Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Dec 04 at 07:12 AM, filed under
Films For Firms
Here’s a guest post from our director of photography on our recent commercial. You can view the spot at http://www.stylebirmingham.com
When Fullrange Films first asked me to shoot their upcoming Television Advert for the Style Birmingham Brand, my immediate thoughts turned to the choice of camera. It is fair to say that the RED One was the only real choice for this production. The RED One camera kit fell within the budget constraints of a 2 day commercial shoot when compared to its 35mm film counterpart. Most importantly though, the RED One produces stunning images, it has a silky subtlety that is far beyond that of any HD camera and the results, when in the right hands, are intensely filmic. As a Cinematographer and as a RED One owner, I always take pleasure in working with this camera. When shooting the full 4k sensor, it gives such a high quality that as the image is processed down the production pipeline it retains the quality even when screened at a standard definition. Shooting 4k gives the Cinematographer, Colourist and CGI Artists more pixels, more resolution and ultimately more colour information. These elements were particularly evident for the Style Birmingham commercial …
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Nov 01 at 01:22 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
There are five of us in the Fullrange team who are growing moustaches for the rest of this month for Movember 2009 and today is my last day clean-shaven…
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Sep 21 at 07:53 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
There’s quite an interesting post at Video Insider about the death of the autoplay function. The three main reasons given are this:
1. Users hate it. Though not the most scientific way of doing research apparently searching twitter for autoplay video reveals some fairly heavy loathing of the function. I think this is like blog comments though. You can’t legislate for the people who have a lot of time on their hands and like to play on the internet.
2. It’s not real pre-roll. Having video be user-initiated is much more valuable to the advertiser because it’s being served to people who have more of an interest in the service.
3. It increases the cost of running the site. No doubt about that. Video is a bandwidth hog and you’re getting charged for server usage even if they’re not watching it.
All these things are true but the one that’s crucially missing is this - for those of us in the corporate video market, where a film is placed on a website and is asking to take up more than 30 seconds of a user’s time then analytics is a crucial part of the mix. Understanding who …
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Sep 18 at 01:49 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
As of this morning we’ve become a member of Business Link West Midlands’ Approved Supplier Register. This means we’ll get a chance to pitch for film work that’s part of any of Business Link’s funded interventions, and they’ll pay for half our fees! It’s one of those things we’d been meaning to do for a while: don’t want to miss out on an opportunity, right?
Having met a few companies who seem to promote themselves specifically as having access to match-funding, I was wary of shouting about our recent accolade. But in fact Business Link were keen for us to refer clients to them and have even given us a logo to put on marketing materials! People we refer will undergo a business diagnostic which, in our case, was extremely beneficial in its own right (thanks Alice). We can even introduce people with a specific film project on the table already with a view to attracting match-funding from a variety of Business Link’s funding streams.
So: if you’re interested in undergoing a business diagnostic and seeing what support is out there - either wholly or partly funded - we’d love to introduce you to the people who’ve helped us. …
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Aug 26 at 07:47 AM, filed under
Films For Firms
We occasionally get called to shoot focus groups in London for another company. It usually goes like this:
Researcher: “think of a powerful brand?” Focus groupie: “Apple”. Researcher: “you can’t say Apple. Pretend Apple doesn’t exist. Think of another one”. Focus groupie: “ummmmm…”
Apple’s branding is apparently so powerful it warps the reality that research companies exist in. Most companies don’t have this effect.
Pat Lapointe at Mediapost wrote this piece on the difficulties associated with measuring brand value. Branding has become a terribly complicated thing since the old days of sticking a piece of hot iron against a cow’s arse. For those of us with brands that don’t affect the space/time continuum I think brand value is mostly the first three or four words people think of when they hear your name.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Aug 21 at 12:42 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
Having just read Andy Hartwell’s big bunch of good news on the Substrakt blog I got to thinking that I should put something on here. Then remembered I’d written something. Phew. That was lucky.
Think back nine months or so to when the recession was looming rather than blooming. There was a good deal of media speculation and commentary on the inexperience of our business leadership. The last recession was nearly twenty years ago. Since then the old guard have moved on and the then young turks are going grey at the temples and facing their first global crisis as leaders.
Japan followed France and Germany out of the recession this week. Though the UK is yet to report growth it will happen eventually. As the economy moves towards more positive times and everyone hopes that things will get easier there will increasingly be time for wounds to be licked clean and navels gazed at. Survival is the first litmus test, then results. Management information can tell us how we did. But on a deeper level there is the moral question. On the …
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Aug 14 at 05:13 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
Check these out from today’s Creative Review. Three new idents for VW’s support of independent film by documentary director Seth Gordon (King of Kong).
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Aug 14 at 06:48 AM, filed under
Films For Firms
Shop.org describes itself as a community of online and multi-channel retailers. So it was with interest that I read their intro to a piece of research on how consumers use online video.
