Author: beast

We decided to find out what is the best viral content of 2019  Having a video go viral in 2019 is a great way to increase the reach of your video marketing campaign. Of course it all really comes down to luck to make your video go viral. But there has been plenty of campaigns that have gone viral this year, heres a few of our favourites. Gilette  ‘We Believe: The Best Men Can Be’ Gilette changed up their typical video marketing campaign in the January of this year, moving away from the typical style of TV advert Ising campaign and instead focusing on the social responsibility around negative behaviour of some men, more so sexism, bullying and toxic masculinity. Gillette also committed to donating money towards organisations that help men achieve their best. The campaign gained a lot of traction online, with numerous news channels all over the world covering the campaign. It had a lukewarm reception so to speak as it was applauded by some people for speaking out against toxic masculinity and other issues, while it was slammed by others for being unfairly stereotypical. The two minute content production has become one of the most disliked videos on the whole of YouTube. Gillette also created a mini site where they explain the inspiration behind the  creative campaign – “…turn on the news today and it’s easy to believe that men are not at their best. Many find themselves at a crossroads, caught between the past and a new era of masculinity. While it is clear that changes are needed, where and how we can start to effect that change is less obvious for many. And when the changes needed seem so monumental, it can feel daunting to begin. So, let’s do it together. It’s time we acknowledge that brands, like ours, play a role in influencing culture. And as a company that encourages men to be their best, we have a responsibility to make sure we are promoting positive, attainable, inclusive and healthy versions of what it means to be a man. With that in mind, we have spent the last few months taking a hard look at our past and coming communication and reflecting on the types of men and behaviors we want to celebrate. We’re inviting all men along this journey with us – to strive to be better, to make us better, and to help each other be better.” The Egg The egg on Instagram was an account called @world_record_egg. The account was started by Chris Godfrey a 29 year old advertising creative. He was joined by two of his friends, it started off with just a picture of an egg with the caption “can we make this picture of an egg the most liked photo on Instagram?” That worked incredibly well by smashing over 50 million likes eclipsing the previous most liked post by Kylie Jenner that had 18 million likes. Once it broke the record the account posted a few more pictures showing the egg with cracks in it. This was then followed by a short video showing how the egg had cracked and promoted a website for mental health and getting talking about your health. The campaign was taken universally well as it spread a great message. The mental health campaign was a productionby the streaming app Hulu. It is reported that at its peak the egg could fetch 10 million dollars in advertising money however this was claimed as false with a figure closer to the $250,000 mark being more realistic, this shows just how much money is in going viral these days. Since the egg account blew up it has had a partnership with the happy egg company USA which has bought in an undisclosed amount of money. The egg isn’t at its peak anymore but is still getting millions of impressions per post. British Army  The British army recently ran a campaign inspired by the famous ww1 poster “Lord Kitchener Wants You.” But instead of using that famous slogan it was changed to “snowflakes, we want you!” and “selfie addicts, we want you!” this campaign was made to increase the number of british army soldiers. The Defense Secretary (as of the release date of the advert), Gavin Williamson, said “a powerful call to action that appeals to those seeking to make a difference as part of an innovative and inclusive team. It shows that time spent in the army equips people with skills for life and provides comradeship, adventure and opportunity like no other job does. Now all jobs in the army are open to men and women. The best just got better.” The creative agency  knew the campaign would get a big reaction, but this was their plan, as only 10% of media spend was spent on that part of the video production. They knew it would go viral so it was used to their advantage, with the production company using this to increase the reach of the campaign, before releasing a set of TV adverts. The TV adverts have been produced incredibly well, with the videos focusing more on people abilities i.e. Perfectionist. The resultswere quite good with the army reporting 1000 more soldiers starting training in the following months of the campaign. Nick Terry from capita mentioned “Both Capita and the Army have been working tirelessly over the last 12 months at least in terms of how we bring this overall recruiting effort to deliver the numbers needed to fulfil the Army’s requirements on its operations around the world,” he says. “All that effort has been in making sure candidates are nurtured through the process in the right way, reducing the time it takes on average. We’re now starting to see some really positive signs in terms of conversion from those that are applying to start basic training.” Like the examples we’ve mentioned, having a video content campaign that goes viral has numerous benefits for your brand, not only in terms of reach and

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There are over 15,000 production companies in London alone, so if you are starting out, how do you scale a small Company in the UK? In this blog article we are going to go through the process of scaling a small production company in the UK. This article doesn’t just apply to production companies, these tips can really help in any industry. We spoke with Beast director Lawrence Jacomelli, who knows what it’s like to scale a small London production company from the ground up. Serve Clients You Can Help The first thing Lawrence recommends is to only serve clients you can actually help. So we don’t mean take on catering clients if you’re a London video production company, we really mean specialise in certain types of video productions. Beast London was opened in 2015, but Beast creative video agency was first started in Los Angeles and both offices are still open to this day. Perhaps up until now if you’ve been offering a wide variety of services you say yes to the every project and now all of a sudden you’re a full service video content company that you didn’t even plan to be in the beginning, just because you needed the revenue. Did you know that actually that’s going to prevent you from growth, that’s going to prevent you from building a business that runs and generates revenue consistently. It’s time to start saying no to the clients that don’t fit your skill set and instead get clients that create a standardized repeatable process that you can specialise in. And in order to do that we can only serve the clients that we can actually help get that specific outcome.  