Essex - the home of Video Artisan's video production studios in Loughton

July 22, 2015March 9, 2022

Confidential Video Production Service

No, it’s not what you’re thinking! As someone who loves to blog about their latest video production exploits it’s not always possible for me to share with the world what I’ve been up to. The last few months are typical of this. Whilst this can be frustrating at times, it does go to show the expanding areas where video production is finding its perfect application. Let me tell you a little about our confidential video production service.

Really Secret Video Production Work

Top Secret — Security cleared video production specialists

The work I carry out for Crown Media is a more obvious example of a confidential video production service. e. It’s not exactly James Bond stuff but needless to say, what goes on on a Crown Media assignment, stays on a Crown Media assignment. But providing a confidential video production service is not all cloak and dagger stuff.

Not for Public Consumption

Client confidentiality and restricted distribution of my video production works creeps in to many other areas business-to-business communications these days. For instance, I’ve been involved in many team building events in the past year and the vast majority of these never get publicly aired – and for good reason. These events are sometimes all about employees letting their hair down and revealing their inner-self to their colleagues; a very important process of team building which fosters trust and helps people work as a team towards a common goal. Breaking down barriers and connecting division within a business helps everyone understand and appreciate each other, and the video production process is an excellent example where different roles, skills and talents come together to form the final product. It’s also normally a whole lot of fun too!

Other confidential video production assignments which are never destined for public screening include internal communications material. Whilst these can sometimes creep out of their intended audience circle (not by me I hasten to add), they are generally produced just for the eyes of those who need to know. This includes staff training films, financial reporting, top-down management policy messaging or motivational content on general or specific initiatives. Whilst these might not be truly confidential video production assignments, there will be occasions where they contain information or techniques which my clients do not want to share with their competitors.

Commercially Sensitive Video Production

There are also video production projects which are confidential for a given time. When launching new products or services businesses will normally want to have a full arsenal of marketing assets available to them on launch. With video content playing such an important role in marketing these days businesses need to work with a video production company who appreciates this and is will to sign (and act according to) NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements). Providing a video production service in these situations will mean being privy to all sorts of information which the client does not want released until the right moment in time – and sometimes information which they never want released at all!

Uncredited Video Production

My freelance work for other video production companies often ends up being uncredited too. This might not be a truly confidential video production service but it does have elements of confidentiality. Unlike some others I have no problem with this as long as I’m duly rewarded in financial terms. I’m sure I would be a bit miffed if someone was claiming my work to be theirs but, thankfully, that’s not happened to me. Being part of a team will often result in no individual recognition or bragging rights, but the fun and rewards of working on a collaborative effort far outweigh this.

Trust us with your confidential video production needs

So, mum’s the word. If it’s to be kept under wraps then we are the people to trust with your next confidential video production project – and we’re ready to work under any reasonable and achievable conditions you want to impose on us. Based in Loughton, Essex – we are within easy travelling distance of Central London and regularly travel throughout the UK, Europe and happy to take on assignments worldwide. Call 020 3602 3356.

April 24, 2015May 14, 2018

Employee Video Profiles

What are Employee Video Profiles?

For many years now businesses and public sector organisations have understood the value of profiling their employees on their website. Giving customers the opportunity of “Meeting the team” has long been recognised as both a valuable marketing asset and a means of attracting new employees of the right calibre. In the main, these pen pictures have been just that – a brief written outline of the person, often written by someone else within the company, and sometimes accompanied by a photo. This is all well and good but these are not exactly engaging pieces of website content. This is why more and more organisations are turning to Employee Video Profiles – and for many good reasons.

Who benefits from Employee Video Profiles?

Employee Video Profiles deliver so much more than text versions – benefiting the organisation, their clients and their employees – both present and potential. They are relatively easy and cost effective pieces of video to create – albeit daunting and alien to those appearing on screen. However, the rewards for all those concerns far outweigh any challenges they present. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of Employee Video Profiles to each stakeholder, starting with the most important group – the Website Visitors.

Website visitors are far more receptive to messages and information shared through video these days rather than having to read through reams of text-heavy web pages. It would be easy to say that website visitors have become lazy, but the truth is that there’s so much content online these days that everyone is looking for the quickest and easiest way to gather information and form an opinion – and nothing comes close to video in achieving this.

