Branded Storytelling is our specialty. We cut the corporate speak in favour of forging genuine connections with your audience.
We collaborate with businesses and government to produce high quality, authentic, cinematic stories that nail the brief, captivate audiences and present your brand in a way that’s both genuine and powerful.
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What we offer is an exceptional small team of multidisciplinary filmmakers delivering authentic, cinematic productions that rival the visual and audio quality of much larger (and more expensive) crews.
Our core team (along with our network of industry professionals) provides a full service production solution. Pre-production, crew assembly, editing, graphics and VFX, colour grading and audio post-production, through to CAD approval and delivery of material to networks if required. Alternatively, if you only require our production crew to shoot &/or edit, we’re available to help with that too.
Director Dean Butler and DP Shane Piggott have worked together on multiple narrative films projects since meeting in 1999. Growing up watching films together in the age of the video store, they have developed a style that has resonated with global audiences.
Every video we work on needs to reach a high level of production quality. It’s what the audience expects, it’s what our clients expect, and it’s the minimum benchmark for each job. We take pride not just in crafting cinematic visuals, but in combining all the many elements that go into making a compelling video. We’re dedicated students of filmmaking craft, for us the language of film, from composition and lighting through to sound and music, are tools to harness in order to tell stories with as much power and impact as we can.
The most effective way for us to create great work that our clients are satisfied with is through open collaboration. We will often work closely with clients to ensure that the project is heading in the right direction. We are proud of our track record of happy clients, and find that the most satisfied of our clients are the ones with whom we’ve closely collaborated with. After all we’re not experts in your domain.
Our team also collaborates actively on set and behind the scenes. Video production is a team game, and as we’re often working as a small crew we rely on the quality of our teamwork to lift every project to an even higher level. We are always eagerly seeking out opportunities to do exceptional work; we cannot afford to work towards anything less.
The first step for us is to learn about you and immerse ourselves into your situation. This is often a humbling experience as we are not experts in your domain, but time invested in getting to know your organisation always yields a better end result.
From here we then want to be clear on the purpose of the video – i.e. what problem is it trying to solve? The most efficient way to do this is to identify and agree upon all of the important details in a Video Brief. In this brief we outline the most important things such as the purpose, timeframe, budget, format/platform, duration, and audience. This allows us to commence the project all being literally on the same page.
There are many different ways of making video content, so to make something that fits your brief you need to come up with a workable idea. In this step we come up with a number of possible ideas and refine them into a workable concept. Time spent on concept development is often the difference between ambitious, pie-in-the-sky ideas that never quite come to fruition, and concepts that will actually work on screen. As video professionals, it’s our job to know the difference.
Once we have a strong idea that’s been fleshed out into a workable and realistic concept, we then have to get it down on paper. This can be expressed as either a Video Outline (for documentary style videos) or more tightly defined scripts.
Before the shoot it is immensely valuable for us to be as prepared as we can possibly be. Pre-production planning is a combination of logistics planning and creative preparation. This means properly covering the appropriate bases (what we have to do) and making the final artistic choices (how we’ll go about it and why we’ll do it that way).
Specifically pre-production includes things like scheduling, casting and rehearsals with talent (including actors), location scouting (or ‘recces’), drawing up storyboards and shot lists, set design, props, costumes, makeup, visual effects, etc. Essentially, it’s all of the stuff we need to get right for a successful shoot – and it’s importance should never be underestimated.
The shoot is easily the most important step in the process; it’s also usually the most expensive. The success of any shoot will depend on the competencies of the cast and crew, and the degree of preparation. Every shoot requires its own approach and the time spent in pre-production has a massive impact on the productivity of the shoot day.
On any shoot there are many technical considerations to take into account as well as the artistic choices that can greatly impact the final edit. Which spot is best to film? How should the lights be set up? What’s the best choice for framing and composition? How will this come together in the edit? Do we have the optimal exposure? What’s the appropriate depth-of-field to use? Are we using the best lens for this shot? Should we better arrange the set design? Do we need to worry about audio interferences? How should I best direct the talent to get their best performance (and not shut them down)? Do we have enough takes? When should we finish at this location and move onto the next? And on and on it goes, ad infinitum.
During production we have a strong focus on authenticity throughout the process as that’s what brings authentic results on screen. When we genuinely engage with the people we are filming and working with, it shows. We like people to enjoy the process of working with us and we do our utmost to create an atmosphere that’s fun and comfortable for our onscreen talent while also achieving the professional results we are chasing.
Following the shoot our team will commence editing. Usually we’ll put together a draft sequence for our clients to look at and critique, and from there we can make necessary changes as needed. Once the edit is locked in we can begin polishing the final video through working on the colour grade, adding in any titles, graphics and special effects, as well as polishing the final sound mix – which may include music and voice-over.
Once your video has been completed we can ensure that it is delivered to you quickly and in the appropriate format for web or broadcast with colour and audio parameters on spec in 1080p or 4K. We can deliver master files on Hard Drive, USB, or through desired cloud-based platforms.