delegate comes away better informed and more capable in their role. Filming masterclasses not only provides CAT Publications with a permanent record of these events but, more importantly, also enables them to distribute the segmented films throughout the year on a pay-per-view basis for those unable to attend in person.
Of the many other benefits to filming masterclasses, the two which are most highly valued by Video Artisan’s clients are video’s consistency and ease of use. Once recorded and edited, a video will deliver exactly the same content, and impart the same knowledge, every time it is watched – regardless of the performance of the trainers. This leaves little room for misinterpretation and ensures viewers are only receiving correct and valuable information.
The wide acceptance of video as a communication medium, and the variety of platforms on which it can be delivered, also make it ideal for any business or organisation to incorporate video into their training material output. This includes CAT Publication’s pay-per-view model – but is equally suitable for delivery over private intranets, open platforms such as YouTube (paid or free) or by direct release on physical media such as DVD or USB drives.
Filming Masterclasses – DIY or Hire-in?
Creating a video recording of your training event can be very straightforward and virtually cost-free if you choose to go down the DIY route. However, producing highly-valued content which is easy for your audience to watch and hear is a lot more challenging – and if it fails in these respects then it’s effectiveness as a training tool is very much depleted.
At the very least your presenters will need to be properly mic’d up – with additional microphones used to capture audience interaction and feedback. Whilst one main camera is fine for single-presenter seminars, using additional cameras will help to show audience reaction, achieve continuity when editing and ultimately make your content a more professional and easy to watch.
Two cameras are better than on when filming masterclasses
Your audience will also expect to see any slides, charts, illustrations or PowerPoint presentations full-screen, so any DIY effort will have to include the ability to insert these into the live video content, add captions and finally output the programme to a format which can easily be delivered to your audience.
The challenges of filming masterclasses are various but by using an experienced video production company you can create compelling learning material with the minimal amount of investment and virtually no special adaptations to your training materials. In this instance, Video Artisan have been able to offer a very competitive solution using a ‘two-camera single-operator’ set-up coupled with a fast post production turnaround – enabling CAT Publications to release their films to market in the most profitable and efficient way.
Could you benefit from filming masterclasses?
Filming masterclasses can be highly profitable for their producers. If you think your masterclasses, seminars or workshops would benefit from being filmed and released on video, please contact us today on 020 3602 3356 or by emial tokevin@video-artisan.com
A bit more about M&IT Masterclasses
CAT Publications are renowned for putting on highly-focussed seminars and workshops aimed at Corporate, Association, Agency Event Organisers and Event Suppliers and on key subjects including Data Protection, Health & Safety, Venue Contracts and Social Media. The M&IT Masterclasses are delivered by a team of specialist presenters who share their knowledge of relevant legislation and best-practices within the event industry. See a list of their upcoming events here.
Video Artisan work with CAT Publications on a number of events throughout the year including producing the highlights films for the M&IT Awards and the M&IT Agency Challenge.
This is something that I’ve already answered for myself but it’s a question that a lot of videographers are asking themselves right now – “Am I going to benefit from UHD video production?” Actually, that’s the wrong question. What you should be asking is, “Are my customers going to benefit from UHD video production?”. I think so – and the five key-reasons for me are:
UHD Video Production for the price of HD (And maybe even less!)
Greater Creativity (Large sensor creativity – produced even quicker)
Resolution Choice (HD delivery from a UHD video production workflow)
Future-Proofed Footage (UHD Masters – even if you don’t need them now!)
Faster Turnaround (Multi-camera look from single-camera filming)
What is UHD?
It’s hard to talk about this subject without getting technical but I’m going to try and keep it as light as possible as I’ve got a lot of readers who are not technical at all. UHD (Ultra High Definition) is a high resolution video format. Simplistically, this means it gives you (potentially) a lot more detail in the picture. To give you a comparison High Definition (HD) video has a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Ultra HD, or 4K as it’s also known, gives you 3840 x 2160 pixels (and a touch more in it’s native and ultra-wide variants). If you want to dig deeper and get all techie then read this Wiki page.
OK – that’s all the really techie bits out of the way – almost. Now let’s look at why I’ve taken the plunge and opted for JVC’s 4K offering, the GY-LS300 and how I think UHD video production will start to benefit my customers.
