Goodness, crazy times, huh? But from an innovation point-of-view some of the best products, services and businesses were created at a time of untold disruption and change. The Black Death at the tail end of the middle ages gave way to a new way of scientific thinking, terrific inventions and all those Renaissance paintings you studied at school.

That, as well as having ‘nuff time to sit and think reflectively about what things we might like, which we currently don’t have; has provided a boon in entrepreneurial edge. This has been seen in a huge plethora of enquiries coming into the UK patents office with potential inventors sitting at home dreaming up big ideas…

As people get used to the ‘new normal’ they’re also open to change in many other aspects of their lives, both professional and personal, trying new products and services and seeing how they can do the same things in a better way.

And we can help.

You may be unsure as to the logistics and safety of how things will run, so we’ve outlined some ideas below and we will be working on updating them regularly. With a fusion of bits and pieces of the below processes, we can give you all the support you need to bring your marketing and comms messages home, with impact.

Filming

We have a pretty comprehensive Covid-19 policy, which allows for filming whilst practising social distancing. It’s based on government, World Health Organisation and industry trade body advice and it covers everything in the video production process end-to-end from prep and casting through to using walkie talkies and catering.

Suffice to say, we’ll be using PPE (which we will provide for you too) and making sure that there’s no unnecessary close-quarters contact.

Also, we’ll be favouring outside spaces with plenty of natural ventilation and room to socially distance contributors, crew and clients. Whilst operating a strict ‘need to be there’ basis where people not absolutely necessary for the shoot are stood down or given a remote monitoring option.

Remote filming

This method was used to make the swiftly-produced Isolation Stories on ITV, and a host of other shows. It can also be used with more day to day affairs. Essentially:

1.  We deliver sanitised camera equipment to the contributors alongside easy to use instructions on setting up and filming with it.
2.  With our help, they set it up (we’ll be on Zoom or likewise to help)
3.  They film (again with our remote help)
4.  We pick up the equipment and re-sanitise…
5.  ...Before taking the cards with the filmed material on it and…
6.  Editing it as normal.

This has worked like a lucky, lucky charm in the past, and we anticipate it being an excellent way forward particularly for higher-end projects with people who might be more vulnerable.

Motion graphics/animation

What you’re trying to communicate can usually also be done in an animated form.

You can have anything from a simple whiteboard animation to more sophisticated full character animations such as this. And comms/marketing messages can be integrated into it as text woven throughout, this has an added advantage of being able to succinctly tell a very visual story without the hassle of getting footage it might be nigh-on impossible to capture. Heck, you can make stuff up that doesn’t even exist!

To add a more human element, think about perhaps having the people you were going to film narrate the video using a voiceover (which can be recorded on most smartphones) 

Stock footage

We have access to a vast library of stock footage which we can fuse with some evocative text and apt music to make a film which brings your message home with vim and vigour. As you can imagine, the stock library is vast but not unlimited, super specific shots of particular things might be hard to come by. But if that’s the case we can mix this technique up with some of the other approaches outlined here, to make it sing.

User-generated content

...Is a posh way of saying - the punter films it themselves :-) In this process we advise on footage filmed by your good selves on whatever you have to hand (usually a smartphone of some description) we can talk you through lighting, sound, framing (composition) and movement as well as the best settings to use. You then upload it to our 1tb drive folder and we edit away and produce you something tasty.

Re-edits / re-purposing 

Sometimes (usually, in our view) there’s a bunch more mileage to be had from a past project, there gathering dust in the harddrive, cloud or wherever. Let’s revisit that and try and get the most of it for you. We’re talking cut-down edits for social media, making alternative cuts for different audiences and stuff like screengrabs and GIFs, reversioning with subtitles for other markets globally all these things are doable and for much less than the original budget

Zoom/Skype/Hangout/etc recording

For a more collaborative atmosphere with many people backing-and-forthing on a topic, it’s that thing we’ve all gotten used to/increasingly bored of over the past X weeks - good ol’ Zoom! Obviously, this isn’t the most swish option so what we’d recommend is spicing it up a little with motion graphics whizz bang - see above. Stock footage also works nicely here.

Still images/stock images

Using motion effects and graphics we can add some POW to your bank of imagery, or make it from scratch with stock images. Stuff like the Ken Burns technique can be used nicely here. 

Screencapture

So yeah, it aint the prettiest wheel in our wheel house, but if you run software or any other kind of digital platform and want a succinct and snappy tutorial on how to use things we can whip this up for you double quick time!

To wrap up then, there’s a whole giddy heck of an amount of stuff you can still do to shout to the world about what it is you’re doing, get in touch with the deets below and we can put together some options for you… Ta for reading :-)