Our top 5 ways to create video content remotely

It’s fair to say when it comes to video, nothing beats being on a film set. But the reality is there are certain times where you can’t… whether that’s due to budgets, timings, or because the world is self isolating and you’re having to work remotely!

So, we thought it would be useful to share a few tips on how you can still create quality video content, even in the most extreme situations:

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1. Encourage more user-generated content

Asking your team or customers to contribute footage to the film you’re making can be awesome for creating something that feels really authentic.

When it comes to sourcing the best footage, start by asking people to share content they’ve already shot on their phones or search for hashtags online and reach out to those creators to see if you can use their content.

If you’re looking for more specific shots, put together some clear instructions with example references you can share with people just to ensure the footage that comes back is usable! We’d also recommend a webinar style briefing session with all participants just to make sure any questions they have can be answered in one go.

This is exactly what we did with Lovecrafts and our Paintbox campaign and it worked a treat.

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2. Use your assets

“Repurposing” for repurposing’s sake is not something we encourage, but if you are really struggling to create anything new, we always encourage clients to look back into the assets we’ve created on set together and figure out how we can create something new out of what’s already there.

Grants did this really well with our above the line TVC campaign, taking the opportunity to use the ad to create more social content to bring into the new year.

Give something worth remembering. The gift of together. #TripleWoodTripleGood #GrantsWhisky pic.twitter.com/r2HqhelEUp

— Grant's Whisky (@Grantswhisky) November 14, 2019

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3. Take Stock

The dreaded word for any self righteous filmmaker, but actually in today’s world, leveraging stock to tell a story can be really effective.

We’re big fans of this for start ups who can’t necessarily afford everything being shot live and once you add a decent soundtrack, voiceover and any other bells and whistles, it can come out looking great. The key is to ensure the stock matches the tone of the message…for simple educational films, use sites that have huge asset libraries and a subscription model…

We’d recommend: https://www.videoblocks.com/

For a project that needs shots that are of a high quality, you may need to pay a premium for specific shots so use sites like: www.filmsupply.com which hosts content shot by cinematographers around the world.

Or if you are creating something comedic or more forgiving, we’d say own the cheese (like we did with Hiyacar) and look for old school shots and cartoon imagery that can be found on most cost effective sites.

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4. Let’s get animated

Probably the most obvious way to avoid live action shooting is creating an animation. To keep budgets and timings in line, remember it’s a two stage process… a storyboard is created and then these “still” assets are animated.

So make sure you’re really clear what you’re getting at the storyboard stage and avoid having to make changes after the animation starts! On the positives though, this can all be managed remotely…and if you have a script, VoiceOver artists can easily record remotely now too.

Here’s an example of this kind of project in play with Cambridge Audio:

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5. Hangout with your audience and/or team

Whether it’s Zoom, Skype or Google Hangouts, you have an opportunity to create some epic content out the endless meetings in your calendar. There’s an even greater opportunity to involve your customers/staff/fans who are also stuck at home and get them to record a message.

The best thing to do is send them a list of simple questions to answer so you can edit them together to be used in various ways - whether that be to generate written thought-leadership pieces on some of your challenges or even creating bitesize cutdowns to be used further down the line.

Check out this film made a while ago which we think shows the power of digital UGC very well:

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BONUS TIP: A Moving Image

One of the things we’ve been thinking about recently is how to re-think what a film can be - getting creative is all about how you can expand on the resource you have!

So consider the other elements you have at your disposal right now, whether that be through using audio, photography, titles and still graphics, or even combining all of these elements.

A great example of this is from one of our extended Mattr family, Director Miles Langley. We loved this brilliant film he created for International Women’s Day, where due to restrictions with availability of the participants, he cleverly combined photos and simple animation with some really personal voice recordings.

There are lots of other tips and tricks but hope that gives you a little bit of inspiration on your quest to create epic content whilst working remotely! If you have any questions on what you’re planning, feel free to get in touch and we’ll happily give you our two cents…

Our (now famous!) guide on how to create killer video content

We’re absolutely thrilled to be featured in Startups Magazine’s ‘Advertising and Branding’ Issue, the first edition of 2020!