Highlights:
12% of online shoppers regularly use online video when making purchase decisions online 46% use it occasionally Older consumers are actually more likely to turn to online video to understand product features Younger consumers are more likely to trust user generated content about products than older consumers but everyone trusts manufacturer or retailed produced videos more. Some evidence points towards online video influencing offline purchases too
Maybe this Mentos and Diet Coke video reflects that lack of trust in user generated content!
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Aug 09 at 03:29 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
Here’s a nice little film.
I don’t imagine it was cheap to make and the filmmakers probably have some of the least incriminating backgrounds ever in filmmaking to pick up a camera inside the White House but all that aside it’s a nice little film. But what struck me about it most was the evident planning that had gone into it. None of the shots were accidental and all of it flowed nicely because of the forethought involved.
@petermis found the film and posted on twitter pointing towards Justin Levy’s blog.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Aug 06 at 10:21 AM, filed under
Films For Firms
That’s Guy on the left and Steff on the right. Guy is our company chairman and also the writer/director of the feature film The Husband Obedience Trials that we are currently post producing. Steff is obviously one of our company directors but is also the film’s producer. They’re both standing in the edit suite where the assembly is taking place. That is indeed the script plastering the walls. The film was shot on the Red One, a camera and workflow we’ve got quite a lot of experience with and all of that experience is being applied here. The editors are also researching quite a lot as they go, reduser and the Red Centre podcast being both very useful resources. Some of the scenes had multiple Reds so we’ve got plenty of footage to play with.
The post team will be putting regular updates on here about how its going and what they’re doing as well as showing clips from the film.
Proper posts with, you know, actual news to follow.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Jul 30 at 07:57 AM, filed under
Films For Firms
Haven’t blogged for while, mainly because one of our directors has been off making a feature film so it’s been somewhat busy. Especially now that we’re a couple of weeks into the post-production for the film. (Shot on Red if you’re interested). But it occurred to me this morning that not every blog post has to be an epic, thought leadership piece. So I just wanted to quickly share something cool that I saw this morning as part of adforum’s weekly top 5. Have a look at this.
When we booked out the plush Electric Cinema in Birmingham and invited all of our favourite clients to see Quantum of Solace on opening night I got a nice note from the then Creative Director of Rees Bradley Hepburn that just said “nice idea, well executed, as a creative that’s all I want”. (Incidentally, you see those three viral films for Warwick Castle on the front page of RBH‘s website, we shot those).
Have a look at the ad from Euro RSCG for La Poste. Nice idea, well …
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Jun 10 at 03:05 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
Just picked this up off the Screen WM blog.
Screen WM are seeking Production Trainees to work on the new series of major BBC drama series Hustle, shooting across Birmingham this summer. Amy Newbery gives all the information below.
Screen WM, the West Midlands regional screen agency are seeking production trainees from the West Midlands to assist in a variety of departments working on the new series of the hit BBC show Hustle which will be shooting in locations in and around Birmingham from July to October. These positions are ideal for new entrants to the television industry or for crew who would like to try working in a different production department.
Screen WM’s Production Placement Scheme was launched in Autumn 2007 to assist people wanting to take the first steps into Film & TV Production, the scheme provides on-the-job work experience for those looking to get into the industry. Placements offer paid employment, usually for the duration of a shoot and are allocated to Screen WM invested projects which will be shot in the West Midlands. So far the scheme has supported over 30 trainees who have worked across a range of departments …
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 25 at 07:09 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
If you’re going to put a video online then it makes sense to know how many people watched it. Just like on youtube. But it’s also useful to know how much of it they watched, where they were when they watched it, how engaged they were, whether they rewound and all kinds of other useful metrics for feedback.
We’re testing a number of different systems right now. A specialist metrics system has been running on the rest of our site for a few weeks but I’ve got access to a new embedding system that i’d like to test. So I’d really appreciate it if you would watch this version of our showreel that’s embedded below. Watch it as you normally would, turn it off if you get bored, embed it elswhere if you’re interested and just interact with it as you normally would.
This additional data will be very helpful to us us and ultimately, allow us to help you, our clients and readership. Thanks in advance.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 13 at 07:52 PM, filed under
Films For Firms
Language is no object. This film is for those of us you have been shopping with girls and those of you who are girls. That’s pretty much everyone. Pretty much.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 12 at 09:01 AM, filed under
Films For Firms
I suspect if you’re at one with your inner geek, statistician, factoid buff or occasionally ponder the sheer scale of the planet you’ll like that video. I got it in my inbox yesterday from Marketingprofs. Their mailshots give me useful pause for thought every now and again.
I also came this little gem from http://www.askten.co.uk who send me a weekly digest of useless facts. “Of the 646 members of the House of Commons, 84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year, 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit, 29 have been accused of spouse abuse, 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits, 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges, 17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least two businesses, 9 have been accused of writing bad cheques, 8 have been arrested for shoplifting, 7 have been arrested for fraud and 3 have done time for assault.” (The original source was the Telegraph).
Both are fascinating. Both of them speak to my own deep-seated fascination with our planet but simply because one is a flashy powerpoint presentation …
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