The target audience for Employee Video Profiles is going to be wide and varied. There will be those who are simply trying to find the right person to speak to within the organisation – be they customers, suppliers, investors or those looking for employment. Whilst all website sections offer relevant information to various visitor types, a section marked up as “Meet the team” or “Our people” has relevance to everyone visiting the site. Even though we often transact in a faceless world these days, people do still buy from people – so any chance a visitor has of making a personal connection with those within the organisation is often grasped at. No matter what their enquiry is about, having a named person – with a real face and personality – makes the process that much easier.

The flip side of this is one of the benefits to the organisation. Employee Video Profiles should help them ease navigation for website visitors so they get to the right person first time and thereby reduce the strain on other resources in the business in dealing with misguided enquiries. Employee Video Profiles, if planned and executed correctly, should also give the organisation an opportunity to promote their business or objectives and company ethos through their employees. Bright, happy and welcoming employees will give the impression of a bright and welcoming organisation. In other words, nice people to do business with – nice people to work for – nice people to know!

For the employees themselves, gaining experience in front of camera is increasingly important and valuable. Whilst this might come easy to some people, if you’re working with an experienced video production company on your Employee Video Profiles this should also come with a certain level of media training. You should be given guidance on scripting, body language, backdrop design and performance. This training will not only help junior members of staff, but should also be valuable to everyone up to director level in helping them with their on-screen performance.

Employee Video Profiles Set — Greenscreen sets are compact and make your Employee Video Profiles look like they were shot… well, anywhere!

And of course, let’s not forget those who are looking for employment. Their objective is to assess whether your business or organisation is one that they should be working for. Nothing can compete with hearing from other happy, contented and personable people who already work for you. Well produced and delivered Employee Video Profiles are as good as personal recommendations from someone you know and are far more likely to appeal to precisely the type of person you are trying to attract to your organisation.

Distributing your Employee Video Profiles

Whilst the distribution platform of your Employee Video Profiles will primarily be your website, they also provide the opportunity to expand your social media content. Hosting your own YouTube channel is the obvious place to start. As part of the Google platform, YouTube content features highly on search returns and will augment your general Search Engine Optimisation efforts. But don’t stop there. Separately uploading your Employee Video Profiles to your company Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Vimeo accounts will also help the videos gain traction – as well as sharing them on Twitter and alike. You should also encourage participants to share their performances on their own social media accounts – again adding to the potential audience and helping to raise awareness of your brand and business.

The cost of producing Employee Video Profiles

As I mentioned towards the beginning of this article, Employee Video Profiles are relatively cheap and cost-effective to produce – if scripted and planned for properly. With the use of greenscreen backdrops, professional cameras, lighting and audio recording technology, these can easily be filmed at your premises with little interference to your operation. If the participants are well prepared and rehearsed, it could be possible to film more than ten profiles in a day with a single-man video crew. Post production should take a couple of days to make them perfect, giving you a unit cost of around £150 per employee at this volume level – and possibly less if you want to create more.

If you are thinking about producing Employee Video Profiles, please give us a call today 020 3602 3356.

Case Study – Video Artisan has recently produced six employee video profiles for Galliard Homes. Watch their profiles below…

April 15, 2015July 25, 2024

Video Tutorials – the benefits

video tutorials title — Why should you consider commissioning video tutorials?

This week we’ve launched the first of a series of video tutorials for AKM Music – the UK’s leading producer of royalty free music for use within video and multimedia productions. These short video tutorials give guidance to newbie video producers and videographers looking to make the most of AKM Music’s vast library of royalty free music (AKA copyright-free music). The aim is to release one of these video tutorials each month, covering the technical and creative aspects of auditioning, editing and mastering the music score for video productions.

The subject is very close to home for us being regular users of AKM Music’s excellent repertoire. We also regularly review new albums for them for this blog and other print publications, so I guess producing the video tutorials was a natural progression for us.

The benefits of video tutorials

Producing video tutorials benefits all the stakeholders. The consumer benefits because video is simply the best medium in which to absorb and understand the processes being explained. Printed instructions and websites are fine, but nothing comes close to watching someone demonstrate a process on screen. Viewers can pause and repeat video tutorials as many times as they like, leaving very little to misinterpretation. Video can also be delivered easily over the internet to any viewing device – be that mobile, tablet, PC or large screen displays – and downloaded locally for playback and reference at a later date.

The commissioning company can also benefit hugely from producing video tutorials. They help build customer loyalty by adding to the customer experience of buying their product or service. Apart from educating end users and customers, video tutorials also help those within an organisation understand the products better and, probably more importantly, the customers who are buying them.

But, above all, populating your website with relevant and valuable video tutorials will help with your search engine optimisation and engage your website visitors more effectively. The longer someone spends on your website the more likely they are to identify with your brand, trust your advice and buy from you. Video tutorials are also perfect material to share via your social media channels and, if your audience sees the value too, they’ll also happily share them with others with the same interests.