It’s an awesome opportunity for us to really dive into how we work with our clients to tell meaningful and impactful stories - and share some of our biggest learnings across the whole process.

Scroll through to read our entire feature here:

Have a brief you want to chat through or you need some desperate help building out your content for the rest of this year?

Email josh@mattr.media and we’ll be in touch!

The top things that mattered to us in February

We’re back with our take on what’s happened during Feb that we think matters, and there’s been a lot going on in the world of purpose-led brands.

1) Ecover’s Laundry Against Landfill campaign

We’ve seen a huge momentum towards the end of last year of brands producing more impactful rallying cries - like this one we covered by Friends of the Earth last month. 

This month the spotlight was shone firmly on the huge amounts of material waste in the fashion industry, by Ecover’s Laundry Against Landfill campaign. We loved how their awareness piece is simply non-preachy yet effective, and how they’ve scaled the campaign to be multi touch-point, providing supplementary ‘how to’ guides on how to properly take care of our clothes on their site. 

Sara Mendez, Marketing Director at Ecover explained that  “with this campaign, we wanted to raise awareness of the problem of fashion waste. But also show people ways they can lessen their impact by falling back in love with the clothes they already own, keeping them in use, and out of landfill”.

2) Cans for Equity by BrewDog

It’s always interesting to see brands explore the ways they can attract and engage their superfans.

Look no further than what Brewdog have launched during Feb, with their Cans for Equity campaign - with the result being you can recycle 50 cans to become an ‘equity punk’ in Brewdog. 

This is such a great way to not just encourage behaviour change in the short-term, but also to show they care about their product at all stages through partnerships with First Mile to give their cans a second life. 

This initiative has created a more intimate perk for their superfans by feeling truly part of the brand, and we applaud it.

3) Sanctus’s campaign for Children’s Mental Health Week

This particular campaign is proof of how a creative can really thrive in the long-term. Sanctus, a brand providing mental health coaching businesses and individuals, decided to flip the script and create a film a couple of years ago on their socials for Children’s Mental Health Week. 

It made a comeback during the past month, and we wanted to highlight how much making this tonal switch on such a sensitive topic matters… it’s so great to see this from a brand with a more corporate audience. 

We spoke to George Bell, the brand and marketing lead at Sanctus who agrees that the power of the film also lies in the script. It’s comedic but authoritative on a subject when “all too often mental health is associated with images of someone sitting in a dark room clutching their head - this is, of course, part of mental health but it's not the full spectrum.”

“Although it's a couple of years old now, we still re-use it and still have a great response every time, which shows that it still remains uncommon for people to see mental health presented in this way.”

4) NHS x Notes to Strangers 

#notestonhs with @imalilo

411 Likes, 1 Comments - Andy Leek (@notestostrangers) on Instagram: "#notestonhs with @imalilo"

We’ve all seen these notes pop up around London over the years and one of our team is a huge fan, so we had put this in our highlight. 

Notes for Strangers started as an Instagram account by ex-creative Andy Leek, writing random notes on telephone boxes and bollards, spreading positivity and kindness where he noticed it’s severely lacking. 

This month we saw the launch of a collab with Notes to Strangers and the NHS, creating posters and notes for hospitals UK-wide to show support for nurses under severe stress. 

Hospitals tend to be a pretty bleak place and these notes are intended to spread positive messages at a time where political conversations are taking up much of the discourse around their work - it’s just a lovely thing to see.

5) ‘Meet the New Joby’ by Joby 

And finally in our roundup we wanted to include this really simple but effective repositioning campaign by Joby. If you don’t know who Joby are - they’re a tech brand that sells tripods for all different devices. 

We love how instead of putting their product front and centre, they hero their creators interacting with their product, weaving in UGC to add a mixed media element. 