Creativity with Ease
I’ve been shooting video with HD DSLRs (digital stills cameras that shoot video too) for about 6-years now and quickly grew to love the DSLR look. Even with all of their shortcomings, impracticalities and oodles of accessories needed to make them useful as a video production tool – I soon became a DSLR-er. Whilst they’ve come on leaps and bounds, and still have a place in my tool box, DSLRs simply weren’t the right tool for every job. For instance, I still think it’s bonkers shooting anything long-form with them such as conferences and business presentations.
What differentiated DSLRs from traditional video cameras was their shallow depth of field look (or Bokeh) and their pin-sharp and colourful imagery which is achieved through utilising their large image sensors. These were not just desirable features to me – they turned out to be both inspirational and educational. Like many other videographers, traditional video cameras (with their fixed zoom lenses) took away the need for me to understand about lens features and mechanics, the impact of sensor sizes and how to operate a camera manually. You switched them on and pointed them in the general direction of the action – and in “auto-everything” mode you’d be pretty unlucky to get something that wasn’t useful.
Whiz on a few years and everyone started talking about UHD video production and it was a relatively easy step for manufacturers to create DSLRs capable of these higher resolution pictures with their already large-enough image sensor size (most traditional video cameras have puny image chips in them by comparison). I was tempted, but the ergonomics and struggles associated with DSLR filming kept me from putting my hand in my pocket. Photography and videography are two distinctly separate fields of image capture which have very different design and use requirements. DSLRs are essentially just stills cameras that can shoot video.
These were soon followed by a wave of traditional video cameras with large sensors capable of UHD video production – most with interchangeable lenses but, more importantly, they were designed with the videographer and cinematographer in mind. Not only were the ergonomics more familiar but they also handled audio in the same way with professional connections and controls where a videographer would expect to find them.
So now we have a properly designed offering of video cameras capable of UHD video production and the same sumptuous shallow depth of field that we’ve all grown used to seeing. Now my only quandary was which one?
UHD video production with JVC’s GY-LS300
Apart from being a total JVC tart, a large part of the reasoning behind me investing in JVC’s GY-LS300 was down to its ability to work with a range of lens types. Other choices of camera would have required reinvestment in glass which would have had to be reflected in my charges to customers. In today’s competitive world, anything that enables you to maintain your rate card whilst improving your output has got to be good for customers.
UHD video production with JVC’s GY-LS300
The combination of the LS300’s Super 35mm sensor and its MTF (Micro Four Thirds) lens mount means you can attach pretty much any lens with the right adapter. Not only does this allow me to use my existing range of DSLR lenses (modern full-frame lenses, cropped sensor lenses and vintage 35mm lenses), but it can also utilise cinema-grade, cheap photographic and even really old (but optically brilliant) 16mm film lenses should the need arise. JVC cleverly achieve this by adjusting the sensor crop within the camera’s VSM setting (Variable Scan Mapping).
My decision was cemented when the latest firmware was announced for the LS300. This brought in a unique ‘Prime Zoom’ function which basically gives you a short but lossless digital zoom when using prime lenses. The range of zoom depends on the recording format the camera is set to, but when filming in HD mode this can give you up to 2.3x zoom on a prime lens (1.25x in 4K mode).
The other additions introduced in the latest firmware included ‘J Log’ mode which enables you to record a wide latitude and high dynamic range similar to that found on film cameras. Whilst this requires additional time in post production to grade the picture to your desired look, it does give you access to a much higher contrast ratio providing detail within highlights and shadows. This, coupled with exposure histogram, spot metering and other picture level adjustments, will allow me to fine-tune the pictures to my heart’s content.
On top of this the LS300 is extremely compact and light. This is particularly important to me and my customers as much of my work these days is overseas so this should help me to keep shipping costs to an absolute minimum.
HD delivery from UHD video production
Whilst UHD playback TVs and projectors are now widely available, in the near future the vast majority of time I will be creating content for HD delivery. However, shooting in UHD will enable me to make some creative decisions and changes in framing in post. With all that additional resolution to play with it’s easy, and non-destructive, to zoom into the UHD picture without any appreciable loss.
In practical terms (and how UHD video production might save my customers money), this also means I could film a talking-head interview as a single wide shot and then zoom-in or cut-in for close-ups. This negates the need for using two cameras and reduces the time needed on a shoot – both of which are good news for customers.
And whilst I will be editing and delivering predominantly in HD, retaining the original UHD masters will enable my clients to re-purpose material in the future when UHD delivery becomes the norm – without loss in resolution.
