Insider Secrets - Home-filming

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

How to make engaging talking heads and user-generated video

Clear, timely and transparent communication from leadership AND from your people really matters at the moment.

But – while the appetite for content is rising – budgets are being reduced or frozen.

So now is a good time to be creating content yourself.

We present practical tips on two of the main short-form video styles that you or your people could film themselves.

  • Talking heads
  • User-generated videos


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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Insider Secrets - Presenting well on camera

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

Why is presenting important today?

The coronavirus outbreak has forced many business events, sales meetings and presentations to be postponed or even cancelled altogether. So organisers are turning to online presentations, webinars and live streamed events to fill some of the gaps.

As a speaker, presenting on camera – either on a pre-recorded video or on a full-blown live-streamed event – is very different from in a room face to face or from a stage.

Whether your goal is to motivate people around company purpose or sell your product or service, your ability to present with confidence on camera is YOU – bringing your message in a different way to your clients and customers.


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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Purpose in Communicating Science

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

Any organisation is the sum of its people. When those people are all pulling in the same direction, it moves forward. If they pull in opposing directions, the result is a lot of wasted effort.

That’s why every organisation – businesses, charities, scientific institutions and more – needs to communicate its purpose. At Kaptcha, we make purpose-driven videos (films, animations, live and hybrid events) which bring people together and help organisations communicate with their customers and employees. And we think that it’s a particularly important time for ventures built on the sciences to discover their voice.

Purpose is the reason that the people in an organisation get out of bed each day. It’s the motivation for every employee, and it’s the reason customers are prepared to spend their money with one company rather than another. In his best-selling book and hugely popular TED talk, “Start with Why”, the author Simon Sinek says that what companies do is nowhere near as important as why they do it.

The Royal Institution itself is an excellent example of an organisation with purpose: it has many areas of activity, but everyone at the RI is “dedicated to connecting people with the world of science.” Whatever their skills, role or profession, everyone in the RI strives towards that goal. Purpose inspires, motivates and connects people.

And communicating with purpose works. Our film for Andiamo, a children’s prosthetics startup, helped them to raise $5m. Our virtual event for the NSPCC “reminded the audience of why we are needed and what we do… and brought the purpose of the NSPCC into people’s homes.”

Now more than ever, organisations specialising in the sciences, commercial or otherwise, should be communicating their purpose; because we find ourselves in extraordinary times.

On the one hand, there has never been a better time to put science front and centre. A science-led response to the pandemic (not just medicine and life-sciences, but more broadly the idea of ‘following the science’ and an evidence-based approach) has put the discipline and its professions in the spotlight.

On the other, the pandemic has kept people home, without access to the scientific world – whether that’s jobs, lessons or museums – limiting access to education and ambition. Worse still, we have all experienced the effect of post-truth politics where, especially online, the very idea of facts has been under sustained attack.

Science has always fought for the truth, the value in keeping an open mind, the rigour of questioning and the joy of discovery on each new horizon. And today, our children need the foundations of scientific endeavour more than ever; for critical thinking and for hope in solving the problems of their generation.

In a world where we all feel a little more isolated than usual, science organisations and businesses must communicate their purpose. It’s not just how they will do better business. It’s how they will attract the best talent on a global stage and bring the next generation into STEM vocations. It’s how they will motivate a diverse and now often remote workforce, and so support our economy.

Everyone can explain what they do. But science is a community, and it’s why we do what we do which brings us together.

This article also appears on the Royal Institution website. Read now.

Read the Royal Institution’s article about livestreaming with Kaptcha. Read now.


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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Bringing Purpose to Life - Five lessons from the Kaptcha webinar

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

In March 2021, the Content Marketing Association invited CEO of Kaptcha, Richard Thomson, to present a webinar to its members, called “Bringing Purpose to Life”. We wanted to examine the role of purpose in business today; and we were delighted to bring along three Kaptcha clients for their expert perspectives, too:

Alexandra Buxton, Culture and Talent Director at possibly London’s most famous food retailer, Fortnum and Mason
Minda Galvin, Group Head of Content and Creative for the financial services group, Provident Financial
Malaika Oyortey, Special Events Manager at the UK’s leading childrens’ charity, the NSPCC.

You can watch the webinar below, followed by the key lessons we learned.

1. Purpose is a concept whose time has come

A recent IBM report asked CEOs “how to thrive in a post-pandemic reality.” Top performing companies identified “a sense of purpose and mission” as a driver of success significantly more than underperformers.

As we find ourselves working for businesses which must navigate more uncertainty, and where many of us have been working remotely from our colleagues for a year or more, the idea of a principle which unites colleagues and customers is more attractive than ever.

