Branding

I recently read an article by Aaron Dinin in Entrepreneurship Handbook where he talks about how important it is for start ups to consider branding. It seems it is one of the three main things some venture capitalists look for when deciding whether to invest in a business. 

That makes sense as they eventually want to sell a business on and its identity, or brand, can be its strongest asset. I’ve worked as writer and researcher in both brand and corporate identity early in my career and have filmed start ups too and so I completely agree.

It is quite hard though, as a small business or start up, to generate a brand other than through graphics; logo, website and social media because there is only so much you can convey visually, but video is the perfect medium to get over your ‘story’ and let you present your ‘brand’, your identity.

Aaron talks about ‘brandification’, a term I’d not come across but again it makes sense, you’re not necessarily needing to create a strong commercial brand as we used to, in this situation you are looking  to sum up the core values and message of the business. The key is to keep it real, it can be local, quirky and personable, you are looking to connect and resonate with an audience. Actually that really isn’t that different to what we used to do for big brands.

The clip above uses mostly stock footage, from Motion Array and Pexels, two libraries I use a lot to supplement footage I take when required. Here, using stock footage, and a bit of mine, allows me show examples of different businesses and build short visual stories with clips to emphasise some key points. As I’ve used a lot of stock footage here, rather than add closed captions as I normally would, I’ve burnt the subtitles into the footage.

I used footage of London and Paris as a back drop to talking about my research experience across Europe, an example of a robot passing an item to another robot and mechanised cake production to show ventures an investor may be interested in. 

I used a short clip of a woman kneading dough while talking about my filming start ups in the food sector, I then cut to agricultural equipment being worked on including welding and an arial shot of a yard full of machinery, I live near Worcester and agriculture is a huge part of the economic and cultural life here. 

I’ve worked a lot in construction and show lots on my showreel but here, I’ve used a clip of solar panels being installed in an industrial setting.

I then move to a pair of musicians being recorded and the mixing deck, something again I’ve shot a lot in the past but not for quite a while and not 4k, so using stock footage here was great.  The next clip is from an American classic car workshop from one of my favourite studios, I’ve shot lots of cars in the UK but visually I do like 60’s American muscle cars.

The next clip is of a psychotherapist with clients and I’ve used photos and clips from this studio for websites in the sector, I’ve filmed therapists before but never with a client and to be able to use clips with actors is great for communicating more of the experience. 

The next clip is of a cute dog having its ear inspected by a vet, that leads to a manager greeting a customer at a car service facility.

The nexts clips are from another favourite studio and feature a young woman helping a man with a prosthetic leg in a gym. There are a series of clips covering different exercises and it is beautifully shot.

One of the achievements I’m proudest of was undertaking an online market research to interview and survey surgeons across the US and Europe about using prosthetic limbs in surgery. The client was keen to get as much feedback as possible so I set up a group chat on social media where they could compare experience with each other and the client, the uptake was amazing and it was a huge success.

We then go to a shot of financiers looking at figures, and cut to scenes of a group of bee hives with a worker, we close into one with the honeycomb being extracted, to filling jars with the honey. Next a jewellery designer sketches a pendant, then we see the final piece being polished, and a retail environment where her jewellery can be sold.

The final closing clips are of delicious looking deserts made by hand, cutting to a baker making pizza dough and we finish with a great shot of a vintage medium format camera panning to take a shot. 

Outside of what is in my showreel, most of my work has been for advertising and PR agencies in London and New York and everything is usually covered by non disclosure agreements, limiting what I can show, also I’ve often been producer and or director, so not always behind the camera, and stock footage allows me create a kind of representation of the sort of work I’ve been involved with.

My Showreel does however show work for direct clients in retail, construction and consultancy.