The following is from a testimonial after the delivery of the CHAPS film to the Terrence Higgins Trust.
We worked with David and Rowland on a film celebrating the work of the CHAPS partnership – a group of HIV health promoters which our charity, Terrence Higgins Trust, is a member of.
David’s enthusiasm, and his wealth of ideas and experience, really helped us to get the project off the ground.
It was a very specific brief, with a number of competing demands and expectations, but David quickly devised a suitable film concept.
His team conducted a series of interviews during the three-day conference in Manchester and filmed plenty of extra footage which added a great deal of impact to the final film.
They kept us fully informed as the project progressed, welcoming feedback on each edit and adapting the film accordingly.
We were impressed and delighted with the end result – a powerful short film that covered the subject in a logical and engaging way. It greatly exceeded our expectations.
Several years of working in the performing arts as a traditional drummer helps you to discover that everything has its own rhythm and timing. In fact, the truth of the matter is that just as African drumming depends on the two vital ingredients of rhythm and timing to be effective, so does film production and so does your business. At Agate Road, we believe that our films work in ‘sync’ with the unique rhythm of your business. One of our strongest philosophies is based on a fundamental understanding that every company is different – with different needs and different ways of doing things. This is one of the main reasons that you can work with us with confidence. Once you commission us to translate your message into film, we will work with you at every stage to ensure that we understand your company’s ‘language’. We then apply this understanding to provide the appropriate solution, not just for you but for your business as well.
If you are a film producer heading off for the Cannes Film Market, a film distributor will ask 3 questions.
1. Who’s in it?
2. How much did it cost to make?
3. What’s it about?
This is the trailer for Woody Allen’s latest film offering, Midnight in Paris, starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, Marion Cotillard, Cathy Bates, Adrian Brody, Alison Pill, Lea Seydoux and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. This film explores our emotional responses to various aspects of life in Paris and adds another dimension to it to create its own unique storyline, using the finest actors and actresses to pull in the audience. It hits the theatres on May 20 after opening in Cannes on May 11.
A film distributor knows that the star in the film is the emotional draw to pull the customers into the film theatre.
How does this idea relate to your business? Does your product or service speak for itself or tell its own story like the trailer above?
You may have the best product or service in the world but unless you find your emotional draw you limit your audience.
Why not discover a new audience by developing a story around the product or service?…it could make all the difference!
A common misunderstanding that can arise when we describe ourselves as a film or video production company is to assume that we are a camera for hire. In other words, that we turn up for conferences, bar mitzvah’s, or even funerals with a camera. This is not what we do!…
…We translate messages into film.
Most organizations or businesses have a strong message. In response to this, and in consultation with the organization at every stage, we design a film or video around the message.
How do we go about making the film?
There are 2 ways of constructing a film – One is based on the concept of Realism and the other on the concept of Expressionism.
The Realism way, which by the way accounts for most films on You Tube, is mostly dross.
Realism means going out with a camera and sound equipment, and with a little editing, putting a film together. Very little thought goes into the layers of communication required to create the story.
You see, every edit, every prop, every sound, counts in the telling of a story. And we all love a good story.
Expressionism is fundamental to the design that goes into a film to create a good story. To help you understand this, here’s a little bit of film history.
It was coined as a term during the 1930’s in Germany as a reaction by artists to the clash of political interests between the Weimar Republic and the rising popularity of the Socialist Party that eventually became the Nazi Party.
Expressionism was a method by which artists and filmmakers could express their feelings through subliminal portrayals of the political climate.
When artist intolerance in the political climate became too much for the expressionist filmmakers, most moved to Hollywood. Fritz Lang was one such filmmaker and so began the successful rise of the Hollywood film industry.
And that is the point. The commercial success of the Hollywood film is that they sell a dream or an aspiration. Hollywood has accurately been described by others as a huge advertising and marketing machine. And the core of its success is Expressionism.We have a vision. You have a story to tell. With the mass of mobile audio and video viewing platforms, faster broadband and wireless internet connections, a company can sell their message through a dream and an aspiration just like Hollywood.But, as with Hollywood, that message has to be refined through the medium of Expressionism. In other words through design, the scripting, storyboarding, sound design, screen content, and continually refining the message, we ensure each element has a part in telling its story.
We are proud to announce our association with Lipstikka, recently premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival . The following is an extract from the Berlin Film Festival website.
Lara is Palestinian. She left Ramallah thirteen years ago to begin a new life in London where she married Michael and had a child. She, her husband and her seven-year-old son James lead a pleasant, albeit somewhat dispassionate life in one of the city’s better districts. But there’s nothing a good slug of vodka won’t help her to cope with.
But then, one day Inam turns up at Lara’s front door. She is a childhood friend from Ramallah. No sooner does Inam surge into the apartment, ask Lara about her husband (currently out at work) and shower attention on Lara’s little boy than it becomes apparent that there is a certain tension between the two women. It’s not long before Lara realizes that everything she has created for herself is endangered by Inam’s brusque intrusion.
The two women share a secret. Back then, on the West Bank, the girlfriends shared a closeness borne out of their adolescent sexual experiences. One evening in 1994 during the Intifada, they ignored the curfew and headed out to the Jewish part of Jerusalem to see a film at a cinema. Two young Israeli soldiers who noticed them mistook them for Italian tourists. After the film they went out for a drink together. But something that began as a youthful prank took an unexpected turn. What really happened depends on the way each individual perceives those events. Your memory can play tricks on you. Especially when it concerns your deepest fears…
Out with the old and in with the new! 2011 not only promises the usual array of hangovers due to over-indulgence accompanied by hastily made and equally hastily broken new year resolutions, but also major changes in the world of business and the way companies communicate. In fact by all accounts from those in ‘the know,’ about future trends in business, 2011 heralds the waving goodbye by companies to the traditional currency of the written word, expressed in the form of emails. Shock horror! ‘What sacrilege, how can this be?,’ I hear you saying. Yet economic ‘gurus’ with no fewer credentials than the Economist magazine insist that communication success(or failure, for that matter) will no longer be measured in units of volume of emails but instead in a new currency consisting of images transmitted in video format. Neither is this an overnight sensation. For the last three years or so, almost while we slept, video has moved from near insignificance to occupying the enviable position of forming almost half of all Internet traffic. What’s more, it is predicted that this will be more like three quarters by 2012.
So what lies in store for the stuffy business executives whose personalities are only surpassed in ‘greyness’ by their suits and curt emails? Well, now it seems like a bit of life is about to be injected into the corporate world, as the success of company bosses will be measured in terms of their ‘performance prowess’ in front of a camera. Yes, there has been a paradigm shift in terms of visibility for company chiefs, who must now demonstrate their ability to market themselves and their companies by showcasing their vision for their organization through the medium of video, which takes no prisoners!
It is believed that this process will become a form of ‘natural selection’ for businesses characterized by successful companies being set apart from their less visually articulate competitors through their ability to present complicated ideas through a more accessible route.
‘Less is more,’ will be the mantra of the future as video demands not only greater structural discipline but also much leaner content in the expression of company strategy. It will now be like looking through a freshly-cleaned window and any company that falls short of the new success criteria will immediately be exposed…there will no longer be a way of hiding behind a wall of words.
In a nutshell, corporate communication of the future will be nothing short of a call to be an effective storyteller. How good is your story?