Our webinar guests typically called purpose their “North Star”, for example here is Minda of Provident: “It’s become part and parcel of who we are. And our employer brand is built on it. It becomes a North Star.”

2. Purpose fulfils important roles in business

That North Star guides renewed effort. Our guests come from very different organisations, with different needs, but all saw value in deploying purpose. Alexandra (Fortnum’s) says, “It breeds tremendous pride in the business, delivers exponential effort, tremendous loyalty, and a sense of fun.” Employees are a deep well of latent talent, and with the guidance provide by a purpose, they will deliver far more for the business.

Malaika (NSPCC) saw purpose as crucial in aligning effort in a changing world: “Purpose frames all the work that we do. The last year has been a rollercoaster for lots of young people and it’s been even more important that we’ve been there for them. Purpose matters right now as the NSPCC is out there on the front lines with children 24/7, every day.”

Provident, meanwhile, is a large group of brands. Minda has put purpose to work to remind this complex organisation what values lie at its heart. “We were working rather as disparate entities”, she says. “Purpose helped us to get behind what people in the organisation love about it: trying to do the right thing. Purpose taps into the human need to be part of something bigger. And that moves the needle on the performance of the organization.”

3. Purpose is not just a tagline

You can find the Purpose Statements of most FTSE100 companies on their websites. But a purpose without substance is doomed to have little impact on the bottom line. Says Minda (Provident), “It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s something that we’re still working on”. At Provident, purpose is enshrined in the behaviours expected at both leadership level and on the shop floor; and those behaviours are in turn measured in KPIs and appropriately rewarded so that purpose is reflected in the day-to-day activity of the business.

Similarly, Alexandra says that Fortnum & Mason prioritises purpose as part of the induction process for every new member of staff: “You have to feel the purpose from the job description to the interview to your first day”, she says. “We spend a lot of time giving proper depth and illustration to our purpose as part of our onboarding.”

4. Stories keep purpose alive

Launching a purpose programme is only half the battle. Keeping purpose alive in the increasing complexity of our busy work lives is more challenging. All our guests agreed that storytelling is key to keeping purpose fresh and relevant. Alexandra (Fortnum’s) again: “At its heart is phenomenal storytelling. Individual stories make purpose deeply authentic, accessible and shareable. Infectious stories create wonderful communications so that people at all levels can take on the purpose of the business and apply it.”

Malaika (NSPCC) agrees: “Storytelling is crucial. When we speak to our supporters, those stories make our purpose authentic. They allow us to inform, inspire and empower; whether that’s in a one-to-one meeting with managers or speaking to our committees and boards.”

“Stories give us the ability to make purpose part of the common parlance and language of our organization”, says Provident’s Minda. “People get the link between purpose and the work that they’re trying to do.”

Stories are also the fuel for authenticity. They prevent purpose from becoming empty sloganeering. Alexandra says, “The key watchout is that purpose must not become a sort of word-Bingo, just a banner. There’s something important in keeping it honest and true. So when you consider what materials you create, you must do it with discretion, otherwise it just becomes white noise.”

5. And get everyone involved

It should be no surprise that, if purpose is the North Star of a business and its activities, everyone has a role to play.

Our contributors all agreed that leaders in an organisation must become role models for the purpose they wish to embed. They must lead by example, evidencing purpose in their behaviours and the decisions that they make. Says Alexandra, “Purpose is rooted in leadership behaviours. That’s about having a proper conversation with leadership and helping them understand how they need to support the purpose and the decision making; and align those to behaviours as well.”

Line managers, meanwhile, are a source of stories and expertise through their respective professional lenses. They are the expression of purpose in different functions and skills across the business. Marketing, purchasing, HR and all the other functions in an organisation regularly meet, and it becomes their duty to share stories and best practice for the benefit of the wider business.

But purpose really takes hold on the shop floor. Says Minda (Provident), “Get people involved as early as possible. Because that allows your team to own purpose and be part of it. If it’s cooked up in a room by a small number of very important people, then you’ve got a lot of work to do to get employees to embrace it. You need to be able to have a two-way conversation up and down the organization. Purpose shouldn’t be lofty – it should be something that everybody can connect with.”

“I’d like to thank the CMA, our audience, and most of all, our webinar guests for giving up their time and giving us so much insight. All three have used purpose in their organisations in exceptional ways. As we emerge from the pandemic, I am convinced that purpose is not just valuable, but one of the most powerful tools in the modern CEO’s armoury.”

If we can help you explore your purpose, please do get in touch.


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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Five ways to film your most inspiring stories safely

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

With lockdown restrictions starting to change, there’s a wide range of filming options available, from fully remote production to trained location crews – and everything in between.

