video agency Archives - Greg McDonald

What do you do when your filming options are still very limited because of the restrictions on working and gatherings of people due to the Coronavirus pandemic? You make a new video out of existing footage and other assets you have available to you. I made No Words, a video poem out stuff we had laying around, a poem and footage I had already shot.

No Words is a 1.5 minute short film about nature and our neglect of it. The poem was written and voice by Lorraine DuRocher. I supplemented previously shot footage with a couple shots filmed by cinematographer Roberto Correa.

Get creative with your existing assets

Even though small media shoots have been deemed essential businesses and have been allowed since the beginning of the shut down as long as safety and CDC guidelines are followed, many companies are still apprehensive to schedule video shoots. Big budget filming, which was not deemed essential and was shut down is starting to come back with extensive new safety guidelines.

With the current environment, making new videos and repurposing your existing assets like footage and graphics is still a great way to keep your content flowing and to save money on production costs. Read my post on Gate5’s website on using existing asset to produce new videos.

a man on a bike and two other people look frozen in time at a city street intersection while they wait for the light to change — Scene from the video, No Words

The poem No Words really spoke to me. Nature takes care of itself instinctually without words and without thinking about it. Nothing in nature instigates its own self-destruction. Why do we?

When I re-read the poem recently (I read it years ago when Lorraine wrote it), I thought what it says is very ‘right now’ and thought it could make for a nice little cinematic piece. So we dusted it off, recorded the voice over and I went through old footage to go with the narrative.

Fun fact: the idea was to make all the footage of the insects, bees and of our parrot, Fast Eddie to look like it was shot in a forest but it was all shot on our porch and front yard.

Read about my short films about aliens and selfie addiction on Amazon Prime Video. Watch me introduce The Selfie That Changed The world at the La Jolla Int’l Fashion Film Festival.

The time to pay attention is now

In a macro sense, No Words speaks to what we have been and are currently doing to our environment. Now that we’ve destroyed it and have brought it to the possible point of no return with climate change, we’ve become aware of it.

The time to pay attention is always right now. You can’t eat the hamburger today and pay for it on Tuesday. Wimpy’s old saying from the Popeye comic strip, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” is where we are as a country and as a global community.

Come Tuesday you know Wimpy is not going to be able to pay, Well, environmentally speaking today is Tuesday. It’s time for us to pay up for our past consumption but the problem is we ain’t got no money.

Related: read about my video series, Hemp Already about helping to save the planet by using sustainable and ecofriendly hemp.

On a personal level, No Words speaks to how we treat our bodies. We get caught up with the hustle of the today and our day-to-day business and we ignore our bodies until it’s too late. My intention with No Words, a video poem was to use the human body as an allegory of the environment.

Let’s learn from nature and from animals. Stay in tune with your body and environment which is an extension of our body and let’s take care of both of them today.

Watch my after party interview at the La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival.

About Gate5, my Los Angeles video production company

Gate5 is a creative video agency and full service video production company in Los Angeles producing high quality video content for the web, your social media outlets, kiosks and broadcast television.

We conceptualize, write scripts, secure locations and permits, cast actors, direct, film and edit commercial videos, narrative films, branded content, product and promotional videos, TV commercials, episodic content and live video streaming production.

Click here for Gate5 video samples.

If you have a commercial or a narrative project where you need a director and/or a video production company, feel free to contact me to discuss it to see how if we can work together on it.

Check out my photography here.

It’s no secret that video has exploded on social media recently. One study claims that in recent years branded video on YouTube has increased 99% in views and on Facebook 258% – and it continues to grow with no signs of video marketing for social media slowing down.

On Twitter, a video is 6x more likely to be retweeted than a photo. The lesson is clear – if you’re not leveraging video marketing to grow your business, you’re leaving money on the table.

Video content is what is driving the Internet today to a large extent. And it will continue to do so. More brands are using video to connect to their target audience, build relationships and increase sales.

No matter what size your business is or what industry you’re in, if you haven’t taken social media video seriously, it’s about time to you do.

Social Media is a Monster

Social media has a voracious appetite. You need to keep feeding the beast to stay relevant and keep your customers engaged and keep the buzz going.

For many companies, producing one or two videos a year or even a handful won’t keep their customers engaged and drive sales.

But full service video production is expensive!

It can be. There’s a reason commercial videos cost what they do.

When you pay professionals for script development – meetings, research, brainstorming, then to write the script, create storyboards and shot lists, scout locations, cast actors, direct the shoot with a full crew and expensive equipment and finally edit, color grade, mix sound and create graphics, animation and visual effects – it all adds up to many hours of labor and equipment costs. Not to mention the cost of actor fees, costs to rent sound stages and locations, and if needed, additional insurance above and beyond what a company normally carries.

Even just needing several items listed above will drive up the cost. You certainly don’t need all of those things to push the cost over your budget.

So What’s The Option?

Faced with high production costs, many companies produce videos in-house. And I say – whatever works. If a cell phone video gets the results you’re looking for, that’s all that matters.

But there are times when a homemade video won’t cut it and a $25,000 video is out of the question.

Design and Plan for Social Media

Not every video needs to be a big production. It starts with planning and designing a video shoot around filming a lot of content in one day that can be edited into multiple videos.

To accomplish this, you’ll have to set aside your big ideas that require a group of actors, expensive locations and equipment for the time being – you can make those videos later when you’re looking to accomplish specific marketing goals such as making a big splash for a product launch or promoting a new service at a trade show.

Simple. Effective. Engaging

The key is to create videos that can be shot simply with a small crew without a lot of third party costs. I’m talking about making practical videos here that show who you are as a company, give easy to follow product demos and customer testimonials. These kind of videos will create a lot of value for your customers yet won’t cost an arm and a leg.

To solve the problem of creating multiple videos while keeping costs down, we’ve streamlined the production process to keep the bloat out and the quality in. We’ll work with you to create a creative solution that can be filmed in one location, with only one or no models or actors and that can be shot with a small crew, often times with a 1-person crew. The idea is to film enough content in one day to edit multiple videos that you can post over time.

We offer monthly production plans with fixed per month pricing for these types of productions when you need to release content weekly.

Case Study

As an example, TanMeBox, a company that offers several sunless tanning products, came to us needing several videos for social media. We worked with them to create a series of 5 videos that we shot in one day with a one person crew that provided high quality video, good lighting and sound. The package included 3 videos that were product related, 1 video was a testimonial and 1 video was the company founder introducing a new service.

We provided the production of the five videos for a very cost effective per video rate.

Simple. Effective. Engaging.

The two videos above are from the series.

Check out this article for more information and infographics on video marketing statistics for 2020.

About my company, Gate5

Gate5 is a creative video agency and full service video production company producing high quality sharable content for your social media outlets. We conceptualize, write scripts, direct, cast, film and edit viral videos, branded films, product and promotional videos, web and TV commercials, episodic content and live video streaming production.

Need a video? Contact us to discuss your project and for a free consultation.

Check out our commercial video samples.

Tag: video agency