Is It Worthwhile To Get Feedback on your video productions? Our second tip is to create feedback loops. What we mean by that is a lot of people just deliver their service. They never try to optimize it or make it better in any way shape or form. We want you to create a client experience where you have opportunities to get feedback from your clients as you’re presenting the finished video or film. The thing you need to do is create opportunities for your client to share how it’s going, you also need to create opportunities to find out if there’s something missing, or maybe if they’re being overwhelmed and something needs to be removed. The only way that you can actually deliver video production services that continue to get better each and every time you deliver it, is by measuring the success of your video productions. You need to create iterative feedback loops to get that constant information coming in so you can improve each and every day. Start Simple The third thing that Lawrence recommends is to start simple then get complicated later, right now the thought of maybe simplifying your business is a little bit scary because most likely you work with a bunch of different types of clients. Here’s the thing, the more different types of clients you have the more variables there are in your delivery. The more variables there are the harder it is to create a system and make it repeatable. You need to actually simplify your video production service. London is a tough marketplace for video production companies and digital marketing, so try to start simple and really narrow down what type of client you want to serve, and what problem you are going to solve and the outcome you are going to get them and get really good at doing that. Try and get at least a year of serving that same type of person under your belt. If there’s other types of marketing videos for businesses that have those same problems get traction before you go and serve the other market. For right now really narrow down and start simple. Find Recurring Revenue Number four on our list is to add recurring revenue on your back-end. Now if you’re a creative agency you might have retainers already, you might be like us, we had retainers out of the get-go and didn’t offer just one-off projects. After a while we moved to one-off video projects and moved recurring revenue streams onto the back end of our production company, which created a lot of predictability and stability and allowed us to keep growing our business. The larger influxes of revenue on the front end were supplemented on the back end from recurring revenue which added stability. So if you don’t have any recurring right now you want to start moving towards having some sort of recurring revenue stream coming off the back end of any front-end projects that you’re selling. Perhaps an example of a recurring revenue stream would be to work on a weekly or monthly video production that has the same pay every time. This could be social media videos which are created and edited by one person rather than a whole film crew. Define Lawrence says you should define and sell an outcome, say goodbye to proposals, say goodbye to one on one, say goodbye to custom projects, you need to sell your prospects and clients into a specific deliverable that you’re going to give them. That specific deliverable is going to be a specific result or an outcome, no more giving them a menu of services and letting them self-select what they want to do. Find and sell an outcome. Do You Need To Know Your Numbers? Our penultimate tip is to know your numbers. So many video service providers literally don’t even know if they’re profitable, or if their cash flow is dialled in correctly and a lot of this has to do with not knowing where they’re trying to go and what they really want out of their video production company. First you need to create a vision but you need to be tracking your numbers so you understand if you are profitable. Can you make these investments into growth, can you

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Everyone would love to shoot on RED DSMC2 Digital Cinema Cameras just like Martin Scorsese or David Fincher, but is it the right choice for you? In today’s article we’re talking about whether or not it’s worth buying a RED DSMC2 Cinema Camera in 2020. Most of you will know that film director David Fincher shoots all of his movies on RED. Those movies include hit movies like ZODIAC, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and TV series like House of Cards and Mindhunter. Or maybe you are a Martin Scorsese fan and love his latest movie, The Irishman, shot on RED and released be Netflix. At Beast video productions we have used a variety of cameras to shoot our TV Commercials and online video content, so we know a thing or two about them. We are going to look and see if you really need a Red Digital Cinema Camera, or if there are any other more affordable alternatives. Have We Used Red Digital Cameras Before? We have been shooting on RED digital cinema cameras for about ten years, back when the original Red Epic came out. So we have used them for a while and they’re still the same, the touch screen isn’t very good and the interface is still really bad. But, the thing that has changed is the image quality and it continues to get better and better with every iteration and it’s no exception with the RED DSMC2 Dragon X 5K S35 Cinema Camera (wow that’s a mouthful), which is using the same sensor from the Scarlett W which has been around for a while. How Much Does A Red DSMC2 Camera Cost? There’s a few upgrades and we’ll come to that later. There’s just something about that Red camera footage we don’t know what it is and that’s kind of the thing that we want to come back to later in the article. This camera is incredibly expensive, the body is starting at $15,000 and the kit for it is well over $20,000 when you add tax it’s definitely worth it if you can afford the camera and you have justification to use it but for most people shooting on red is just not necessary one camera that we recommend right now is the Nikon z6 with an animist recorder. You can shoot full-frame 4k 10-bit and shoot 4k raw for under $5,000. Compare that to $20,000 and it’s just like you could buy so much more than $15,000 but again there is something to the red image quality and that’s why. Who Actually Uses Red Camera? So many big youtubers and content creators choose to shoot on Red cameras. Marques Brownlee better known as Mkbhd shoots on red, not only the Red Dragon X but the 8k Monstro Vista Vision which starts at, body only $54,000. Again these cameras are very expensive and obviously these people are making enough money to afford it and to justify it but we think that’s the main point you can take from this article, if you can’t afford this camera then rent it for your video productions. You