A sneak peek at shooting and producing the"Choose Procurement" campaign for Amplify Procurement
I’ve recently wrapped up a very interesting production for one of our corporate clients. It was one of those jobs where you get a chance to really catch the wave of creativity, learn a lot, and deal a little bit with stereotypes and patterns. In my latest article on corporate videos, I was talking about the do’s and don’ts in regard to producing corporate videos in order to make them different and simply - not boring. So what makes a good corporate video? In a nutshell, there are a couple of important things to take into account. The most important one is to think strategically when planning any video production and defining goals. Doing videos for the sake of just having them is not the best solution. Another important thing to do is research - on your client, on the competition, on the industry etc. Doing this right can be priceless. Another thing is building a clear message and that always goes with putting story-telling first. And last but not least - don’t be afraid of being “a little out there” with ideas. More often than not, that will work in your favour and help you stand out and exceed clients’ expectations.
I’m really happy and confident to say that the “Choose Procurement” campaign launch video that we've done with Amplify Procurement had all those elements and it was (is) a fantastic journey.
Amplify and “Choose Procurement” campaign
Amplify Procurement is a procurement consultancy company that provides specialised procurement services to their clients and helps them to meet targets and get the job done. For all those who don’t deeply understand procurement (including myself), think of it as a process of purchasing goods or services, but on a strategic and business level (so it’s not just everyday shopping ;)). Michael, Mandy and Arron - the management and the people leading this video project - have found Noisy Creations while looking for recommended video services on Clutch.com (thank you Clutch!). I got an email from Michael saying that they need video production services for their planned video campaign. From the very first meeting that I had with the team, I knew that it was simply not going to be yet another typical corporate video, with guys in ties talking to the camera and a boring narrative. And don’t get me wrong - there’s nothing wrong with talking to the camera, whenever that’s a messaging that is needed or that’s just the company tone of voice! I was just excited about this project being more stimulating creatively.
If you were reading my previous articles you know, that we’re really putting our clients’ goals as a priority. In fact, it’s so important to me that if Mötley Crüe was asked to write a rock anthem for Noisy Creations’ marketing campaign, you bet it would be called “Goals, Goals, Goals” (<laughing hysterically>). Jokes aside, it was no different with Amplify, and we’ve started with learning about their goals, objectives and the challenges that were at the core of the “Choose Procurement” campaign. The general message of the campaign is that careers in procurement are not boring as one might think, and it’s a great time to choose procurement as a career path. And all that had to be put in an entertaining video, different from others. To prove this equation of hashtags seemed to be tricky, to say the least: #corporate + #procurement = #entertainingfilm?! A real head-scratcher, right? Luckily, the team at Amplify are super creative and awesome people, with who it was a pure pleasure to work with. They wanted to write the storyboard themselves and work with us on it to turn it into video magic. So the fun began!
Through creative chaos and production to telling the story
More often than not, the creative process starts with total chaos. And that can be really great! What I like to do, however, is to add at least a tiny element of control to the process from the very beginning. One of the tools I’m using to control the creative chaos is a mood board in Milanote. The whole pre-production and scriptwriting process usually starts with putting everything that comes to mind on the board: from a brief to goals, from colours to fonts, from references links to random scene ideas, and the list goes on. And that magic usually is happening there for a while. In the case of this video campaign, given the Amplify Team’s creativity, it was just bursting with ideas and inspirational references. We were also trying to find some examples of really out-of-the-box videos produced by professional services or consulting companies and it was actually a pretty hard job. But that left a space for us to fill the gap 😎 As a producer, director and DP for this production, I took over the storyboard draft written by Amplify and turned it into a script and shot list so we could enter the second step of pre-production. When you’ll watch the final video (link below if you haven’t already), you will understand why the pre-production, planning and preparation were absolutely crucial for the whole project. A bunch of people running in the streets of St Leonards, a stuntman jumping over a car, an angry guy smashing a keyboard in the office… it wasn’t quite a run-and-gun job and there were a couple of challenges to overcome. Shockingly, when working with a stuntman, it’s not the stunt itself that’s problematic (it’s of course easy for me to say cause I wasn’t the one jumping), but obtaining necessary permits, and just when you think you have almost everything, you have to deal with councils and find a way to make the things safe, but also time and budget efficient for the client. Not to mention the stunt equipment, tramps, crash mats and so on. Add a group of runners to that and you have a mixture of things like safety, logistics, communication and many more to take care of. Luckily, the Noisy Creations team came to the rescue and we’ve managed to take care of the whole production without any bumps. Speaking of teams! The scriptwriting led us to shooting a story of people who are running throughout the video (and more and more people joining them), dropping their current careers and running towards new careers in procurement, dealing with some obstacles on their way. Great idea, great story, that’s what we were looking for! One of the other challenges though was the fact that Amplify decided to use the actual team in the video instead of actors, except for the stunt man of course! As cool and fun as I thought this idea was, I wasn’t sure how it’s gonna actually work on set. My concerns turned out to be totally unnecessary and the whole team were fun, professional and easy to work with on set.
