We shot this film earlier in the year because I ran the Endurance Life Sussex half marathon to raise money for The Outward Bound Trust and I wanted some video content for my Instagram account. A couple of colleagues, Nick Sneath and Paul Manser, wanted to test out some new equipment so we made a plan and went up to Cissbury Ring near Worthing to shoot it.
In this blog I’m going to look at how this type of film can be used for a few different applications and why we used some of the techniques we did.
Athlete Spotlight Films
Whether you’re looking to raise sponsorship for an upcoming expedition or you’re a professional athlete who wants to promote yourself, these films are extremely powerful tools. They enable you to take the audience with you and to show them exactly how much determination and dedication is required to reach the top or to reach your expedition goal.
Outdoor, Adventure and Sport Brand Films
Brand films are growing in popularity because they offer brands a new way to tell customers about who they really are. There is so much choice in today’s marketplace it can be hard for a consumer to make a decision between one product and another. When met with this problem a lot of consumers will want to find out more about the brand to see if their values align with their own. For example, a manufacturer of outdoor clothing might do a lot of work to help the environment and if the consumer see this it will help build trust and allow for a positive buying decisions. In this instance it would also shine a light on a very important issue that we are all facing.
Fundraising Films
As I mentioned above in the athlete spotlight film section, fundraising films are extremely good for fundraising campaigns because they can explain what the cause is all about, they can show the audience how much work you have put in to training and therefore how much the cause means to you. Video is an excellent choice for the various social media channels because video has 2x the engagement of photos, which is exactly what you want.
Techniques
Drone footage
Drone footage is an incredible tool that we utilise in many of our productions. Aerial filming offers the wow factor and is particularly good at showing large and expansive landscapes. We can also use drones to capture smooth follow shots over rough terrain such as a mountain path or whilst the subject is paddling down a river.
Camera Gimbal
The beauty of modern technology is that everything is getting smaller and this is good for adventure films where a certain amount of hiking is required! We can now travel with light and compact kit that doesn’t have a negative impact on the visual quality of our films. Gimbals are no exception and our new setup is very lightweight andåÊversatile. We can use it to capture a range of movements which would have required a huge amount of differentåÊequipment not that long ago.
Sound Effects
For fundraising films like this the importance of immersing the viewer in the surroundings is paramount, after all, one of the reasons we love the outdoors is because of the sounds. As well as these background sounds, sound effects can be used to portray emotion and feeling. In the case of our film we wanted to portray the amount of effort involved in each training run so the heightened footsteps and heavy breathing worked a treat. We also used some subtle sound effects to help echo the beauty of the surroundings.
If you have an expedition or challenge coming up and would like some video content for your social media and fundraising campaign then we would love to hear from, so get in touch with Will or Andy on 01273 911345 or email us.
Will