Hello again. We’ve been searching the internet today for video production companies who are listed under “video production company” on google, looking for any new additions for the year 2011. We’ve blogged previously on advice to firms looking to use video production companies. There are so many out there today that it can be difficult to work out whose who and why one should be chosen over another.

The top video production companies based in London and the surrounding area are all listed quite highly on google (thats corporate video production companies by the way), such as WailingBanshee, Scorch London, Spectrecom, Skeleton Productions and Wild Lion Media. Anyway, we decided to check out the websites of the mentioned companies to see if we could find any changes and give any hints to you guys on who might be worth a call. After a few hours of searching we came to the conclusion that not much has changed across the board, Scorch London have still got an impressive showreel on their homepage but no change, Spectrecom are looking professional but no signs of any additional content here. Wailing Banshee on the other hand have had a re-design of their website which in all honesty was desperately needed and now its looking much better. The most notable change however was the website of Wild Lion Media, the company have launched a whole new brand, colours and logo and have stuck up a pretty neat showreel to go with it all, in fact we thought it was such a change that we’ve decided to post their showreel onto the blog (which may seem a little cheeky given that one of bloggers works for the company but we genuinely believe its worth a look at!).

Hello peeps. It’s been so long since we last posted on here. We had some technical issues in October last year that we just couldn’t fix and finally we’ve found the time to get the site back up and working and once again, start blogging. So we recently saw this animated piece on vimeo and we thought we just had to share it. Nothing in particular to talk about here, other than the fact that if your an animator, then be creative and show the world what you can produce!

Just a quick post following some more popular questions…

Were getting asked where to buy equipment from pretty frequently now so we thought we would give you two suggestions:

If your based in the States or anywhere else in the world for that matter then you might want to look at B&H, they have long been one of the world leaders in video production gear as well as photography and anything else creative. It is sometimes worth importing into the UK depending on the currency rate as they stock PAL equipment too.

B&H

And for UK customers we would recommend using Pro Active:

Pro Active

Hope that helps!

We are constantly being asked this question! Unfortunately corporate video prices are not very easy to compare, they are simply not like car insurance or a pot of marmite! The problem is their are significant levels of quality, equipment used, customer service, length of production and length of final production. Some corporate video companies charge by the hour, some by the day, some by project and some simply ask for a budget and max it out, so how can you be sure your getting value for money and how can you learn what to expect?

Well, thankfully our editors including myself are familiar with a variety of pricing formats across a number of companies within the video industry and this is what we have got to say…

Firstly we need to determine what kind of video your looking for, we cant possibly give you a brief on every type of video but we’ll go through the 3 most popular formats of video within the corporate industry, these are Conference Video, Talking Head Video and Product Demonstration Video and were going to go through them one by one….

Conference Video

Example of client brief: A full day conference in the centre of London, six speakers will be talk to an audience throughout the day, each speaker will talk for 45 minutes. We require all six speakers to be filmed and we would like the talks edited onto a DVD to distribute to our attendees.

The Question: How much should this cost?

We have compiled together numerous rate cards from different sources, analysed their work and have suggested a recommended price and why.

In order for a video production company to carry out this task, they will need to meet with you/the client, they will need to draw up a quote, they will need to organise a cameraman and equipment to be at your venue for a full day and they will need to capture and edit the footage in order to produce your DVD. We believe a professional company should quote you a price in the region of: £900

The reasoning behind this as follows, our suggested cost for a cameraman and HD equipment is £360 for a full day, some firms can charge up to £600 for this, not worth it. Six 45 minute talks will take 6 x 45 minutes to capture, thats half a day for an editor, and it will take a further half day to put these clips into a sequence and edit the audio and fade ins and outs, thus taking a full day. The cost of an editor can range between £300 and £500 per day, we suggest you stick to the £350 mark for a conference video. They will then need to compress the videos to a DVD format, this can take a few hours but should be done overnight to save working hours time. It is fair to assume you may be charged a fee of around £100 for this although it may be hidden under the editing cost. A master DVD disc will then need to be designed and two copies of your disc will need to be burnt. This should not cost anymore than £50. Further copies of the disc should not be costing you anymore than a few pence or at most £2 if your asking for litho printed discs…

Talking Head Video

Example of a client brief: We require four short videos for our website, each video will be of a different member of our staff talking about their relevant job and personality. The running time of these videos will be no longer than 3 minutes each and we would be happy to have them filmed at our office.