may be surprised at how cheap it is to rent give the cost of buying outright. Made For Hollywood! On the Red digital cinema camera you could turn on a continuous autofocus system, but if you think the Panasonic gh4 is bad then you should try the Red’s auto focus, it is just awful. It’s not something that you’re going to want to do and cinematographers don’t shoot autofocus they shoot on manual focus lenses, often with a team of people. That’s really what this camera is for. It is for traditional film sets where you have a camera operator, a focus puller and a person running the DIT to look at the footage and manage the media. The RED DSMC2 camera range are true Hollywood cinema cameras and that is kind of why it is so expensive. When you’re shooting a multi-million dollar movie $50,000 for your camera makes plenty of sense and in fact a lot of movies still to this day rent cameras, even though they could buy them outright, but this is just how it works this is how Hollywood works. What’s The Quality Of  RED DSMC2 IPP2 Footage Like? The truth is the image quality coming off of Reds cameras is truly amazing and the new DSMC2 body style has the new IPP2 colour space which if you’re not familiar with red cameras, IPP2 is the best colour science that we have ever seen from RED. It’s unbelievable and the fact that this camera has it at this price point is pretty incredible. That’s really what’s so great about Red cameras is the ecosystem of cameras, the flexibility of raw and the power of these cameras can do in terms of resolution and frame rates. Red cameras are able to do a 5k raw at up to 96 frames per second but we were able to go up to 240 frames per second in raw recording which is really amazing. Reds and RTS are really just beasts of cameras that are fun to play with and fun to look at obviously most movies and Netflix shows that you watch are shot on these cameras so when you shoot with these cameras you kind of have that subtle look of Hollywood films and that’s why. Are There Any Affordable Alternatives To A Red Camera? Perhaps an alternative to a Red camera is the BLACKMAGIC Pocket Cinema 6K camera for example. It provides that cinematic look with 12 bit colour when shooting in RAW and you can buy the body alone for £2000, which is a fraction of the price of the Red Dragon X 5K S35 kit. Of course the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K hasn’t got as much power as a Red Dragon X camera but it does have the same S35 Sensor size, so its a great option. Again it really comes down to what you value,

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Creating video content for your business is a staple of most marketing strategies. Posting video content on social media or sending it through email and other avenues is a great way to market your brand and provide value to your potential clients. The most common type of video content  for businesses are blog posts. Blog posts do work, they have for years now, hence why they have been a big part of companies marketing strategies. By posting blogs you show your clients that you are experts in your field. But how can you take your brand to the next level? As a London Video Content Company, Beast is used to working on all levels of budget for video content production. It’s really never a question of budget, it’s always about finding the right idea that suits that particular brand. One thing is for sure, by hiring a professional video content production company and using video content in not only your marketing but also your branding  on your website and social media, you can elevate your  business to the next level. Most companies need to be thinking about video content production as the most direct and immersive tool for B2B and consumer marketing. So we think you should too to keep up with the competitive and ruthless business market, weather you are a London based business or based in Manchester or Glasgow, you can be selling through eCommerce or on the high street – everyone can be using video as a digital marketing tool. Video Can Re-Engage Your Clients. By using video content you can re-engage your clients, it gives your brand a new lease of life, which may mean some old clients see your brand again and want to work with you. Also current clients may see another perspective of the business depending on what content you use, for instance, if you work with a lot of London based real estate businesses, it would be wise to tailor some content towards them. So one example would be, “how to film a short tour video of a house”, or if you were working with some sports teams in London like Chelsea football Club or Saracens Rugby Club, you could do, “editing tips for videos using action shots”. Re-engaging old clients is a great way to potentially drum up some more business while also refresh the look of your brand. Can Video Boost Your Conversion Rate? By posting video content on your website, especially your homepage you can increase your conversion rate by up to 80% (as reported by Hubspot.) Why is this? Well because if you put a video on your home page that describes either your products (eCommerce store) or your services (graphic designer, estate agent etc.) it shows potential clients what you do straight away. It can also build trust with clients, which is an invaluable asset. Also having brand video allows people to understand what your brand values are, and they can understand how working with you can benefit them. People also recommend putting a lead capture form into the first 10-20 seconds of the video, this is so people enjoying the video straight away get a call to action to sign up to your email list. Also, we would recommend you keep the videos short and sweet as people don’t have much of an attention span these days, so a quick memorable video is the best way to go. We would recommend 10-30 seconds for social media, however, you could probably get away with a slightly longer video on your website as the people on your website are already slightly invested into your brand. You can get live feedback on your live video Another type of video to use to benefit your business is live video, there are plenty of different ways to go live, you can use Facebook, Instagram live, or use platforms like twitch, although twitch is mainly for gaming so it might not be worthwhile from a business perspective.  