We’ve just completed a major shoot in Namibia and South Africa for mining giant Vedanta.
Heathrow to Johannesburg was uneventful, then onto a tiny plane to a tiny airport called Upington, where the crew arrived at the Black Mountain Mine. Surrounded by mountains and deserts the barren landscape was reminiscent of the recent footage from Mars.
In the intense heat, keeping hydrated was a concern to the UK crew but something they were used to having worked in similar climates for many years.
Shooting in the mine itself, 1500m below the surface, presented its own challenges. Here the heat and humidity intensified as the crew headed towards mine face. Working at this depth was a unique experience that gave everyone enormous respect for the people who work down here on a daily basis.
Travelling by road for six hours to the next location in Namibia took the crew alongside the famous Orange River, an amazing location worthy of any Attenborough documentary. Skorpion is an open pit mine – so quite a different environment, which the crew were able to capture at ground level and from a helicopter.
The last night was devoted to capturing GVs of the desert, the amazing scenery and sunset. The only thing missing was the wildlife – other than a few lazy ostriches – but in any case it was a very welcome change from the British December climate…
We were delighted to win an award at the 2012 Cannes Corporate Media & TV event last week for our film ‘Working in Oman’ produced for BP. It’s the first time we’ve been to these awards (we were one of only a handful of UK companies awarded) and it was a revelation in many ways.
There’s obviously a certain glamour implicit in the conjunction of the words ‘Cannes’ and ‘Awards’ – and the organisers have, very sensibly, done their best to capitalise on this. Pre-dinner Champagne on the terrace overlooking the yachts in the bay is always going to beat a tumbler of warm Riesling in a windowless basement in London. But it’s not just about how it feels.
In only their third year, the awards attracted entries and visitors from more than 35 countries – making these awards (unlike others) truly international – and the sheer breadth of countries now producing good corporate films was an eye-opener.
Not so long ago, we all somewhat arrogantly assumed that any major multinational was likely to beat a path to London to commission their corporate film – but this is certainly no longer the case. We saw some examples of great award-winning work for major European businesses produced in their home countries.
In particular it was fascinating to meet some producers from Abu Dhabi, who, like their neighbours in other Middle Eastern countries, are beginning to see the potential of their home-grown corporate production market. It would seem unwise for any UK-based production company to bank their future on a steady income stream from this part of the world…
Thanks to Gary Birch for directing the film, to the organisers and congratulations to the other winners…particularly our fellow Brits.
Pictures courtesy Filmservice International / Blaise Tassou
After a very busy eighteen months helping BP to communicate their London 2012 Partnership, the Jacaranda team was treated to a grand day out at the Olympics.
We went along with other BP creative partners such as Ogilvy, KBW, Tillings and the wonderful photographer, George Logan. It felt like a jolly reunion, as many of us had met on the set of the recent BP TV commercial, for which we had produced the behind-the-scenes film.
The day started with breakfast in the Helios Lounge at the Royal Opera House, and a tour of the ‘Olympic Journey’ exhibition,which tells the Olympic story through the endeavours of ancient and modern Olympians. We produced the 90 second film promoting the exhibition, which is currently showing on the BP Summer Big Screens throughout the UK.
Fuelled by a delicious breakfast, we were guided school-crocodile-style to the tube and so on to Stratford and the Olympic Park. Surprisingly, the tube journey was quick and easy, with plenty of willing helpers to point out the way. This was almost certainly directly due to the 47 video modules we produced back in February to help the MET Police manage the safety of the Games….
The Olympic Park was so impressive, and our clients had even arranged for the sun to shine all day. We were treated to fabulous hospitality in the BP Lounge -and a riveting display of skill and astounding courage during the BMX quarter finals.
Of course, we couldn’t leave the Park without a visit to the impressively shiny BP Showcase and a spectacular 360 degree visual presentation covering BP’s operations worldwide. Our team had travelled to Angola and Azerbaijan to film BP’s international athlete ambassadors for inclusion in the Showcase presentation, a film featuring BP’s international athletes and a Legacy documentary of the BP Olympic partnership.