The Question: How much should this cost?

Well, for this kind of a work, a video production company is going to need to meet with you, they will most likely ask you to prepare your own scripts, if they offer to do this for you, it can cost up to £400 extra so we would recommend you do this yourself, you are also the most knowledgable person on this topic, (we hope). They will need to send a director and cameraman to your premises and will most likely need to bring along various lighting equipment, the filming should only last a few hours but allow for a full day for preparation of shots and time for re-takes. The editing should then take no more than a full day although you may wish to see a draft video and make a few minor changes so expect to be billed for a day and a half. The videos will then need to be compressed into a format suitable for your website, its always handy to put the video production company in direct contact with your web developers for this stage.

We believe a professional company should be charging you: £1100 *but no more*

This cost was based on the days filming costing approximately £450 for a cameraman and assistant and full lighting kit. A day and a half of an editors time at £360 per day, thus costing £540 and a further £120 for the conversion of the four web videos, charged at £30 each. Again, the costs of meeting with you and discussing your ideas should all be hidden into those costs so dont expect them to be extras, if they are then expect the other costs to be lower.

We must also mention at this point that there may be companies offering to do this service for you for a lower rate, maybe even as low as £750 this can be because they are happy to charge for a half day filming or they believe they can edit the videos far quicker. However you need to be wary of the companies that charge far lower, if there are companies offering this service for less than £500 it may be because they are not going to provide the necessary lighting equipment, they may not offer you any draft edits and the quality may be poor when the finished videos are transferred to your website. The last thing you want is to pay for a professional video to be made and then see it provided to you via youtube!

Product Demonstration Video

Okay, so things become rather complicated here so were not going to estimate a price but we’ll give you some clues into how long things should be taking and what they should cost. An average product demonstration video is going to require filming, editing, titles and effects, royalty free music, professional voice over and dvd duplication. To give you an idea of how pricing may work we believe that one full day of filming for a product demonstration video amounts to 2 full days of editing, so if you have a long 2 day shoot, then expect to be billed for 4 days worth of editing, you also need to bear in mind your script and length of video, for a five minute video, you should be expecting to pay around £75 for royalty free music and you should expect to pay about £200 for a professional voice over. The filming costs should be around the £350 per day and the same goes for the edit, titles and effects are normally charged at £250 per day but you may not need them, if your simply asking for your logo to be displayed throughout and a couple of name titles to appear during the video, then this should really come in under the edit fee.

As an example, if you were looking for a quote for a 5 minute product demonstration video that required a 2 day shoot, then you’ll need 4 days of editing, a professional voice, royalty free music, dvd mastering and titles and effects. You should be looking for  quote around: £2500, if the video only requires a 1 day shoot as the product is easy to film and locate then expect this quote to come in at around £1500.

Conclusion

So we hope this has been of some benefit for you, ultimately your probably wandering now how to find a company that will do this for you, our suggestion, search video production company in google or a similar search engine and call a few of the top 20 natural listings in Google. We would suggest you avoid calling the larger companies who deal in adverts and films as their pricing structure and model is likely to be drastically different to those that deal in the corporate sector, so look out for the companies that talk about corporate video and don’t be afraid to question them on prices! Most of these firms will budge on price if you just simply ask.

Suggested Companies to Call & Request a Quote

DragonFly Productions  —  Shoot You Video Production  —  Spectrecom  —  Tallboy  —  Wailing Banshee  —  Wild Lion Media

Generic Animation.