Each option caters for different needs while keeping your people safe within UK government guidelines. Most importantly, you can be sure the end result will build the emotional connection you need to land the message with your audience.

Here are the options we currently recommend:

Remote filming

With zero direct personal contact, Kaptcha guides your interviewees and presenters online to the best setup with the equipment they have available. Alternatively, we can provide a microphone for delivery to your spokesperson’s home for professional quality audio. This option can also be used to shoot cutaways of activities or remote locations.

Professional location filming

We safely shoot location footage of building exteriors or work processes, combined with interview material using the remote filming option. This option also involves no direct personal contact.

Professional interview filming

Where your internal guidelines allow, we send a small crew trained in the safe working practices used by broadcasters. Our crews have been shooting safe interviews throughout the lockdown for news broadcasters, and use the same processes for this option.

Production without new filming

We re-edit existing footage, including raw footage from your previous projects, user generated content and commercial archive material. Animation is another way to work around location restrictions.

Live streaming

We produce a live virtual event to bring your people together, mixing edited videos into the live stream.

Right now, there are some amazing stories out there, and your people are making tremendous sacrifices to help people in need. We can film those stories now, before they disappear – even if you don’t use the footage until later.

We help companies create more emotional connections with their audiences. What inspiring stories should we safely gather for you?


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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COVID-19: Comms time to shine

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

According to a recent report by Forbes, employees trust their employer for information on COVID-19 (63%) more than they trust their government (58%). It’s a good indication of how honest and helpful employer communication is highly valued.

We’re less than three weeks into lockdown in the UK (as of 6th April 2020) and conventional comms and channels have been thrown out of the window. If there was ever a time in your comms career to try something new, now is the time. This is comms time to shine.

There for your employees…

Part of Internal comms job is to help your employees get through this – both practically and mentally. Now’s the time to be community organisers/ to be the glue that holds the organisation together. Your employees want to hear from their leadership, but they also want to hear from their colleagues. Amongst the daily COVID-19 reports, they want stuff that will make them smile, make them laugh and make them feel connected. Here are just a few examples of what companies employees are doing to keep connected:

  • ‘Staying connected’ weekly packaged video news flash
  • Virtual coffee mornings
  • Employee led yoga and fitness classes
  • 10k April walking challenge
  • Employee cooking club
  • 4pm Friday drinks
  • And of course, see our suggestions in our other blogs for great user-generated content during COVID-19

… and there for your leaders

76% of comms people believe that this has had a positive impact on their relationship with leaders. Comms professionals are there to help work with their leaders to show what to do and how to do it – there to help them shape the messages they want to get across. Leadership need to give their employees facts, but more than anything they need to give them reassurance and empathy. One thing that hasn’t changed is the importance of clear and purposeful comms.

What – what do you want them to know

So what – why does it matter to them

Now what – what do you want them to do with that information?

So come on all you Comms professionals, this is your time to shine.


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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How to retain staff with film - Part 3

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

Why post-production matters in your recruitment film.

Post-production includes editing, graphics, grading and sound mixing. This is where you can get maximum value from your recruitment film. At the filming stage, you should be thinking about the different ways your film will be used so you make sure to shoot all the material you need on your filming day/s.

1. Music to recruit staff

Choosing the right music to go with your story can make a HUGE difference to the feel of the film – and how watchable it is. It also says a lot about your brand. Recruitment films by the tech giant Apple are often a quirky and innovative, Red Bull choose dynamic, energetic music (music that gives you wings), whereas Aviva’s music, like this film we made about their Parental Leave policy, is generally warm and inviting.

Music should be appropriate to the story you are telling, and to your brand and its values. Library music is a lot cheaper than commercial music, where you can spend thousands to clear one commercial track, and with a little searching there are some good library tracks out there. Does the music in your films represent the personality of your brand and suit the story?

2. Subtitles. Always.

Subtitles are now a must for all brand films online, and nowhere is this more true than with your recruitment film. Many videos are viewed on social media without audio – for example 85% of Facebook videos are watched on mute. Subtitles allow the viewer to still see what people are saying even if they can’t hear it. In fact, many people prefer watching videos with subtitles even if they don’t have to.

Subtitles can also give your film and brand a boost in search rankings. Subtitles improve SEO, because Google indexes captions that you’ve added to videos (they don’t index automatically generated captions, like those YouTube can add for you). If you are using the video on social networks, be conscious of the sizing and format, and that subtitles don’t get obscured by set features – such as LinkedIn’s time countdown feature on mobile.

