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 put
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
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 an
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 a
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
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 pres
It turns out that where we can shoot video is the aspect of production perhaps most disrupted by the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 Pandemic quarantine. And, with most communication - both business and personal - happening through video - almost exclusively shot at home - the focus on setting has been, well, kind of hilarious. The fact is that, while there may not be a Twitter account dedicated to it (
IMHO we spend too much time and resources on making images look good and not enough on what we’re trying to communicate. In other words, on style versus content. That’s not to say that style and image quality aren’t important. In fact, image quality or, more broadly - to include lighting, sound and setting - production values, make the first impression on the audience and set expectations for the conte
When the pandemic suddenly stopped business as usual, we took a new look at our almost twenty years of making films and videos under the Pickerel Pie banner. One thing we became aware of, over that time, working with dozens of clients on hundreds of projects, is that our clients would benefit from a better understanding of the language and grammar of film. First, because the language of visual co
Paradigm shift: Recent advances in streaming technology, software and the capabilities of personal digital devices have set the stage for a paradigmatic shift in our perception of, and approach to, virtual, streaming large multi-location meetings - what we call Virtual Town Halls (VTH). Also, there are some other powerful drivers - including concern about the cost, logistics, time (away fr