Let’s assume you’re about about to make a film. (Maybe you are and that’s why you’re here, maybe you’re here because you were looking for advice on keeping chickens and you were momentarily distracted and took a wrong turning at google; whichever it is, now you’re here, stay and join in the hypothesising!)
So you’re about to make a film, how do you approach it? Some people come from the “let’s get our CEO on screen telling us all how things are” background. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially if you have a really charismatic CEO, but should that be the limit of your boldness?
Often w
e think we come up with really creative, clever ideas, only for clients to get nervous, or think they won’t get the right message across in the right tone to their target audience. But often being bold can pay dividends. When Scottish Water agreed to our suggestion to get George Wylie, the elderly Glaswegian artist and a man of definite views, to present a documentary about the new Glasgow Water Treatment Works at Milngavie, they were taking a risk. But by doing so they brought a real sense of insight and passion to the finished film, and it gave the programme a certain something it would not have got with a ‘television presenter’.
When the Ardbeg Distillery was bought by Glenmorangie, a
nd subsequently re-opened in 1997, they wanted to create a film that celebrated that very fact. Originally they wanted the film to focus on the distillery itself, and interviews with distillery workers and managers. But the distillery had been so important to the community, and it’s re-opening such a rebirth for that part of Islay, that we persuaded them that a film told from the point of view of the community would be more powerful. The finished film used a soundtrack recorded live in a pub during the actual shoot, and was based around the thoughts of those people who had lived through the years of the distillery’s closure.
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of companies doing amazing things with film and video, animation and graphics, and often the more you open up to what is possible, the more you can get out of the film you are creating!