But it’s not just the stats and SEO that make subtitles a must. The context of watching a recruitment film is likely to be personal and on mobile, and mobile viewing is more likely to be without sound. No-one who is thinking of changing jobs is going to watch a recruitment video on their desktop machine in the open office.

3. Sweat the assets

Users interact with different social platforms in different ways. In short the length and style of your video should be different for different platforms. For Instagram and Twitter where people are scrolling through, 15-30 seconds in duration works best. For LinkedIn around 60 to 90 seconds works well, whereas on YouTube and your own website viewers are more likely to watch for longer, although we’d still recommend keeping films to between 2-3 minutes maximum. Think about where your potential audience are most likely to be watching and make the most of your recruitment films by re-cutting and re-purposing for the different social channels where you’ll be posting.

Once you find and start to share those powerful people stories, you’ll find other people will come forward with stories they want to share. There’s no better way to recruit staff than sharing powerful films about people and your brand values.

Being featured in a film is an honour. Well-made people films make your colleagues, customers and candidates feel proud to be part of your brand story.

Click here to get Part One on getting started with people films, here for Part 2 about getting most from filming days, or here to ask a question.


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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How to retain staff with film - Part 2

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

As part of our series on the most effective video strategies for business, we have pulled together 10 tips to recruit staff with film – as well as engaging your colleagues. Part One deals with setting up your film for success, while here in Part Two we cover the business end of the process: shooting the film/s. In Part 3 we will look at getting the most from your recruitment films in the post-production stage.

1. Make it authentic

One of the most common errors in corporate film-making is writing the script for interviews in advance. Avoid this unless you are lucky enough to have colleagues who are brilliant actors.

So instead of telling contributors the exact words to say, use an interview setup to ask them questions that lead them to speak naturally.

Research is the key to ensuring that when the cameras roll, the director knows what they want the contributors to say. The director asking questions off-camera is a tried and tested way to interview. This applies to an interview on Graham Norton, to a talking head on Panorama and to your film.

The subject’s performance on camera is key too. The contributor must come across as natural, authentic, genuine. An experienced director will get this, and a really good one will get unexpected nuggets from the interview that will make the film feel really special. They could be moments of warmth, pain or humour that enhance the narrative like this film we made for Carphone Warehouse.

If this sounds complicated, it’s because it is. It’s hard to coax a great interview because most of us are not naturals on camera. Add corporate management structures into the mix, and you’ve got a risky situation where a senior manager might come across badly on camera, reflecting badly on you as the comms manager. You don’t want to go there.

This is why many experienced comms professionals prefer to use an experienced crew and director. The stakes can be too high to get it wrong.

2. Share feelings and emotions

Film is a great medium for connecting emotionally with audiences. It creates emotional bonds between your brand and the audience, and people are more likely to share emotional content.

But to do this you need to get compelling content from your people. Personal stories are a great way of doing this. People remember stories and the way they made them feel longer than they remember facts and figures.

In particular, ask people questions that about their feelings. How did that make you feel? Why is that important to you?

People relate to feelings. Also when people are talking about their feelings they tend to be more animated and expressive on camera – which makes the film not only more powerful, but also more watchable.

3. Location, location, location

We are often asked to film interviews, and are then given a small office room to film the interview, with the obligatory potted plant in the background. They almost always look dull and grey on camera and they won’t help you recruit staff.

Very few broadcast interviews are shot in small office rooms as TV crews know this will look dull. A better option is filming in unexpected office locations, like the office stairwell or the roof. It is less expected for the viewer, so it tends to keep the audience’s attention longer, even if what is being said is exactly the same as in the small dull office.

If must be a room in your building, then generally the bigger the better. Space allows the director to add more depth and perspective to the shot and potentially light and dress the room to be more visually interesting.

Another option is to film away from the office completely. If you can, make it somewhere relevant to the interviewee and the story, like their home or a place that’s relevant to a hobby featured in the film. This film we made for Middlesex University with one of their lecturers is a good example of where taking them away from their office environment added to the story.

4. Use cutaways

Without cutaways you could be relying primarily on talking heads. Pure talking heads can be watchable (more so if you make the background interesting as in point 3), and it is possible to jump cut or use quick dissolves from one sound bite to another. But general interview sequences are helped massively by additional cutaways.

Cutaways add pace and visual interest for the viewer – subliminally keeping them more interested and engaged with the film. They work because in real-life conversations, we don’t stare non-stop at the person who’s speaking. Cutaways mimic that reflex to look away briefly while listening.

Cutaways also enhance the story by giving extra information that isn’t offered by just the talking head interviews. Our brains are hard-wired to blend different sensory inputs simultaneously. Associating images and sound, when done expertly, is hugely powerful.