The day was rounded off in the BP Lounge with a welcome cool drink at the end of a long, hot, exciting day – plus a glimpse of the lovely Lizzie Armitstead who has been a joy to work with over the past year and a half, as has the delightful Jessica Ennis and all the other BP athlete ambassadors both in the UK and abroad. We salute their incredible talent, discipline and achievements. It’s been a privilege to document some of their hopes and fears along the way..
One of our clients said of our grand day out: “I’m glad you had a good time. You have been such a big part of our team, so it was nice to take a moment and celebrate. Thank you for everything you have done for us.”
Indeed it was great to take a moment to celebrate everybody’s achievements. Thank you BP.
We’re delighted to have retained our place in the U.K.’s top ten corporate production companies, as determined by Televisual’s annual survey. This is judged across a number of criteria including company size, turnover and reputation amongst its peers. We were praised by others for our ‘good work’ and for ‘evolving’ – an achievement that seems to be at the core of much of the comment about how our industry is changing.
Jack Morton pretty much summed it up with: “Clients…want creative agencies who can deliver across disciplines and are no longer just looking for production companies.”
Happily, in the same issue of Televisual, you can also read about how we’re doing exactly that – working with Ogilvy to deliver an ongoing series of films for BP’s Olympic sponsorship across multiple channels.
We’re also about to embark on the Barclays Citizenship Awards (72 films to be produced in two months) delivering some of them via our Facebook app so that colleagues can, for the first time, share and ‘like’ their favourite films via social media.
Both projects are good examples of collaborating with other agencies and working with emerging technology – or in other words, how we’ve evolved from just making films…
Much has been written and said about the idea of ‘Branded Content’ – so much so, in fact that there’s a danger of the term becoming as meaningless as ‘Digital’. However we think there is still value in the term – until someone comes up with a better way to describe most of what we’re now doing.
Over the last couple of years we’ve had some very interesting conversations (with Matthew Freud, Gavin Grant and Tim Bell to name-drop just three) about what’s happening to the traditional roles of the PR and advertising industries. They feel the need to change their focus to become content producers…but the trouble is that, in most cases, they have almost no experience of managing and producing content longer than 30 second commercials – with the all the associated overheads and costs that this implies.
Meanwhile back in the corporate world, this is, happily, exactly the sort of content that we are used to managing and producing. And now we can also help them to make sure that the video content they produce is distributed in the best ways to their various audiences – using all of the various channels that are now available.
So it’s not entirely surprising that, whilst we were once generally below their radar, agencies are now becoming more and more interested in working with us to help produce and distribute the branded content that their clients now require…..in place of those old-fashioned TV commercials that people once watched…
This doesn’t fit the current narrative of universal gloom, so we’re all the more anxious to mention it.
We’ve worked with Leonard Cheshire Disability for a number of years, producing their AMI Awards – and with BP for even more, as a preferred supplier. So we were delighted to be able to introduce them to each other when the latter won an award from the former at the recent Ability Media International Awards – “…for helping build a more inclusive world for disabled people, with its 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Ambassadors TV and social media campaign.” More details here.
As a result of attending the event, Duncan Blake, Director of Brand at BP has decided to run a marathon in aid of Leonard Cheshire. Duncan said: “I went to an event recently that was run by Leonard Cheshire who do amazing work for people with disabilities. I was moved and inspired by some of the incredible stories I heard. I realised how hard life can be for people with severe disabilities and how courageous many of them are. I don’t normally request sponsorship, but I want to take this opportunity to make a difference for Leonard Cheshire and the people they support. And BP will match what you give.”
As the News of the World scandal continues to gain momentum, this is a fantastic example, in my opinion, of a brilliant interviewer, and a staggeringly inept interviewee. Jon Snow is exemplary, whilst the ridiculous Simon Greenberg just digs himself into a bigger and bigger hole. Also, he looks like a Harry Enfield character. If the whole thing wasn’t so utterly repulsive, this guy would be hilarious.
It’s another astonishingly dreadful script idea, with the only possible upside being that it can’t have cost as much as the Aston Martin garbage.