Showtime!
Shooting and the actual production is always the most exciting part of the whole video production process. I have to admit though, that I was a little stressed when that time was coming. The shooting was planned for only one day, but there were quite a lot of things to coordinate in the days before and after, plus we had another day booked for capturing the voice-overs for the video in the studio (btw big thanks to Nick and Forbes Street Studios for helping with that!). But that was this motivating, and pushing forward kind of stress. The bottom line was that we were really well prepared! I knew what we needed to achieve on the day, all the shots and production-related things, but what appeared to me as being most important was to make sure, that the Amplify team had a really good time on set. Even though they had to act and follow our directing, I wanted them to feel comfortable and natural, cause I knew that if they don’t, it’s not gonna show on screen. Creating this atmosphere on set worked also for me and helped me to focus on the right things throughout the day. And it really was an awesome day! Thanks to the Amplify team, the amazing weather, and our team at Noisy Creations everything was smooth. In one of the earlier case studies where I was talking about working with Grace Amos on her music video, I mention trust as a truly important element of producing videos, and frankly, it relates to any type of video production. “Choose Procurement” was a set where not only I could trust my team, but I also felt trusted by the client. I really wish all the filmmakers to have only such corporate video clients!
Watch the behind the scenes video
Aftermath
We were able to deliver the final video within a week of shooting and visiting the studio. Editing and grading were actually really easy and fun too because the client and I knew exactly what we wanted and the pre-production (again) was the key to achieving that. A couple of minor tweaks and we landed with the video exactly where we wanted. The reception was great and the team at Amplify really liked what they got. “Special thanks to the team at Noisy Creations for working with us to turn our ideas into this awesome video. We had so much fun!” – that’s probably the best gratitude we could get. There’s something super nice about this feeling when you see that the client’s not fully satisfied with the effects of your work and that you somehow felt along the way that it’s going in the right direction this whole time. Our clients’ feedback and deeper evaluation are a part of every video project we do, and I never skip a follow-up meeting. What stood out to me and was a really nice comment during the follow-up chat with Michael, Mandy and Arron was that I never said something was impossible or too out there, and that they didn’t expect that all the ideas will come to life, but they did, and that’s what they were looking for. Well, I guess it’s not always so important to say “no” 😉As I mentioned earlier, “Choose Procurement” is the whole campaign, not just a one-off video, so “to be continued” is more than in place here. I’m happy that we’ve become a reliable video partner for Amplify and I look forward to future video productions and rethinking the approach to corporate videos together.
Take a look at the final video!
Key learnings & summary
When I think about the key takeaways from this production, I think I’d say that following those do’s and don’ts that I keep talking on and on about really worked. It seems that the whole process, workflow, approach and methodology let us drive the desired results for the client and what’s more, let me learn new things while being fully prepared for the mission. So when you think about producing a corporate video next time, keep in mind that if comes to us: - they’re all about goals and strategic thinking
- they’re not boring, and we’re happy to bring crazy ideas to life
- it’s important that we build a partner relationship and we’ll make sure to fully understand what you’re looking for
- producing corporate video doesn’t have to make your company bankrupt!
Corporate videos can be made different!
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