My first UHD video production
I’m currently putting the camera and lens configurations through testing to make sure I can give my customers the full benefits of UHD video production. However, I’ve already got some projects in my diary where the LS300 will be my first choice of camera. It’s ideally suited to interview filming and also any scenario where my customers want the added benefits that UHD video production can bring – as well as “lush” pictures and unhindered creativity.
Keep an eye on my blog in the next couple of months and you’ll see exactly what UHD video production is all about. If you can’t wait to find out, and what to be one of our first UHD customers, then please give me a call on 020 3602 3356.
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.
Something to put in your customer’s hands
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.
Setting up your own paid-for YouTube channel
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.
The story behind our Recruitment Film for Siemens Financial Services
A Recruitment Film with a difference
Earlier on this year we were approached by Siemens Financial Services (Region North) to produce a recruitment film which detailed the cultural changes that had taken place within their business. These changes were introduced in 2010 as a response to a challenge from Siemens’ Global CEO and resulted in the division increasing their profits from €47M to a staggering €61M in a little over four years.
But this wasn’t simply a case of producing a trumpet-blowing recruitment film – this film had two distinct goals to achieve. Firstly, each year the Siemens group of companies run an internal awards program to celebrate the successes amongst their many divisions – and Siemens Financial Services felt that a video submission would be a brilliant way to show their successes off to the judging panel. The film therefore had to reveal what changes had taken place in the business, the challenges this cultural change presented to the management and the impact that it has had on its profitability and, more importantly, the positive effects it had on productivity and self-worth of the staff working within the division.
With a looming deadline for entries the awards submission became the immediate requirement, but the longer term goal was to produce a recruitment film that would show potential employees what would be expected of them if they became part of the Siemens Financial Services team. Having developed a culture of trust and high levels of engagement, they wanted everyone to fully understand and commit to this before applying for a post with them.
Briefing for a Recruitment Film
An assignment such as this takes a lot of consultation with the client in order to ensure the film meets it aims and objectives. Siemens Financial Services had already been drawing up a list of things that needed to be covered in a written awards submission before considering commissioning a film. By the time they had approached Video Artisan they were very clear on what aspects and milestones within the culture change project were important, but didn’t have a clear idea on how this could be conveyed within a short film.
Our suggestion of producing a presenter-led investigative documentary was quickly adopted, and their response to our proposal of using radio and TV presenter Mary Green to front the film was equally enthusiastic. The idea, which we believe we have realised, was to produce an in-depth news report from a neutral perspective with the story being told through a series of interviews with management and staff from Siemens Financial Services.
Filmed over two days at their Stoke Poges HQ, our approach was to single out those employees who were most effected by the cultural change and those who had been influential on specific initiatives. The main storyline was drawn from a long and detailed interview with CEO James Gearey but, equally important (and in line with the cultural change itself), we gathered interviews with employees from every level within the business to demonstrate their buy-in on the initiative. Quite often in these situations you can experience resistance from staff members to being interviewed, but such is the success of the cultural change and sense of ownership amongst everyone in Siemens Financial Services, that we were really spoilt for choice for willing and capable candidates.
Never short on volunteers to interview for the Siemens recruitment film
Going forward with the Recruitment Film
Whilst this was a very rewarding commission to work on, it is tinged with a little disappointment. Unfortunately, despite their entry being received very positively at global board level, their awards submission was up against incredible competition entries from other Siemens divisions and therefore wasn’t selected for the finals. On the positive side, and as testament to our treatment of their main objective, the film now plays a pivotal role in their recruitment programme.
Are you thinking of commissioning a Recruitment Film?
A recruitment video is an incredibly powerful tool in attracting and retaining the right personnel to your organisation. The production process itself can help you to develop and share your core values and business ethos – therefore pre-qualifying candidates by revealing your expectations of them. Furthermore, it can also be used to share your ideals and ways of working with existing and potential clients.
If you would like to explore the possibilities for your organisation, please contact us today for a no-obligation consultation on 020 3602 3356.
It’s hard to talk about this subject without getting technical but I’m going to try and keep it as light as possible as I’ve got a lot of readers who are not technical at all. UHD (Ultra High Definition) is a high resolution video format. Simplistically, this means it gives you (potentially) a lot more detail in the picture. To give you a comparison High Definition (HD) video has a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Ultra HD, or 4K as it’s also known, gives you 3840 x 2160 pixels (and a touch more in it’s native and ultra-wide variants). If you want to dig deeper and get all techie then read 
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.