And, as with the interview, a really good director will spot moments and cutaways that bring something extra and special to the film. The best cutaways might not be the obvious ones because viewers are engaged more by surprising associations than predictable ones.

These are just some of the filming techniques you can use to recruit staff. For the full picture, click here to ask a question or look out for Part 3 of our blog series, which will show you what to do at the edit stage.


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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How to retain staff with film - Part 1

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

Knowing how to retain your staff is the biggest challenge for many of the comms professionals we speak to. With skills shortages, high employment and political uncertainty, good team members may well have more options than ever.

As part of our series on the most effective video strategies for business, we have pulled together 10 tips for engaging your colleagues – as well as the talent you want to attract. Here we cover prepping your film, while Part Two deals with the shoot and Part Three will cover post-production.

People stories help retain staff

There’s a phrase in business: ‘People buy from people’. Your people are your brand, so putting those that best represent your brand on film can be massively powerful.

Putting your people on film motivates colleagues, customers and recruits by:

  • demonstrating your company values
  • making people feel proud of themselves, their colleagues and what their company does
  • bringing your vision and strategy alive
  • encouraging them to share best practice stories and raise standards
  • showing customers stories of how much they rate your company
  • showing your brand personality through your people

Other than face to face, film is the best way of bringing your brand alive. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do, and people can get it wrong.

How do you make people stories?

1. Find the story

The first step is to find powerful stories that reflect your brand – that show your company’s human character and culture. Unearthing those people and their amazing stories is the most important step in how to retain staff with film. It’s also the most important one to get right.

People stories might come from colleagues or customers. Customer testimonials are the most influential, so don’t be afraid to ask them to feature. A satisfied client will often be more than happy to endorse what your business does.

You will need to hunt down the best stories, so actively ask people to send them in. Don’t just look in the work environment, some of your people will reflect your brand values in their own time. Life at HSBC is a great example of a brand covering everything from diversity to sporting achievements and weight loss. These narratives communicate powerful emotions that resonate with the brand’s values.

2. Research the story

If finding the story is the most important part of the film process, researching it is the most under-rated.

Filming is expensive so it is important to get the most from each shoot day. Brands can miss out on the best deal by filming without proper research, resulting in wasted budget. Good research costs less than a crew day, so it’s better value to prep the shoot carefully.

Smart research will include topic, locations and contributors. The result will be a crew who know how to make the most of the schedule and interviewees who are confident and well-briefed. It is possible to make an effective brand film on the hoof, but your budget will generate stronger and more predictable ROI with research.

Good research and a recce led to an extremely organised shoot on a story for Aviva, which we filmed in one day. Without the recce it would have used more crew days and added to the budget.

3. Find the best angle

Every comms professional knows that a story has a beginning, middle and an end. But how can that work amid a torrent of content on social media?

In our world of decreasing attention spans, the beginning needs to grab attention quickly. It could be something visual, or a hook at the start that makes people want to watch. In broadcast we talk about what question are you posing at the start, a question that the audience will want to keep watching to find the answer to. The same applies to brand film.

That’s partly why the research stage matters. It allows the creative team to look at the components of the story and work out the most powerful way to tell that story with the available elements.

This film from The New Zealand Police grabs the audience’s attention right from the start. The force chose an action-packed theme laced with humour that gets the tone just right.

With good pre-production, your film project will be built on strong foundations. Successful brand films deliver high ROI because video is uniquely able to generate a positive emotional response. It’s that emotional response that helps your business retain staff, but engaging content is rarely created in a hurry. If it is, good fortune plays its part.

So you’re all set to start filming. What are the expert tips to delivering your finished film in time and on budget? In Part Two of this article we look at the second key step in production: filming.

Click here to ask a question.


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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Films with honesty

Insights

Richard Thomson

Insight by Richard Thomson

A trend we’re seeing in 2018 and 2019 is brands wanting films that are genuine. Films that create emotional connections with their audiences – with real people telling real stories.

We work a lot with the finance, tech and cyber security sectors where there isn’t a physical product to show – so getting your own people or customers on film is a great way for brands to bring their purpose and personality to life.

But it’s moved on from simple talking heads. Short editorially strong films are on trend – mini documentaries. And brands are investing more time into contributor research finding those who have a great story to tell and telling it with passion.


Richard Thomson

Richard is CEO of Kaptcha. He cut his teeth at the BBC, where he directed some of their biggest and most engaging shows including Top Gear, Crimewatch and Holiday. Bringing these skills to the corporate world, he then launched the multi award-winning HSBC TV. Today he harnesses the power of film to tell the engaging stories behind the brands, creating real change in the way audiences – internal and external - feel and think.

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