This may seem like an odd title, but we thought it time to bring up this topic. Generic animation is fast becoming an ever popular phenomenon in the world of corporate video production. We thought we would show you a quick example designed by London based animator, Adam Arnot Drummond who frequently freelances for Wild Lion Media Ltd, (www.wildlionmedia.co.uk).

Although this animation may not be the most interesting or graphical you have seen, the point we wish to explain is sufficed by the use of this clip. Many companies are turning to video to market their services and products and gradually animation is being used more often. The reason we believe is simple. Lets take the travel industry as an example. If you are offering holidays in numerous destinations it can be difficult to have a promotional video produced cost effectively given the locations of all of your destinations, not only this but many luxury travel marketers wish to portray fin details about their trips allowing the customers to gain their own experiences on holiday. This is why we believe animation can work with your video.

An animated clip can portray what you sell, product or service, however it can be far more generic and less detailed therefore becoming more cost effective and less subjective. You can be creative and innovative with your designs depending on which video production company you use of course! Through the use of a voice over, you can explain the important factors about you whilst keeping the viewer interested with great visual effects.

So, when planning your corporate video, think about animation, we’ll be positing an article shortly about the uses of animation within product demonstration videos soon.

Its been a while since we posted any new material on here for you guys and were sorry about that! Truth is we’ve been too busy in thew world of video ourselves to offer any insight. But we have found one new video/animation that we believe is more than worths sharing. This video is 16 minutes long so be free up some time and turn on your speakers to watch this one. Created by a team of French professional animators, this short film opened the Sundance Film Festival and won an academy award in its category of short animated film.

We don’t have any particular advice on how to utilise this video for your benefit, this is more of a recommendation from us! If anything though, you can at least take inspiration from this video and for those of you working within the corporate video sector, there is some very important issues to take into account from this that could potentially lead to an improvement in your videos. The storyline is key here, the clever idea of using logos of major global brands to explain this entertaining story is indeed worth taking note. Its powerful, simple and incredibly effective.

Take a watch yourself and let us know what you think!

Human beings respond to other human beings. It’s a matter of fact. Thats why face to face meetings are so valuable within a business environment, its why you take your most valued customers to lunch with you or to the golf course. Human interaction on a personal level is by far superior to any other medium of communication, be it email, telephone, letter, photo or video. However, it is also a luxury that many people cannot simply afford. Lets say for argument sake, your company operates out of an office in London, UK. If a potential customer from Newcastle or as far away as South Africa happens to be somewhat interested in your services, it could be an expensive gamble to offer to go and meet them and win them over especially if they turn out to be completely uninterested in the service, let alone your business.

Video is the best answer there is, albeit at the moment. Whilst its never going to be quite as personal as a face to face meeting, its an extremely efficient way of portraying your business’s personality. Talking head videos meet this demand and for a small fee too. There is a huge array of video production companies to choose from.

A talking head video allows you to introduce yourself and your business, it conveys your expertise and professionalism whilst also showing your potential customers who you really are. Without even having to say anything about the subject, it clearly shows you have nothing to hide, you are honest and confident enough in the service you provide to put your face on the web!

As I have already previously mentioned, humans respond to other humans, if your website is opened and a video pops up with a member of staff saying the simple word “hello”, you’ve already taken a huge step towards securing their business over a rival without video, this potential customer knows your face, humans tend to trust people when they can see them, more so than you would trust a salesman over the phone, it is quite simply more comfortable.

And you can do so much more than say hello with your video, you can help navigate people around your site, let them know whats on and whats on offer, what you do, how your different, in fact anything you want to be quite honest.

Our example video shown at the top of this article was filmed and produced by hertfordshire video production company, Wild Lion Media Ltd, who specialise in the production of high quality corporate video for affordable prices. The example video shows the director of First Ascent Group, talking about his business and what they do, it is one of three videos on their new personal website.

Hi there, so we’ve just seen the newest Nike advert which is both on television and the web and thought we should at the very least share it with all you guys!

This latest video produced by Nike has clearly been produced at a huge cost but it is the way in which companies such as Nike approach advertising, making the most of events that we can all relate to, such as in this case the World Cup.