You can interact with your audience and build a rapport with them, this, in essence, will put a face to the name of your brand, which then makes the business more personal to your clients. Another benefit of live video is that you can show off the progress of your business, so if you create for your business, live video allows your audience and potential clients to see your process and how you work. You can also find out what your audience thinks about your brand and perhaps even answer some frequent questions that your customers have. Can Video Influence Your Customers? Statistics from Forbes say a massive 90% of customers find watching a product video influences their decision to buy a product, these stats really speak for themselves and show that it is crucial for your marketing strategy to include some form of video. Another stat, this time from Animoto, states that 64% of customers are more likely to buy your product if they see a video for it. According to these stats, it seems that a product video really is a must for any business promoting a product. They say a picture paints a thousand words. But a product video will show you all the cracks. So if you have a great product and no cracks, then make a great product video and show your consumers who are eager to buy your product. Do Search Engines Like Video? One great way to utilize video to benefit your business would be to put a video on the landing page of your website. These are commonly known as landing page videos. Imagine that your website is like a shop on the high street. If you go into an Apple store you know where you are – someplace minimalist and future proof. Your landing page video is your shopfront, you can decorate it however you want and make it as bespoke as possible in line with your brand guidelines. Having a video that automatically plays

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Best Video Production Companies in Los Angeles – Los Angeles is full of some of the best video production companies in the world. From film production companies like Universal and Paramount to TV companies like ABC and NBC. These companies are all incredibly well known, but what about the production companies who aren’t as well known. What other notable video production companies are there that you may not have heard of? We were curious so we spoke to Film Director Lawrence Jacomelli, who has shot many TV commercials in LA and all across the USA. We asked him what video production companies he would recommend and after some pondering and deep thinking, here are the five companies Lawrence likes and recommends. All the companies we mention work with most budgets, one thing we will mention is that in this article prices will be mentioned in dollars so the budgets they work with may vary in different currencies. So let’s get into it, here are Lawrence Jacomelli’s top five video production companies based in Los Angeles, California. Best Video Production Companies in Los Angeles Number One: Rip Media Group Lawrence Mentioned Rip Media Group first, they were founded in 2007 by Maury Rogow, they describe themselves as a collection of storytellers that create video and visual communication to help our clients inspire, educate, and grow. Rip Media has created productions for Ben & Jerrys, Harvard University and Cisco. So What sort of projects do they make? They make anything from corporate videos to 3d animation and motion design. Their Most famous project seems to be the one they made for Harvard University, where they created a video for a charity the university runs against malaria using in their own words ‘a choreographed dance of iPads and animation.’ Rip media also mention how they have recently been voted the number one whiteboard animation company in America. By looking at their clientele it seems they mainly work with midmarket businesses (with a value ranging from 10 million dollars to a billion dollars.) Number Two: 212 Degrees Fahrenheit Lawrence’s second recommendation is 212 Degrees Fahrenheit based out of Irvine on the outskirts of Los Angeles. 212 Degrees Fahrenheit were founded one year after our previous mention in 2008 and they mainly create commercials for tv but also make music videos and documentaries, some of their notable clients include Metlife, the NFL, UFC and Shark Vacuums. Perhaps their most notable client is Eminem. For him, they created a very short documentary going through the process of filming music videos for his album recovery. 212 Degrees Fahrenheit class themselves as a full-service production company, as when possible they create the scripts for their videos, while also working on the post-production process. When looking at online reviews of their productions they are all well received, with client reviews being incredibly positive. One client had this brief word to say about working with 212 Degrees. “They’re very passionate, which made it clear that they genuinely cared about our goals.” This seems to be the precedent for all their reviews. Have they won any awards for their work? As of writing, it appears that they haven’t, at least according to their own website, but looking at their clientele, we’re sure they have. Number Three: Tiger House Films Lawrence’s Jacomelli’s next recommendation is tiger house films, they were founded eight years ago in 2011, by film producer and director Jason Kent Carpenter. The company is based in Los Angeles but they work from New York, San Francisco for some projects. Some of their notable clients include The GRAMMYS, Nylon, Lexus, SK-II, National Geographic, Warner Bros., FOX Networks. So what sort of videos do they create? Their website states they do anything from TV commercials to a slightly more unorthodox type of video, hidden camera videos, one example of their hidden camera work would be for a hidden camera prank starring Maisie Williams out of Game of Thrones, where she pretended to work at a comic shop to prank Game of Thrones fans. This video went viral and amassed over eighteen million views, the prank was made for the youtube channel Nylon, the prank is currently their most viewed video on the channel (as of writing.) So what is their most notable piece of work? It is most likely their work for Cox Communications, for who they did their whole coverage of the Nickelodeon kids choice awards, they did everything from the red carpet interviews to the filming of the coverage, So what sort of clientele do they work with, after some research, it looks like they work with companies with a budget of five thousand dollars and up. Number Four: Super Rad Films Founded by David N. Donihue, Super Rad Films Create anything from music videos, commercials and B2B corporate videos. Some of their clients include Disney, Honda, Spinnin’, Mattel, Universal. But perhaps their most notable work at the moment would be their work on a music video for the YouTuber KSI. He may not seem like a big name compared to Disney, but he is currently at the peak of his celebrity status after becoming a professional boxer and winning his only fight, while also becoming increasingly popular in the mainstream media over the course of 2019. Their work has been praised numerous times by the New York Times. So what do their clients have to say about them, here’s a review we found of someone who worked with Super Rad and their director David N. Donihue. ‘I had the pleasure of working with David on a number of live-action videos. He is extremely creative, professional, and dare I say, funny. We produced 2 videos in an amount of time I thought was impossible, at a great budget, and they turned out masterpieces. If you need video: this is your man.’ Number Five: Spirinity Productions Lawrence’s final recommendation and other great Los Angeles production company, is Spirinity Productions. Founded in 2014 by Spencer Evans the company is currently