Interestingly, PHD, the agency that made it have quickly acknowleged their mistake, here. They’ve also been brave enough to publish (most) of the comments they received, for which they should be congratulated. But how much better would it have been for their brand and reputation not to let this nonsense be made in the first place?
Pretty much anyone in the corporate production industry (even those who have more or less built their businesses on this overwrought ‘scripted to camera’ technique) could have advised PHD against this. Which again leads us to conclude that, on the whole, we do actually know how to do this stuff and that others (ad agencies, commercials producers, PRs, pop-up viral interventionists in Whitechapel) don’t.
In the days when these films were generally only seen by a few bored people within a company, making this sort of self-regarding, pretentious claptrap didn’t really matter too much – but now that the world can see what you’re doing online and comment on it – it really does.
It’s not often that our little cottage industry reaches the pages of the national press. Unfortunately a recent series of corporate brand films has helped it to do so – but for all the wrong reasons.
Respected motoring journalist Chris Harris has this week described the fascinating spectator sport of the “…ongoing experiments of established brands attempting to harness the untold power of the interweb.”
For the observer, these experiments are particularly fascinating in the motor industry where the leading companies are, as Harris points out, “…mostly run by people who have never needed to understand how best to use the internet.” (This is, of course, an analysis that applies equally to most of our clients.) “These people take internal and external advice on how best to represent their brands through new broadcast channels, and the results range from the inspirational to the apocalyptically bad.”
In the latter category, he cites Aston Martin’s three-part viral ‘True Power Should Be Shared’ as a real milestone – and he’s absolutely right. And, this time, it’s not becuase it’s some cheap ‘User-generated content viral mash-up’ nonsense – this fiasco has cost a great deal of money.
As Harris observes: “By the standards of a brand lacking heritage and struggling to assert itself in the marketplace, this would perhaps represent a misguided attempt at adding a slice of cool to a car that isn’t selling. But for the manufacturer that already supplies 007’s wheels, it’s little short of a tragedy.”
The mini-series is supposed to be about four wannabe-007 agents who have to go on some secret mission – in their Aston Martin Rapide, of course. When one of them declares himself, in the first film, a “Weapons specialist and keen harpist”, you know you’re in for a script of rare ineptitude. And the acting is as bad as the script. It’s the Bourne Ultimatum as written by a junior school drama class.
Anyway, brace yourself:
Stop Press. There is (almost unbelievably) a ‘making of’ video as well, which I’m not going to post a link to as I suspect those responsible may now be regretting it. And they are R/GA and Serious Pictures, it would appear from the video. Now I know nothing about either of these companies, and I’m sure that they’re really very good at whatever it is that they normally do (commercials, pop-up banner advertising, needlepoint, who knows), but they should really stick to that expertise.
Maybe we don’t make enough of it, but when you come across something like this you realise that in our industry we do have a fairly specific set of skills – namely the making of short-form brand films. Sometimes we don’t do it terribly well, but I’ve never seen anything else this risible – even at the IVCA Awards.
The British have so many ways of avoiding saying what we actually mean that it’s refreshing to come across a nation that displays precisely the opposite characteristics.
We’ve come to know Rio Tinto well over the last few years – and developed a very high regard for almost all of the people we’ve worked with there – but not everyone shares our view. Paul Howes, the national secretary of the Australian Workers Union recently offered his opinion in the Australian:
“I have got a message for Rio Tinto. You don’t own this government; you don’t own this country anymore. Your workforce has the right to be represented. You cannot hide behind the law. You cannot hide behind your slimy, grubby mates…because we’re coming after you. We are going to take Rio Tinto on, and we are going to make sure that they pay a liveable wage to the workers who make the wealth that these shiny arses sitting in the boardroom in London enjoy. I don’t like Tom Albanese, I don’t think I’ve ever hidden my lack of respect for Rio Tinto. They managed to completely stuff the acquisition of Alcan, destroyed their credibility with the ridiculous Chinalco deal…they are a company who, frankly, monkeys could do a better job of running.”
We’ve just completed a major shoot in Namibia and South Africa for mining giant Vedanta.
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