If you have a product or service that could benefit from having video tutorials produced about their construction, use or maintenance – please get in touch and we can talk you through the process, costs and then develop an implementation plan to help you start benefiting from them too. Call 020 3602 3356.

Note: Type in ‘copyright-free music’ into the search box at the head of this website to see a range of reviews we’ve published on AKM Music albums.

February 14, 2015January 22, 2017

The benefits of commissioning an instructional video

Show and Tell — An instructional video – the next best thing to personal tuition

Educating the masses with an instructional video

Never underestimate how complex a simple process can appear to be to someone who is unfamiliar with it. And never underestimate the power of video for enabling the “unfamiliar” to understand even the most complex of procedures. Video, with its pause, repeat, rewind and play ability makes it ideal for demonstrating operating, construction and basic care/maintenance procedures. Regardless of whether it’s highly complicated or ridiculously simple, from the construction of flat-pack furniture through to computer program control – instructional videos can hold the viewer’s hand through the process at their own pace.

Every manufacturing and service industry spends considerable sums each year on supporting their customers with materials that are designed to help them use their products or processes more efficiently. However, many businesses choose the cheapest possible way to impart this knowledge by use of printed or online instructions. Whilst this might be cheaper in the short term, the long term costs of dealing with customers who have been unable to understand these instructions, or followed them incorrectly, is unknown but likely to be well in excess of the monies saved initially.

Written and diagrammatic instructions still have their place, but in nearly every instance having someone show you how it’s done is much easier to understand and follow. You only have to look on YouTube to see how many films are based on filling in the gaps which manufacturers left out of their instruction manuals. These films are often produced by users who found the process challenging – which isn’t exactly great publicity.

Eye-bolts going in at the Hilton — “What I see I understand”

Producing an instructional video needn’t be expensive but has to be properly thought through and looked at from the perspective of the user. This isn’t always that easy to do from within the manufacturing or service supply business as they will be uniquely familiar with the process and unable to recognise where the challenges arise. This is why it is often advantageous to commission an outside video production company to develop the script and programme structure.

The benefits of producing an instructional video

The benefits of an instructional video to the user are plain to see, but the benefits to the manufacturer or service company go way beyond the cost savings on after-sales support. Here’s just some of the benefits that come to mind instantly…

Providing an effective instructional video will help build a much higher level of brand loyalty amongst customers
A better informed user base will result in fewer returns or damaged good due to misuse or bad construction – resulting in greater profitability
Openly publishing your instructional video on the likes of YouTube or Vimeo can also drive sales amongst potential customers who’ll gain confidence in the product or service pre-purchase
On a more subtle level, the process of developing the instructional video might also highlight areas where the product or service could be improved
A properly indexed, tagged and well produced video hosted on the likes of YouTube can only increase your search engine visibility
Videos are easy to make multilingual – by dubbing or subtitling

The cost of producing an instructional video need not be that high and could in fact be very comparable to producing printed material – with the benefit of easy adaptation and ways to re-purpose video from one instructional video to another.

If you’d like to explore the process and costs of producing instructional videos within your business, please give us a call on 020 3602 3356.

February 11, 2015January 22, 2017

Producing an in-house corporate video

DIY corporate video title — Tips on DIY video for your business

Why produce your own in-house corporate video?

There’s probably a thousand reasons why you might want to create your own corporate video and, as a professional video production company, we could probably suggest a thousand reasons why you shouldn’t be doing this yourself. You’ve already come to the conclusion that you need (or want) a video to help achieve your goals. You’ll understand the power of video as a communication tool, and seen it’s meteoric rise as a means of generating website traffic, helping to build brand loyalty, delivering a corporate message and motivating an audience to act in a certain way.

Commissioning a video production has traditionally been seen as an expensive exercise and, right now, you’ll be thinking that it’s going to be cheaper and easier to do it yourself – and with all the right knowledge, kit and experience you could possibly be right. It’s the latter part of that last sentence which presents your greatest challenge. Creating a great video looks pretty easy but the reality is that you’re going to face a steep learning curve and need much more kit than you think if you want it to represent you and your business the right way.

That said you’ve probably heard all this before and are still determined to give it a go. One of the important things about the video production process is that it can be a whole lot of fun – and extremely rewarding when you create something that delivers the results you desire. So here’s some practical notes for those determined to go down this path which highlights the obstacles and challenges you will face.

