Over the years we have produced a great deal of documentary-style corporate video. Most of our productions have been character (employee) driven stories. These types of stories feel more authentic and resonate with audiences more so than over the top, slick productions. Recently, we had a client ask what we could do to increase production values, still keep the story authentic, and not blow the budget on a series of interviews with product designers and creative directors. This was a welcomed challenge.

We’ve recently expanded our crew to include a very talented director of photography, Peter Richardson. Peter and I originally spoke about shooting on a RED One but decided on a Panasonic HD Varicam. Workflow for the RED was going to be too much of a hassle. To date, we have finished 8 pieces with the Varicam and I have been very pleased with both the quality and ease of workflow.  We added a second camera to all our interviews (Panasonic P2) and kept it framed on product our subjects were speaking to during the interview. Both cameras were shooting 720P 24fps. And now we are in production on a second series of interviews.

Post production was done in partnership with ALPHA’s long time collaborator, James Allen from Visual Aid. ALPHA and Visual Aid were able to swap rough cuts back and forth by managing assets so we both had duplicates of footage. We were able to swap back and forth the small Final Cut Pro file to review edits. Occasionally, we would have to include a new asset here and there but since the footage was duped everything could be traded via email. Client reviews were handled on ALPHA’s Extranet (Basecamp).

We can’t talk in detail about the client at this time. The primary audience for the video series is the press. After the videos are made available to press I’ll post a few clips. In the meantime, I’ll post framegrabs to show the interview set ups and great quality of shooting on the Varicam.

Varicam frame grab

Varicam frame grab

And sorry about the long delay in blog posts. I was married a couple of weeks ago and have been exhausted by the efforts it took to get someone so incredible, beautiful, and talented to marry me. You can see a few pics from the wedding here.