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With Brighton aiming to become the biggest Creative hub outside of London we decided to make a list of the Best Creative Agencies in Brighton. With Brighton being home to numerous actors, musicians and public figures, it’s no surprise that creative agencies have been popping up all over helping business create content for not only their marketing, but their branding and much more. We’ve chosen a small selection of the best creative agencies in Brighton. Don’t take this as us only recommending these ones as there are plenty of creative agencies in Brighton that are great to work with depending on the specifics of the project. We will also include a couple of honorable mentions that we also think are great to work with. Tilt Based in New England Street in the heart of Brighton, Tilt is a digital agency that creates anything from film to web design and much more. Some of their notable clients include Red Bull, Sainsburys and BP. Their work for BP was a corporate video, which is different from the typical style of corporate video. This is how they describe the video themselves “Understanding the subtle nuances of non-verbal communication is essential to becoming a successful team leader. We created a suite of lighthearted films that looked at interpersonal impact and its effect on your team. We engaged the RADA In-Business team to help inject life into the films and help make them stand out. Designed to engage the viewer, the films were embedded into the site with supporting advice and guidance.” All of Tilt’s project are of high quality and you can see why they are so popular with some big brands. Reborn While they were formed in Australia, more specifically Sydney and Melbourne, they recently opened their first uk creative agency office based in Brighton. As they have offices abroad this makes for a creative video agency that never sleeps, work can be done continuously day in day out. They’ve worked with plenty of big Australian brands including Milo (Chocolate Milk.) They’ve also worked with Fox Sports. For Fox Sports, their approach to the creative work in their own words was “To unlock insights from data you need to break it down into chunks. So to help fans digest Fox Sports data, we broke it down into a library of simple-to-use widgets. Sourcing real-time data, each widget brought this information to life through beautifully animated icons, text and graphs. So whether people were viewing the data online or in a regular TV broadcast, they could instantly get a ‘read’ on the game.” For the project they had to create an interactive data visualiser, they had to make sure that it was easy for Fox Sports ‘hardcore’ audience to comprehend. Killer Creative Killer Creative are a ‘creative strategic fundraising’ agency who have done an immense amount of good charitable work for numerous uk based foundations. One of their most famous video projects would be the Dryathlon creative campaign for Cancer Research UK, in which people take a sponsored one month break from alcohol in January. This campaign was incredibly successful with it raising over four and a half million pounds for cancer research in the first year. They beat this amount of money in the second year they ran the creative campaign as it raised five and a half million pounds in its second instalment. Another success from the campaign was that the word ‘Dryathlon’ is now an official word in the Oxford english dictionary. Killer created the whole campaign from the billboard advert to the radio adverts. Another great campaign that killer Creative have been behind is the MyMarathon campaign for The British Heart Foundation, in which they encouraged people to run the length of the marathon over the month. This campaign raised over one million pounds for the foundation. They have collaborated with The British Heart Foundation more than once as they also helped with the Dechox campaign. Leah Mates, the fundraising projects manager for The British Heart Foundation had this to say about this creative video agency. “Killer have been a dream to work with. I’ve worked with many creative agencies over the last 10 years as a fundraiser and what has struck me the most with Killer, is the huge amount of creativity, energy and genuine enthusiasm they have had throughout the development and delivery of DECHOX. I really couldn’t recommend them enough.” Crush Creative Crush Creative is a Brighton based creative agency that also has an office in New York. they have worked with numerous famous brands including Beko (FC Barcelona Campaign) and a plethora of famous beer brands. One of their most famous video projects would be their premium packaging design for inBev Beers, these included beers like Becks, Budweiser and Leffe. They created the premium packaging to increase sales in premium retailers, supermarkets and to help sales in airports. They also curated the Brighton leg of glug, with them putting on over twenty-five sell out events in the city. In their own words they describe themselves like this: “Crush is an ideas-led creative agency. We are made up of a core team of thinkers, designers, illustrators and animators. Our craftsmanship, fresh perspective and a sense of humour delivers original and effective results for brands around the world.”   Beast Production & Creative Beast is a video production and creative agency. We are unique on this list because we work direct to client and also with many of the other Brighton creative agencies on this list. We are a production company first and foremost but our main attribute is in creative development of video scripts. Beast production was started in Los Angeles five years ago and now has a head office, Beast London, in Hagerston, East London. But with many of the team living in Brighton we decided to open our third office in Brighton. Storm12 Storm 12 are a creative agency that was founded in 1999 as just Storm creative, they have produced numerous projects for Gatwick

