FAST TURNAROUND VIDEO PRODUCTION FOR CRISIS COMMS

NEED FILMS FAST? WE CAN HELP.

The pandemic was an opportunity for us to demonstrate our ability to be responsive and creative. We’ve always taken great pride in being able to turn around video projects absurdly quickly, even when it’s not crisis comms.

Our preparation for the logistics of continuing to work during the Coronavirus was fairly thorough and the switch was seamless. And as we’re pretty systems driven it was straightforward to determine how many days of work each person had left and to make informed decisions on when to furlough staff if necessary. But ensuring we were able to work was only half the problem.

We also had to ensure that we had work to do.

Jump straight to the videos here or read on.

“THE ART OF LIFE IS A CONSTANT READJUSTMENT TO OUR SURROUNDINGS.”

– Okakura Kakuzō

WHAT TO DO?

At heart we are a comms company so we started thinking about what video work we could generate under our lockdown. So we asked ourselves the following questions:

1. What would our clients most likely need us for?
2. Which projects could we realistically execute while film shoots were difficult?
3. Were there circumstances under which we could still shoot video?
4. What planned video shoots could transition to animation?

Then we started pitching like crazy to our clients and our prospects.

CRISIS COMMS – LARGE CORPORATE

This first, fast turnaround project, was for AGCO. One of our biggest and longest-standing corporate video clients asked us to create a message of support and reassurance for their end customers – farmers. By accessing our thorough and extensive archive of AGCO video footage and topping that up with stock footage we were able to create a short, meaningful film. This was then recreated for the two other manufacturing brands that AGCO supports and localised into 11 European languages. We’ve been working with AGCO for years on such projects as this animated explainer video and this promo for adblue.

GETTING CREATIVE

Finally, Cotswolds Distillery were a completely new client for us.
We were approached by Cotswolds Distillery, a brand that had done very little commercial video previously, to create some online ads that could be shot during the lockdown. Therefore they needed us to create something that would not only work during these difficult times but would also be a reflection of them. But it was also important to create something that was a little light-hearted.

We got the go-ahead on the Wednesday, shot on the Thursday, post on the Friday and released the first film on the Saturday. As a result of CV-19, the brand films were shot with a crew of 2, just a camera operator and the director in PPE. We’re immensely proud of these and you can find further details on this project here.