Corporate Video Production In London: Films That Earn Their Budget

Corporate video has a reputation, and it earned it. Stock music, a drone shot of the office, someone in a lanyard saying “at the end of the day it’s all about our people”. The reason those films exist is not that the companies are boring. It is that nobody decided what the film was for before it was shot.

Start with the job the film has to do

Every film we make in London starts with the same question: what does this need to make someone do? Book a call. Trust the contractor. Turn up next year. Share the clip. Once that is answered, the length, the tone, the cameras and the edit all follow from it. When it is not answered, you get four minutes of everything and a film that nobody finishes.

A conference in a day, a film in a week

Trimble’s Connected Construction event in London is a good example of a film with a clear job: show the people who did not come what they missed, fast enough that it is still relevant. Multi-camera coverage of the sessions and the floor, cut into a highlights film and delivered as a fast wrap for the brand’s channels. No lanyard interviews, no drone over the venue, because the film did not need them.

The brand film that is actually a case study

For G&H Building Services the job was different: a contractor who needed to win the next tender, not fill a feed. So the film follows a live scheme from works to handover, with ground cinematography and licensed aerial for a before-and-after that a bid team can put in front of a client. It is a corporate film in the sense that a company paid for it. It is really a piece of evidence.

How to brief a corporate video

• Audience first. Who watches it, where, and what do they do next. Everything else is downstream of this.
• Length is a decision, not a default. Ninety seconds is plenty for most things. If it needs to be six minutes, there should be a reason.
• Ask for the cutdowns in the quote. The master, plus vertical and square versions for the channels. One shoot, several films.
• Real people, prepared properly. Interviews work when the person has been told the three things the film needs from them and nothing else.
• Fixed quote. Shoot days, crew, edit, grade, deliverables and revision rounds, one number. A day rate is not a quote.

What a London studio should give you

A director who has read the brief and argued with it. A DoP with cinema-line cameras rather than a camcorder on a tripod. In-house edit and grade so the film looks like one thing. Same crew from quote to delivery. That is what video production means at Northworks, and it is the reason clients like Zego and the Financial Times come back.

If you have a corporate film to make and a suspicion it could be better than the last one, send us the brief.