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How To Make A Great Travel Video If  you are going on holiday to Los Angeles and Southern California and you want to make a great travel, here are some tips to help you stand out from the crowd. In an age full of influencers people want to show off their lives and therefore their travels in the hope of creating something that is interesting and unique and therefore marketable. Your viewers can see what other parts of the world are like before deciding if it is right for them, and crucially what you have to say is important because you are not being paid to make this video. So if you want to make your own travel videos and become an influencer? Do you need any equipment? For this article we spoke to film director Lawrence Jacomelli, who has directed over 500 TV adverts during his career so far, to see how he would make a great travel video. “Today on Instagram and YouTube you will see a lot of travel videos from people’s holidays. In recent years becoming an influencer has become a popular endeavour, but how can you make a really great travel video? The answer is to be unique and interesting. If you can do this you will have the attention of your audience. Then there’s the technical side. This can be daunting, but really the main thing to focus on is keeping it real and simple.” So let’s say you are going on holiday to Los Angeles, what sort of equipment would you need for filming in Los Angeles and Southern California? What equipment should I have to make a great Los Angeles travel video? Not everyone has professional-grade equipment and that’s fine, with the advancements made in technology in the past few years smartphones are now capable of filming footage at a professional standard which means creating professional content is now accessible to everyone. If you are using a phone to create your travel videos there are a couple of additional items you can pick up. One must have item would be a small tripod. A tripod would help steady your travel footage and create some great standstill shots which are essential for self-tap interview shots. But what tripod do you choose? We would recommend the gorilla pod, however, this may be a bit pricey for some people, so we have got a few alternatives that are more affordable. We found a tripod sold by Muyos UK on Amazon that will set you back £9.99, this is a much more affordable alternative to a gorilla pod, with a five-star overall review it seems to be a good option, one reviewer had this to say. ‘Portable tripod is a nice tripod for travel blogging. Because of small dimensions, it can be used in any conditions. You can pack and take it anywhere. Made by using good quality materials. On the legs are rubber caps. It can be used for a smartphone or an action camera. The supplied adapter is very good, it holds my mobile phone very securely.’ Another piece of equipment that you could use is a Gimbal/Stabilizer. There are plenty of options out there. The most established brand is without doubt the DJI Osmo Gimbal, available on Amazon for around 100$. We have used the Zhiyun Smooth Axis Gimbal whilst filming a documentary for Apple iPhone XR. Another great option and the highest rated one on Amazon right now is the Moza-s Gimbal, sold by Mars-UK and currently have a star rating of four and a half stars. One reviewer had this to say about the product ‘Got one of these to try out on my iPhone XS. Wasn’t sure what to expect from these in regards to how much they would change the video experience. It does totally transform the shot especially when doing long takes, for example following someone.’ ‘This did not fall short. The build quality is immediately recognizable. It feels solid and nice to hold. Heavy enough to be sturdy.’ ‘The instructions are simple enough and the app for it is actually pretty good with loads of features not available on the iPhone camera app. Once connected it balances out and gets into position. Whilst I’m new to this it was simple enough to figure out how to connect it and get it up and running.’ One final bit of equipment that while not entirely necessary is a GoPro or any alternative action camera. As GoPro is widely trusted for travel footage we would recommend you buy one of these. When you are filming the most important thing to consider is the safety of your footage. Since we are talking about ‘action footage’, then we can assume that these cameras will get knocked around a bit. For this reason alone we would say don’t go for the discount option, get the best out there which is the latest GoPro Hero 8.   But if that is out of your price range, we’ve found the highest-rated cheaper alternative on Amazon. The Dragon Touch 4k action camera has a current rating of 4.5 stars with one reviewer saying this about the camera ‘As with the previous model, the Touch Vision 4 Lite is excellent value for money. This version has an extensive array of video and still photo controls, including adjustments for exposure, white balance, and ISO. There are also three options for setting the focal length, Wide, Medium and Narrow. Electronic image stabilization is also included, although this suits some shooting scenarios better than others.’ Aerial Drone Footage Filming in Southern California If you want to add production to your filming then the big investment would be in a Drone camera. If you think that 15 years ago in TV commercials you would have to rent a helicopter with a Wescam and operator. The minimum cost for 1 hour of filming would be around 10,000$. Today you can buy a drone for around 1000$ and shoot everything yourself once you plug your phone

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The rise of TikTok – What is TikTok and can I use TikTok as a marketing tool? TikTok is a video app launched in 2017 by ByteDance (an app company formed in 2012.) The app allows people to share short video clips of themselves either lip syncing or acting out a short comedy sketch. The app is mainly targeted at children and pre teens however this isn’t the exact market that they have ended up getting. The app is full of older people, this raised some privacy concerns with parents of the younger users. What is the difference between TikTok and Musical.ly? Musical.ly was an app incredibly similar to TikTok which was created and released in 2014, sort of a predecessor to TikTok, the premise of the app was the same, you either lip sync to a song or have your own comedy sketch, the app was a hit as it was reported that by May 2016 the app had over 70 million downloads, with 10 million videos being posted daily. The app turned normal people into social media stars or influencers, notable influencers to come out of musical.ly include babyariel who later starred In one of numerous Brat TV shows. Brat tv was later formed as a channel that produces shows aimed at a teen audience, all of the actors on the shows were actors whose careers were started on the video sharing app. Musical.ly was merged with TikTok in 2018. The power of using TikTok influencers As TikTok continues to grow, many brands are looking to partner with people off of the app. Video marketers are starting to use TikTok to improve their brands reach. A Lot of people believe that once marketers hit a new platform and push ads on it that it is when the platform starts to decline. As Gary Vee says “Marketers ruin everything. It’s what we do.” But many video marketers may not be using TikTok directly to promote products. Instead they are using influencers from the TikTok app and other social platforms. This doesn’t mean Tik Tok has no ads on it however as you will find a string of promoted TikToks. As TikTok allows people to make such short video it means that many companies are using it to send out constant content for their products or brand. One great example of this would be Gary Vaynerchuck (or Gary Vee.) Gary posts short clips from his videos to TikTok, when these videos trend on TikTok it brings loads more engagement over to his other social channels. Many people follow this example as you will see people plug new items off of their