Brand Film Production and Branded Content Video
A brand film is the film that leads your homepage, opens your pitch and gets sent after a first meeting, so it has to say something a stranger would believe. Brand film production starts with finding one true thing about an organisation and then working out how to put it on screen. The look of the film comes after that, and it's built to carry it.
A thirty minute conversation with the team. No obligation.
Most organisations know they're different, and very few can say how in a sentence a stranger would care about. That's the work, and most of it happens before anyone unpacks a camera.
What's the difference between a brand film and branded content?
A brand film is usually one main film of two or three minutes that says who you are. It leads the homepage and opens the pitch. Branded content is the wider run of films that come out of the same thinking, such as a series of short stories about customers or a behind the scenes piece from the factory floor. It's a looser term, and plenty of agencies use it to mean adverts that don't look like adverts.
We make both, and the useful way to buy them is together. If we're spending two days with your people anyway, the main film and a customer story can both be planned into those days. The most useful branded content video production we do is planned that way, and it costs far less than coming back for each film later.
How we find the story
Before we write a treatment we spend time with the organisation. That means conversations with founders and staff, sometimes with clients too, reading the briefing material and noticing what it leaves out. We're listening for the details people mention without being asked, because those are the ones a viewer believes.
You don't need the vocabulary to brief a brand film. Bring the film you admire or the director whose work you like, and we'll treat it as information about your taste. Then we'll talk about the job the film has to do, because a film that borrows somebody else's look before it has its own story ends up looking like somebody else's film.
The treatment comes back to you as a short written proposal and a conversation. It sets out the story we think is worth telling, how it's structured and what it'll look and sound like, with a fixed price for making it.
What the shoot is like
Our crews are small on purpose. A brand film shoot is usually a director on camera with a sound recordist, and a second camera operator or a gaffer when the brief needs them. People behave differently with eight strangers watching, and a crew of two or three changes far less about the day.
We film in the places where the work actually happens, under lights where they help and available light where it's better. Interviews aren't scripted. People know the ground we'll cover, but the words are theirs, and we leave time between set-ups for the moments nobody planned. A shoot is usually one to three days, depending on how many people and places the story needs.
For anybody being filmed, the day starts with a conversation and a cup of tea rather than a microphone. If somebody on your team is dreading it, our page on never being on camera explains what we do about that.
The edit, the grade and what you get
The edit is where the film is actually made. We cut it ourselves, which means the people choosing the moments were there when they happened. You'll see a first cut, give your notes, and the number of revision rounds is agreed before the shoot so nobody's counting.
After the cut is signed off, the film is graded and the sound is mixed with music licensed for how you'll use it. Delivery is the master film plus the shorter cuts and formats agreed at the start, which usually means vertical and square versions for social and a version without titles for events.
Where a brand film gets used
Ask where the film will run before you ask how it should look. On the homepage it's the first thing a visitor sees, and in the sales team's inbox it's the film they send after a first meeting. Recruiters can use it to show candidates the place before an interview, and because we plan the cuts in from the start, cut-downs keep LinkedIn and Instagram supplied for months.
Our films for Culford School show a family what the school feels like, not just its pool and its labs. The main one, Who We Are, covers the breadth of school life, and the International Women's Day film was written by the young women who appear in it. You can see them alongside our other films in the work.
FAQ
What is a brand film?
A brand film is usually one main film of two or three minutes that says who an organisation is. It leads the homepage, opens the pitch and gets sent after a first meeting.
What's the difference between a brand film and branded content?
A brand film is the one main film. Branded content is the wider run of shorter films that come from the same thinking, such as customer stories or a behind the scenes piece, and it's cheapest to film them on the same shoot.
How long does a brand film shoot take?
Usually one to three days, depending on how many people and places the story needs. The crew is small, normally a director on camera with a sound recordist.
Are the interviews in a brand film scripted?
No. People know the ground we'll cover, but the words are their own, which is what makes a viewer believe them.
Related services
Brand film production is one of our video production services, and branded content video production usually grows out of it. If the job is to explain how your organisation works, corporate video production is the better starting point. A launch with a deadline usually calls for promotional video production. Schools are a big part of this work, and video production for education covers how we film young people.
Most organisations know they're different. Tell us how, and we'll help you find the sentence a stranger would care about.
Work in this area
All the work. Films like these often sit alongside corporate video.
Three things people ask
- What does it cost?
- Most production companies won't tell you until you've had a call. What things cost
- How long does it take?
- Four to six weeks from brief to delivery, for most projects. How we work
This is one of the ways we work, and the whole range is on the video production services page. People reading about brand films often go on to corporate video and promotional videos. You can see the approach at work in the Culford School case study, and for a sector where a brand film has to show families what a place feels like, read video production for education. Guides that go with it: types of corporate video, tone of voice in video and walk and talk videos.
Tell us the problem.
We'll tell you honestly which kind of film would solve it, or whether a film is the answer at all. Thirty minutes with one of our team.
A thirty minute conversation with the team. No obligation.