We were just working on a new episode of #corproate film school about Talking Head shots when this very momentous talking head shot was broadcast. Some notes on the King’s inaugural address: https://vimeo.com/749251403 Want more tips on making corporate videos? Sign up for the Corporate Film School newsletter!
George Martin: “Location isn’t really a main problem at the moment” Paul McCartney: “Breathing is, actually.” Sure, Get Back is amazing on many levels but, setting-wise, you’re stuck in one big and then one small plain room for most of the 8 hours of the hit new doc series - (Peter Jackson’s [Lord of the Rings] re-cutting of the Beatles footage that was shot for Let It Be [1970, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg]. So, it’s ironic that discussion of setting turns out to be one of the major narrative threads (perhaps eclipsing even whether and how to keep George in the band) of the documentary. It’s a great opportunity for us, interested in…
How do you find, hire and develop creative talent for an in-house corporate video department? How do you appeal to really smart, creative people when the job is within a corporate environment (not typically assumed to be creatively stimulating)? And how do you keep them motivated and sharp? As sophisticated and creative video production increasingly becomes a capability that more companies want to have in-house, the challenge of managing creative talent within a corporate environment is on the minds of many of our clients. How do you appeal to really smart, creative people when the job is within a corporation (not typically assumed to…
https://player.vimeo.com/video/563771121 If just capturing scenes in the camera was all it took to make a great video, we’d all have a shot at being Fellini or Zhao. Editing, and its’ fascinating psychological effects, is what makes film narratives sing. But, maybe you don’t want to be Zhao or Fellini (why, are you busy?), you just want to make a video that is engaging and crisp. Understanding how film editing works, the magic of pictorial juxtaposition and the grammar it creates is essential to making and talking about high-quality video. In this episode of Corporate Film School, we explore the mystery and actual magic of the…
If producers spent nearly as much time actually trying to cultivate it as they do faking it, we might see a lot more of it in corporate videos but authenticity is one of those qualities, like charisma, that is devilishly difficult to define, much less achieve. Yet, it’s considered to be among the most important characteristics of a successful appearance in a video. Almost everyone I talked to while putting this episode of CFS together had a different take on authenticity; some thought it’s innate and could not be learned, others have various tricks they use to conjure it and one colleague is convinced that…
On the surface (ha), My Octopus Teacher is your typical man meets mollusk love story. But, in terms of film language (below the surface, as it were), there are some very interesting things going on: for starters, it’s almost 95% b-roll with voice-over. The story is told - and we’ll get into the filmmaking aspects of that later - by Craig Foster, a filmmaker*, whose year-long relationship with an octopus in the wild is, basically, the whole story. * It’s interesting that he’s credited neither as a director (Pippa Ehrlich & James Reed) nor a writer (same) even though his recounting of his personal experience is the only narration/voice in…
https://vimeo.com/486119015 As corporate communications diversifies, what should the “Voice of God” sound like? And do we really believe that someone (anyone) can tell us the way the world works? In this episode of Corporate Film School, we address some of the issues confronting the use of voice-over - the (typically) unseen narration heard over images - that sets the tone and, to an unacknowledged degree, the authorial personality and background of a video. Who do we hear when your company speaks? Filmed By: Christian Carmody Edited By: Amos Damroth
My home control room! After decades of doing it live in hotel ballrooms all over the world, our client’s global meeting was now going to include 2 global live streams, 14 high-profile webcasts with VIP guest speakers hundreds of Zoom breakouts over 4 days in two time zones … what could possibly go wrong??? Spoiler Alert! PLENTY. And, despite – perhaps even, because of - that, it was all good. Because hey, if you’re not trying to push the (constantly expanding) boundaries with your virtual events you’re not trying hard enough! Over the next two weeks I’ll share 10 tips culled from the last 8…
In this fifth episode of Corporate Film School we look at an essential element of film language, particularly in documentary, that, despite its snappy name, gets very little attention: B-Roll. We propose that, in fact, B-Roll is so elemental to filmmaking and yet so invisible in the discourse around it, that it is the Dark Matter of the film universe, holding everything together and determining the shape and texture of every film and video we watch. We also get to use this phrase, “like androids in some brightly-lit dystopia” which we feel has also been too rarely deployed in connection with Corporate Video. https://vimeo.com/478961517
Yes, I’m upset about how cavalierly many productions now treat this vital signifier - where is the person on camera looking - but, I’m not nearly as angry as Travis Bickle is about this issue so, count yourself lucky. In this episode of Corporate Film School, we pin down the meaning and importance of eyelines. The thing is that eyelines are one of the MOST powerful aspects of a filmed presentation. It’s the difference in impact between shooting a bullseye or just shooting in the air. I get that directors and producers have become bored with the traditional straight-to-camera or just-off-camera eyelines and want to…