respective channel (Youtube, Instagram Etc,) on their TikTok to bring more views to the main channel. The reason people use TikTok to promote their other ventures is because you cannot get directly paid by TikTok themselves at this current time. As of august 2019 people were able to purchase products that were promoted in a post straight from the TikTok app, this was never possible before as you would have to use an external link to purchase said product. This means there has been a massive jump in promoted posts since this date as people are easily able to purchase promoted stuff. So Should  You Use TikTok For Your Video Marketing ? Well… Yes and no, it sort of depends on what you’re marketing. You would need to assess you target audience and see what sort of age range your trying to go after. If your age range is 40-60 its not worth using TikTok but if your target audience is more in the 14-20 age range then go for it. The numbers really speak for themselves when it comes to TikTok the amount of people on it mean thats plenty of potential customers. Before you choose an influencer to promote your product you want to check a few things first, take a look at their engagement rate, most influencers tend to get between 5 – 10% of engagement from their followers. Also don’t always go for numbers, there’s a story that came in the news recently regarding this about an influencer with over two and a half million followers who couldn’t even sell 36 shirts of their own clothing brand. Depending on what you’re promoting it might be better to target a micro influencer in your niche of the product, even though this person might have only 20 thousand followers their engagement rate is bound to much higher meaning that their followers are more likely to interact with your brand and potentially purchase products. When looking at marketing using TikTok also look at the persons other social channels. If someone has great engagement rate on all channel they will be perfect for you, this is because they will have a loyal follower base who look up to them. If this is the case then you’re more likely to get something out of your promotion. If you don’t want to use an influencer you can still get a lot out of TikTok advertising. You can create an advert especially for TikTok that will run when people are scrolling through the app. This provides a great alternative to the usual influencer marketing, depending on your product, this could be a better way to advertise it especially if you’re promoting an app. So yes TikTok is a great place to market your product if you do it right, take a look at other campaigns, see what they’ve done right and wrong to see how you can make your campaign a success What Famous Companies Use TikTok To Advertise ? One massive example of a famous company that uses TikTok to advertise is the NBA. They post content ranging from highlight plays to interviews and more. They use TikTok to boost their presence and its working. They currently have over 3 million followers on TikTok and over four million on Douyin (The Japanese Version Of TikTok.) This is an incredible number

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How to get started in videos So you want to get started in video production, but how can you break in? Video production is a great job as it allows you to meet incredible people, not only crew but agencies creatives and also interesting clients. So how do you get started? We will take you through the steps on how you can get started in video production. Step One: Learn about videos Before investing time and money into video production make sure it’s the right career for you. Learn about the industry and how to use all the equipment. The best way to do this is, contact people within the industry as they will have a wealth of knowledge and most people will be more than happy to help you out when you’re starting off, see if you can shadow a videographer, this way you will get to take a look at their process and see what they think is best to do. You may have to do this for free at first, but this is the price of being educated. Another way to learn would be to do a few online courses, some great places to find online courses in video production would be udemy or skillshare. These courses are taught by video production industry leading professionals. Step Two: Decide what niche to work in When starting a video production company, it always helps to decide what niche of video production you would like to work in, some examples are music videos, corporate videos, brand story video production, etc. This allows you to focus on one type of video production and excel in that. However this isn’t necessary, if you want to work on more than one type of video production genre then that’s perfectly fine, you’ve got to do what you feel is best for you. Are you more technical or creative? Are you best suited to logistics and therefore following a path towards being a video producer. If so you will start off as a production assistant, advance to production manager and then become a video producer. Step Three: Source Some Equipment  The basic video productions equipment that you will need to be a video producer is a camera and a tripod. Should you want it some other additional equipment that you could get is a stabiliser, audio recording equipment and some lighting equipment. If you’re able to afford good equipment straight away then great. Take a look online at reviews of the equipment you would like and see what people are saying, whether they have good reviews or not, but don’t just take one review as a matter of fact, take a look at three or four and see what the average rating is and see if there are any conclusive opinions. If you can’t afford video productions equipment straight away a good thing to do is to rent video equipment when you need to film. If you’re at school, college or university they should have the ability to loan out equipment for a brief period of time, typically two to three days. This will allow you to get started and its is the experience of actually doing something that brings the greatest knowledge and reward. If this is out of reach for you then you can use your phone for your first video productions. Mobile phones have become more advanced and so has the quality of the phone cameras. If an apple iPhone is good enough for apple to create their next worldwide video marketing campaign, it will probably work well for you too. On our Work page you can see several videos shot on camera phones. These include a video for Apple iPhone XR where we shot the documentary about fashion photographer Daniel Benson. And here’s one we shot for Ikea and a story about discarded mattresses. Step Four: Get Clients and Create a portfolio We’re not going to sugarcoat it, getting clients isn’t easy . It can be hard to secure clients when starting off if you don’t have a portfolio, this will be one of the first things potential clientele will want to see. To build up your portfolio and get your first few clients on the board, we recommend offering up your services for