It’s great to see Joby are exploring a new creative angle, becoming more experience-focused - so we’re looking forward to seeing their creative progression down the line!

Like what you’re seeing and want to create content that matters?

Email josh@mattr.media and let’s see what we can do...

BBB tips: update your tone of voice, empower your customers and how to bridge gaps between your internal departments

Our latest instalment of Brand, Bitch & Brekkie saw an interesting mix of brands from the world of fintech, HR and charity sectors.

Intriguingly, everyone’s challenges seemed to overlap, no matter the stage of their brand’s journey. Here are a few things we chatted about...

Language is crucial for your brand

A couple of our guests had just come out of their re-brand process and one key piece of advice they gave was to review your guidelines every year so that you could update them as the company grew/developed.

One brand told us that before doing this, they’d kept using the same terms for their service users for years, even though personnel had changed and the brand had moved on to better the way they communicated with their partners, users and donors.

The key to success though wasn’t just updating the guidelines for marketing, but making sure they were being genuinely implemented properly across all teams.

How to empower your customers to be involved in your content

One of the biggest debates round the table was how to use showcase your customer’s stories in your content without it feeling like you’re taking advantage of them (especially when they’re about sensitive subject matters). So how do you reassure them they aren’t just a pawn in a marketing plan? 

We all agreed that much of that was down to trust...you need to put effort in to building a real relationship with your customer so that asking them to be part of your content is something they really want to do. You also shouldn’t shy away from checking in with the customer about the narrative and make them feel a part of the creative process.

And when dealing with sensitive subject matters, transparency is key. But it’s also nice creatively to push boundaries a bit, moving away from a “sob story” towards stories that let the customer feel empowered and proud of who they are.

Breaking down barriers between internal teams

All companies find their departments work in silos. None more so than the tech and marketing departments at high growth scale ups. The shame of course, is working together should breed better work, so one of the questions posed was how to strengthen the relationship between teams. 

One brand suggested turning empty walls in offices into physical roadmaps that work for both teams, to highlight the interdependency of everyone’s tasks, but also allow everyone to physically see how each role and action impacts the other.

For tech and marketing specifically, a really interesting suggestion was to use marketing resource to test the popularity of product features before they’re built - essentially getting feedback from your community and seeing if they like or dislike what you’re building. For the brand who tried this recently, their engagement rose significantly as their community became more invested in their product, and the tech team had full access to the feedback.

Creating channels bespoke for your audiences

Some brands really struggle to build consistency in their content on social. It’s even more complicated when you have multiple audiences who you’re trying to speak to.

One of our brands round the table confessed that they struggle with projecting their brand consistently with customers and new recruits through the same channels, but a solution from another guest was to simply set up separate channels (their example was an Instagram for their staff and another for their customers).

It allows them to create consistent customer content whilst showcasing visuals of their culture, stories and their values as a way to attract prospective employees that are the right cultural fit, all through separating the Insta- channels out. Their channel has worked so well that Instagram’s direct messaging function serves as a function for their HR team, who end up finding the majority of their recruits this way! 

Digital asset and project management tools

And before we go, there were plenty of tools thrown around that help make our brand marketer’s lives a little bit easier. For people who found that not enough people action what’s said in the brand guidelines - try Brand Folder as the ultimate resource for all your teams to access everything brand. 

Another tool suggested was Social HP, which allows you to write content on your colleagues behalf, if they’re bootstrapped for time or don’t really know how to flesh out an idea.

One of our marketers was a huge fan (nee, potential ambassador!) for Monday.com, the project management tool. You may have seen their witty print campaigns on TFL at the minute. It’s great for virtually keeping track on what’s going on, saving you chasing your colleagues for the thousandth time.

Learnt something new? Want to share your own thoughts on building brands that matter? Then why don’t you book a seat to our next Brand, Bitch & Brekkie roundtable, at Riding House Cafe, Fitzrovia.

Email sunnii@mattr.media or give her a ring on 07772343952 for any questions