Getting the message right

Regardless of whether you go down the DIY route or commission a professional video production company to create your film, the one thing you have to do is know exactly what it is you want to say and how you want your audience to react. This is all about getting your message right. To do this successfully you’ll need to know your subject matter inside out, understand the needs and desire of your audience and have the mechanisms in place to allow them to do the thing you want them to do after watching your film. This could simply be buying your product from a website or retailer, registering to attend an event or understand how to use a product. The video might actually require your audience to do nothing other than to establish your product or brand as the market leader.

Once you know your message you’ll need to develop your script – never losing sight of what you are trying to motivate your audience to do. Do not waste a second on anything which deviates from this plan or is added purely to massage your own ego. You might well be the biggest widget maker in the world but unless you can get this information over in a way in which your audience can recognise this as a benefit to them then don’t waste their time with it. Never list features unless you can link them to benefits, and never knock your competitors.

The kit

Video cameras are everywhere these days – on phones, laptops, pads and all manner of devices. And the picture quality they can produce is increasingly impressive. Whilst there are some video production tasks these devices will be OK for, they are far from perfect and will limit what you’ll be able to create – and they will almost certainly fall very short on your expectations in recording sound.

Tiny video cameras are great – but not always perfect.

The golden rule of good audio recording (which is equally as important as the pictures) is to get your microphone as close to the subject as possible. In-built microphones found on phones are simply not good enough to capture anything other than general ambient sound – and this is also true of purpose-built video cameras with internal mics. To get perfect audio you’ll also need to understand a little about microphone characteristics and their pick-up pattern – but the golden rule mentioned above is paramount which will often mean recording sound separately from the pictures or use a camera which can accept external audio connections so that you can place the mic close to the subject and yet still film from a distance. Ideally you’ll need a selection of microphone solutions and cables to connect them to the camera.

Keeping the camera steady is also extremely important unless you are trying to create a special effect or give the audience a voyeuristic point of view of a scene. You’ll therefore need a good tripod and a camera which can easily be mounted on it.

Martin shooting at the SSDF — Keeping it steady and level on a tripod

All video cameras these days are very light sensitive, even those found on mobile phones. However, good lighting is about controlling light and creating shadows to give your subject form and interest. Just slapping up a light and pointing it in the direction of your subject is rarely going to give you results that will be pleasing on the eye and look natural. The human eye is always attracted by the brightest part of a scene, so if there are other things in a scene which are brighter than your subject your viewers’ attention will be drawn to them. If you are filming people pay particular attention to their eyes as this is what your viewer will concentrate on – so adding light to give the eyes a sparkle will help keep the viewer’s attention on them.

Video editing software is included on almost every computer or laptop these days – and all of them are capable of doing the vast majority of editing that will be found in your average corporate video. Where they fall short is on the niceties and their ability to correct errors made at the filming stage. The only other challenge of using editing programs is their complexity and ease of use. Your first few attempts at using an editing program will be spent learning how to import your footage and carry out basic cutting of shots – so give yourself plenty of time to get the editing completed.

Other refinements of a more professional editing program will include the ability to add more polished titles and graphics – and also in the control of how the final film is output and distributed. A beefier computer will also help to speed up the editing process as video files are data hungry. Some computers might not be man-enough or up-to-date enough to do the job at all!

The true cost of video production

Assuming you are starting from scratch, a basic video production toolkit will set you back something in the order of £5,000. This would include a proper video camera with external audio connections and controls, a reasonable directional microphone with cables and headphones for monitoring, a video tripod (not a photographic tripod), a couple of lights, a basic computer with free editing software and a bag full of cables and batteries. Armed with this an experienced videographer will be able to turn out something which is watchable – and if you achieve this on your first attempt you’ll have done pretty well.
But with all the best kit in the world and the technical skills to go with it, without a clear idea of the aims and objectives, and a creative way to achieve them using video, the whole exercise is unlikely to give you the results you desire. Whilst a DIY approach might save pennies on paper, bringing in a professional video production company might actually give you a much greater return on your investment.

If you’re planning to start using video on a regular basis then the DIY route could be the best solution by building an in-house team or individuals to manage the video production process. These people will need to be trained and whilst there are various video production training resources available, another solution could be to engage an established video production company to help them produce the first one or two films and perhaps be retained to assist in the process should additional help be required.

Hopefully this has given you a better idea of the challenges facing you. If it’s not dampened your enthusiasm then we wish you every success and hope that you soon start to benefit from using video within your business. If it all seems too much, we’re only a phone call away (020 3602 3356).

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