free. Doing this will help you work with people and build up relationships with them. This may then lead to further paid work and referrals. Once you’ve produced a few small productions for free and build up your portfolio you can then start to charge for your work, the prices are down to you at the end of the day but starting rates can be around the £500 -£1000 mark. But do take into account your equipment costs and travel costs before working out your rates. Another way to get some clients is to work with small local charities. This not only allows you to boost your portfolio, you get to do a really rewarding job helping charities with their video presence. Our top tip: Always create storyboards for your video production. You wouldn’t think about building a house or even an extension without first creating a drawing right? Films are visual. You have to visualise the film you want to make so that it is clear for everyone involved what you plan to do. Step Five: Network  Once you’ve got yourself up and running it’s good to go to local networking events, these events are there to help business owners meet like minded entrepreneurs to either collaborate or just to learn from. A great example of a networking circuit is the 4 networking circuit, they hold events all over the country. They’re providing a great environment to get tips and tricks from other freelancers and business owners. Networking doesn’t guarantee work but it does provide a great opportunity to learn from local business people. Step Six: Make mistakes When you are beginning your video production career, you’re going to make mistakes but this is fine, this

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Can You Create A Promotional Video in Los Angeles with No Budget? The short answer is “Hell Yeah”, it’s not the tools its the idea that counts and if you are filming in Los Angeles then you are lucky enough to be in one of the most film friendly and visually cinematic places in the world. You should be able to come up with a bucket full of ideas. But lets get into the details and break it all down: New company looking to make a promotional video in Los Angeles So, you’ve just started your new company. You’re based in the ever-competitive market of Los Angeles, how are you going to stand out from your hundreds of competitors? One big way would be to create a promotional video which surprisingly not every business is doing. Chances are though if you’ve just started your business you don’t have the money to hire a fancy Los Angeles production company to make it for you, so you’ll have to knuckle down and make one yourself with little to no money. So how do you make your own promotional video? We spoke to Film Director Lawrence Jacomelli, and he gave us a few tips about filming a promotional video in Los Angeles. What Equipment Do You Need For filming a Promotional Video in Los Angeles? You will need your standard filming equipment, so a camera, microphone, lighting etc, to create a promotional video which can be pricey, especially if you’re based in Los Angeles. If you are working on a budget there are plenty of alternatives, one example is a smartphone which pretty much everyone has. It is also possible to rent out a camera, however, pricing can range from location to location and based on what equipment you choose. For example, to rent a RED Epic in Los Angeles you would be looking at around 350$ per day. But then you will need lenses and all sorts of accessories like filters, cables, monitors, tripods etc. And if you have no experience then you will at the very least need a camera assistant to set up the camera for you which will cost anything from 300-500$ per day. Not everyone can afford to rent a Red Epic in Los Angeles along with all the additional costs though. If you can’t rent any equipment then why not find innovative ways to use the equipment you already have in your pocket – your new iPhone 11. This is an incredible piece of kit, and very often it is not the tool but the idea that is the most important aspect to making engaging video content. Here is a link to a video that we made for the iPhone XR & iPhone XS, shot on the iPhone. You will also need to consider the lighting, again this could be done with a smartphone but it won’t look good in really low light conditions. We would suggest trying to film during the day. Or in an area that is very well-lit up as this will save you having to rent and set up additional lighting. Keep those production costs and logistics in mind when you are writing the script. Audio again can be done through your iPhone 11; you will get decent quality audio from your phone as long as it isn’t windy and you are close to the subject. If it is windy or you just don’t want to film audio at the time of shooting you can always add it in post-production. This would be great for voice-overs as the quality will be much higher. However, we wouldn’t recommend that you do this for interviews or quotes from people, as trying to line up the audio to a face can be quite difficult at times and the end product can be less than desired. What Else Do You Need for A Promotional Video? So, you’ve got your equipment, what next? You may need actors for your video, you won’t be short of options if you are based in Los Angeles. When working on a small budget it’s a bit easier as it may be possible to pay for the actor’s travel costs for them to come and work with you. However, you would probably have to work with up and coming actors as full-time actors would not work for free (this is understandable as it probably is their full-time job,) or you could hire student actors as they would most likely work for free, all you would have to do is give them a credit. But if possible we would recommend paying your actors, or at least their travel costs. You will need a location to film in, choosing your location can be quite easy when you have no budget as it’s free to explore around Los Angeles and other area of California and see where you can film. Most public areas would be fine to film in however some may require permission, which sometimes you have to pay for, however, a lot of places can be quite lenient with this, most times if you just make up an elaborate story about why you are filming a promotional video and who for a lot of people are fine with it. Looking for locations in Los Angeles (What sort of location should you look for?) Well, it depends on what you are promoting, for instance, for a clothing brand a nice open space with great views would be perfect, so perhaps somewhere like Venice Beach, or even the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco but if it was promoting something corporate, office space would be the best choice for this. Once you find a location you are happy with then it’s time to start filming the video. As previously mentioned, if you are using your phone then you won’t have much playing room in regards to setting however if you rented a camera you can play around with the settings to fit your story. There

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