The below are a sample of the questions we are asked often. Not every question. Not every answer. Not yet.
Working on it.
We offer this as a permanent Work In Progress…
Videos can cost anywhere from €1500 to €1.5 million+. The factors that influence where your video project falls within that breathtakingly large range include, but are not limited to, length of shoot, length of post-production, special effects and motion graphics, the music you’d like to use, whether or not actors will be involved, hair, makeup, wardrobe, scripting, number of cameras, size of the film crew, animations, and many, many more. Each project is unique; that’s why we create bespoke costs for each and every person who contacts us wanting to make a video. It doesn’t matter if you want to film your company’s holiday party next year’s oscar-contender, we’ll work with you to create a price that matches the scale and ambition of your project.
Another common, and commonly misunderstood question. A 2-minute corporate interview video, for internal use, can take a few days to plan, one day to shoot and two-four weeks to edit. A 30-second tv commercial can take months of planning, weeks of shooting, and weeks more of editing. We never give time frames until we learn a little bit about what you want. That’s why we begin every project with a chat about what makes your video unique and what you want it to accomplish when you put it out into the world. Once we know a little bit about you and your project, we build a time frame that most precisely suits your needs. We have found, on average a project takes 6 weeks from beginning to end.
The golden rule for preparing for an interview is to know what you’re going to say, but not how you are going to say it. No memorizing. There are some people who are very good at memorizing lines and saying them naturally on camera; they’re called professional actors. If you are asking this question, you are not a professional actor, therefore you should not be memorizing exact lines of text to deliver to a camera. You will look nervous and wooden. Instead, get a list of questions and prepared a couple of themes that you want to talk about in each of your answers. Keep things simple and broad. If you arrive to your interview knowing what you’re going to say but not exactly how you’re going to say it, our producers will help you craft your answers during the interview to ensure you come off sounding intelligent, confident, and natural.
No. But we can mitigate problems. If there is an issue with the original footage like background noise, bad light, someone saying the wrong thing, looking the wrong way, wearing the wrong thing, or otherwise not doing something right, we have some tricks for making these things less apparent but we have almost no tricks for making these things go away entirely. For this reason, we put a lot of importance on getting everything right when we shoot. If the footage we get on the day is exactly the way we want it, it saves us (and you) a lot of headaches during the post-production process.
It starts with trusting us. We can’t make you look like something you aren’t but we can and will make you look like the best version of you. Mainly, we accomplish this through camera angles and lighting. If you budget for it, we can also bring a professional makeup artist. The biggest thing you can do is get some rest the night before. The fresher and more relaxed you are, the more confidently you will speak and the more confidently you speak the better you will look. The only fashion rules to follow are to avoid any close patters (they tend to play havoc with camera sensors) and leave jangly jewellery at home because it will interfere with audio.
B-roll, GVs, or cutaways, are images that we cut into a video to create visual interest. Think of the images of shoppers walking down a crowded high street that always show up in the evening news. Often, the images have a thematic link to whatever your video is about and are interspersed with interview content to give concrete visual examples of whatever is being spoken about. They are also very helpful to disguise sections of an interview that we may have cut and stitched together.
Yes, but we only recommend it in certain circumstances. Do you want to sound like a newsreader? Use a teleprompter. Do you want to sound relaxed and conversational? Do not use a teleprompter. Our producers are specifically trained to help get people through their interviews and help them sound like their authentic selves. Certain styles of videos, like e-seminars, absolutely benefit from the use of teleprompters, but you would be surprised how often you can make a better video without them.
8 hours.
We’ll need to drop by to take a look. The main requirement for making someone look good on camera is space. We need space for the lights we use to light interview subjects. We need space for our cameras to shoot them, we need space for ourselves. In general, the less space we have, the worse people tend to look in the frame. If we haven’t been to your office, we like to swing by on one of our planning days in order to scout possible setups.
Nope. Our producers will liaise with you to write a script that says everything you want to say better than you ever thought you could say it yourself. If you want to write your own script, they can also offer guidance and editing, should you want it.
Absolutely. We travel all over Ireland and the UK and maintain an international network of producers and directors to send projects that take place farther afield.
No. Our bravery has limits.
Absolutely. As long as you settle up with us for the production fee as agreed – everything we shoot is all yours.
We do this all the time. Just let us know what you want to shoot, what the video is going to be about and where you want us to send the footage.
We also do this all the time. Just let us know what you want your video to say and send us the footage. We can’t vouch for the quality of the footage, we can promise that we will make your video as good as it can possibly be.
