Some tips to help you move forward with clarity and purpose
You wouldn't start to build a house without a solid plan in place. It's the same with video, and we call the planning phase "pre-production". The most common mistake clients new to video make is a “lets just film everything and see what we get” approach. This often results in footage that doesn’t tie together, blurry messaging, and wasted budget.
A plan up front, even a very simple one, makes all the difference to bring focus and efficiency to the process. It’s better to discover challenges and potential problems over initial phonecalls and emails, rather than on a video shoot where time is always against you and money is being spent.
The good news is that we do all of that planning for you, from scripting and scheduling, all the way through to the logistics of when things will be delivered after the shoot. This helps you align expectations and ensures our video project fits in with the other activities you’re planning.
Typically we can work with a basic plan around the objective of the video, themes to be covered, desired length of final video and where the video will eventually live (YouTube / Facebook / Instagram / LinkedIn). A little bit of planning goes a LONG way.
The next most common mistake we see is organisations creating videos that are just images set to music. While this style CAN have its place, it can be a missed opportunity because people are hard-wired to listen to and watch other humans presenting messages. This is evolutionarily baked into our DNA, from four-hundred-thousand years of campfire stories and face to face communication. The easy win here is to use short conversational interviews to “backbone” communication.
It's very common in our work to push for interviews or some type of audio communication. We keep up the pace in the edit by including eye-catching drone shots and well executed relevant “B-Roll” or “Cutaways” over the top of the voice. These are normally shots of people in action carrying out day-to-day activities. When combined with tight messaging coming from human faces and voices, it comes together to create a captivating snapshot of your business in action.
For an event video, we'll cut in the best audio/visual grabs of presenters. For a complex or long technical presentation, we may even use a teleprompter to help your spokesperson deliver lines easily. Sometimes we use professional voice over talent.
We'll let you know what works best, and we're great at making this easy to do so no one has to learn scripts. We're great at determining the best way to ensure your video doesn't become just another basic unengaging piece of content fodder for the “doom scroll” of social media.
This is related to the human communication theme above. Right now AI is everywhere. At this point in time we can't recommend using AI generated spokespeople. Many humans find it disturbing. The promise is easy text generated “content”. The risk is destroying brands and reputation by driving a wedge between your organisation and your audience. The technology is flashy and interesting, but not ready to communicate important messages for your business. The idea that this form of communication is cheaper is often a fallacy, as the time taken to input directions and commands, along with the need to constantly reshape and refine it, often ends up being close in hours to if you had just hired a professional.
We do use AI for some productivity tasks, such as machine learning to improve post production efficiencies - helping to fix problematic shots in post-production for example. We use AI to help “get off the blank page” for scripts or concepts. There is a role for AI as an assistant editor for long interviews (but at this point in time it only speeds up the process - it can't come close to a human selecting emotional beats and expressions.)
At Reflex Films, we are in the space of documenting real events, builds or client campaigns, and it’s this genuine and real approach that contributes to our work being so memorable.
Often your footage can become more valuable over time. This is especially true for building/construction and events. After your shoot we keep a database of organised videos for your company. With one phone call or email, we can access your shots within minutes. This also allows us to repurpose shots and edits as opportunities come up for you. We love being agile with media and strive for near real-time access so you can make video a timeless resource for you.
We have helped organisations sell out events, promote and sell products and build brand profiles. This tends to be a revenue outcome.
We have also helped organisations onboard staff and promote their values and expectations. This tends to be a time saving outcome (which ultimately is a money saving outcome).
Sponsor funding for events often has media production conditions that need to be met, and we are great at executing these and work with many events to meet these Sponsor requirements.
By thinking about your objectives first, Reflex Films is committed to achieving your desired outcome through well executed video production.
