Our brief was to produce a film that would “secure profile at an event, create media opportunities and provide reasons to engage with stakeholders.” The film should also “showcase the work undertaken in the previous year, demonstrate the pace at which progress is being made and highlight future next steps and priorities”. We were delighted that our partners at UGC felt that this is what we achieved!
THE HUB
A FILM TO ENGAGE STAKEHOLDERS
The outcome
We produced a high quality film as required by the client and our own stringent quality standards, on time and on budget against some tough deadlines. We followed our tried and tested pre-production, filming and post-production workflows to provide a positive and collaborative experience for our client, our client’s partners and the contributors featured in the films. We are particularly proud that we animated all the graphical assets and combined them with complimentary use of archive material, creating a slick and engaging film that was very well received at MPIM 2018 . The feedback we received from Claire Barker at UGC speaks for itself, and is testament to our positive and professional attitude, the professional quality of our video products and our work ethic:
“HTF have been great to work with. Great interpretation of brief, appropriately challenging, attentive to detail, creative, sense of humour and ability to withstand freezing temperatures while filming. Thanks!”
The film was used on their website and our advice on cutting the length for social media (and our execution of this) enabled good traction on the main channels used to promote the Urban Growth Company.
How we achieved success
Tried and tested project management processes / / Our approach is based on a standardised, streamlined workflow to ensure efficiency, but flexible enough to ensure we’re focusing our creative attention on our client’s needs. For the UGC film we devised a script and storyboard from the key messages received from the client. This is a crucial part of our process because it enables our clients to see, visually, our proposal for how the film will flow – the story it will tell. It’s a tangible way to talk through anything that needs changing or enhancing, and getting sign off at this stage means we can all proceed with confidence that we’re going to be filming the right subjects in the right places, and saying the right things. The storyboard is the key document that drives all the other planning and scheduling – from location details, to liaising with contributors about their input, to the equipment we will need to execute the vision. This is all part of our risk reduction strategy to ensure clarity of purpose and delivery on time and on budget. (See App 8b. HTF Media UGC Solihull Storyboard)
Expertise in specialist videography for broadcast quality films / / We enjoy combining the specialist forms of videography that we have built over the years into our offer, and the UGC film showcases our excellent motion graphic design credentials enabling the audience to picture the scale and scope of UGC plans. This is something that we would combine with our experience in drone filming for UK Central, to ensure we convey the scale of growth and development across the entire UK Central area. We are particularly skilled at ensuring the different specialist forms of videography integrate well, despite differences in situation, original quality (in the case of archive material), natural lighting, or subject matter. We achieved this in the UGC project (and other examples provided for this tender document) through our four quality tests which are focused on people and equipment: very high quality video equipment and camera operatives; excellent lighting and sound set-up during production; highly experienced and efficient animation producers; and expert post-production staff, in both editing and final grading. These production features ensure broadcast quality films as standard, whatever the brief. All four were set out during the planning stage of the UGC film, and the same process and standards will be employed for UK Central.
Meeting the needs of identified audiences / / A crucial part of our expertise is being able to support our clients with our wordsmithing and story-crafting to complement our exceptional visuals, to communicate effectively with the client’s identified audiences. This was evident in the UGC film as we took a very broad subject area and condensed it down considerably, but without diluting the message. The information and key messages provided by the client were too much for the desired film length so we incorporated our script-writing offer into the pre-planning stage, and this meant that contributors could be guided/directed as necessary and we could check with our client if the focus and feel of the intended content prior to filming was appropriate. Finally, and most importantly, we could ensure that the right messages were conveyed effectively, in words and pictures, for the specific audiences.