There is a common assumption that corporate video is boring, dull and painfully time consuming but this does not have to be the case! Of course when having a corporate video produced, you need to make sure you use a decent reputable video production company but its you that needs to give the video production company your aims and overall feel. I thought it worth posting this video in order to spark some imagination into the way you think and approach the making of a corporate video.

Nike have clearly shown the world here that its not all about talking about the benefits of your product and why you should buy it etc, they have taken a far simpler approach which in return attracts more people to view the video and ultimately be interested by it. This video is running on television for the duration of the world cup but has also been posted by Nike onto youtube and has to date received more than 11 million views!

The focus of the video is on one common subject that we are all interested in, the world cup, so they have quite simply put together a really interesting take on the world cup and its outcomes, there is inevitably a couple of shots of the brand logo, most noticeably the shot of Ronaldo’s shooting boots before he steps up for the free kick but other than this there is no in your face voices or text.

Watch it for yourself and think out of the box when planning your corporate video!

Online viewers looking for a place to stay have to come expect highly resourceful websites from hotel groups regardless of their size or location. Name any of the big hotel chains across the globe and their sure to have a video somewhere, whether it be on their homepage or hidden somewhere amongst the numerous pages of spiel, who knows!, but there’s sure to be one lurking around.

I guess one of the major factors contributing to the lack of video use for smaller hotels is the common belief that the video is far too costly and only an investment available to a chain, not true!

The video production industry to the corporate sector is highly competitive with some companies boasting prices which are less than the cost of an Ipad! Video for the hotel industry can be highly effective, both in being able to showcase all your hotel has to offer in services, activities and location and also in its amazing ability to be viewed by an infinite number of people for no extra cost!

East Anglian based video production company, Wild Lion Media, are just one of many video production companies who produce videos for the hotel market, regardless of size, stature or budget. The videos that can be produced is completely without limits and you can work with any video production company to decide exactly how you would like to approach your video project.

The video above is just one example of how Wild Lion Media and the Milsom Hotel Group decided to approach the use of video. This video showcases the “behind the scenes” scenario at the hotel groups flagship restaurant on a normal weekday. It builds up a sense of atmosphere and excitement and gives the customer an insight that they would normally be ‘blind’ too.

Have you considered giving your online business a face? Because many others have! Let me put a questions to you here and some assumptions. Lets say for arguments sake, you run a solicitors firm, you offer a service to people, a service dependant on your professionalism, personality and persona. Now, lets say a potential customer comes to meet you in your offices, as they walk through your office entrance, do you completely ignore them and leave a sign saying, “Please wander around our office, feel free to read through all our material to find out the answers to your questions” ? Of course not! You greet your customer, you make them feel comfortable, offer them a seat and a coffee and then answer all of their questions quickly and efficiently. So, why would you not want to do the same with your website? Without video, your website is effectively exactly the scenario we have just described, its a library of information with no-one to help. It doesn’t matter what service you offer, in this day and age, people expect to be spoken too and offered a professional service. Websites contrary to popular belief can be personal, you only need a short video of you saying “hello and welcome to our business”, you give the customer a little detail about who you are and what you do and then ask them to give you a call on 12345 78910, its so simple but ultimately very effective, you have not asked your customer to trawl through page after page of information on your website, rather you have allowed them to click one button to get through to your site and then they have been able to sit in the comfort of their own chair whilst you speak to them. People respond to a face, its so much more difficult top ignore! This ind of video can be applied to numerous scenarios, it doesn’t just have to be used to introduce yourself or your company, it can be used to answer questions, instead if an FAQ section for example or it can be used in the following way – Let me show you an example video produced by a video production company for the ‘Business Leaders Network’ of Cambridge, UK.

As you can see this video has been applied in an interview styled format, questions are displayed across the screen and a person answers them, this is far more interesting than reading the answer yourself in the form of Times New Roman! Lets be honest here, its the year 2010, video is the new way of online communication, we have been watching adverts and responding to them on television for decades now, the internet is no different!