A human-centric corporate film project (part I)

Brief

In March 2019, I was working on a project for We-ef ANZ for their 25th anniversary. I was in partnership with Sydney-based photographer Jackie Chan. The brief was simple - we were asked to create a series of short films to celebrate this milestone and great achievement. This was part of their 25th anniversary marketing campaign and the clips were widely used on their social media platform and AILA International Festival of Landscape Architecture 2019. We have filmed 9 videos in total and each film heroes a key staff from the company.

Challenge

The biggest challenge was the tight time frame and the geographic barriers. We-ef ANZ is based in Melbourne so Jackie and I needed to travel there with our filming gears (i.e. cameras, lighting, audio recorders, etc) for filming. (Thank you we didn’t have a pandemic back then!) We only had 3 days to complete literally everything, from reece to meet-and-greet to produce to film. Apart from these, the execution of the concept is particularly challenging. We have 9 x individual storyboards for each staff, we need to make sure each one is unique and special but also maintaining the theme consistently and and cohesively throughout all the videos. 

Approach

We-ef is such a great client. We established a very collaborative relationship from the outset and trust was built soon after the project was started. When trust and collaboration go hand in hand, you know a great project is going to be born. From concept development to storyboarding to filming, timing was super tight but yet a smooth-sailing process. We took a very human centric approach to this project. When we filmed the staff, as much as we want to spend more time and get to know everyone better, we only had a ridiculously short limited time (Again, 3 days for 9x staff including travelling time!) for each person. There were sleepless nights at the airbnb places banging our heads against our wall to come up with the storyboards, framing, scheduling etc etc.  It really was challenging but I dare say this is also the most enjoyable project that I’ve worked at for a very long time.

Results

Each film brings out the emotions and true story of every staff, which honestly it’s quite rare and unexpected to be seen in a corporate film. And guys, that’s the true power of strong storytelling.

A human-centric corporate film project Part II. Internet Marketing Videography Assignment.

If you have read my previous blog post, you would know how much I adore this We-ef project. Out of the 9 staff that we’ve filmed, I want to share with you the top 3 most memorable clips to me. I still have goosebump every time when I talk about it.

WHO
Wayne

WHAT
A very vivid storyboard has emerged in my head after having a chat with Wayne over a morning tea time session. Wayne is regarded as one of the longest staff at W-ef as he has been serving the company for over twenty years. Listening to his journey with the company and all the great stories that he shared with me, I sense a great family-like connection between him and the company, using a biography/documentary approach for his part seems like a no brainer to me.

WHY
This is very special to me because it’s extremely unusual to take this kind of approach in a commercial project. I built a great connection with the team and for one second I have completely immersed myself into this film and totally forgot it was a corporate job.

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WHO
Rahul

WHAT
Rahul is actually the manager of the assembly team, however, after having an in-depth interview with him, we learned that his job duties are far beyond his title. Apart from managing all-thing assembling, he also needs to look after the computer programming for the workflow of the production line. In order to show his job diversity on screen, our team has achieved 360-degree filming on his day-to-day and make sure we have captured all the key elements in the final output.

WHY
We were briefed each of the videos would be used for marketing purposes. Some of them would be used on a different social medial platform like Instagram. Broadly speaking, we all know that 30 seconds will be our biggest stretch for Instagram. Here comes the challenge - We need to highlight Rahul’s great range of job variety immaculately in such a short clip. From memory, the editing was this film is considered as one of the top 3 hardest during my entire filming career. The client was happy with the outcome so it’s worth it and that’s what matters.

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WHO
Theo

WHAT
Theo is the Leading Hand in WEEF warehouse. The idea of this film is to get a really close up of his job; really focusing on and capture the most important part of his job on camera. We basically needed to do a shot of him climbing up to get stocks from the pallet shelf and then lowering the stock picker to reach for the bottom shelf. As simple as it sounds, it actually requires the most technique to achieve a smooth, seamless shot for this up and down motion. We spent about 3 hours taking the footage for a 30-second video.

WHY
The concept of this film is literally the exact opposite of Rahul’s film. If we say Rahul’s film is a macro-approach, then Theo’s film would definitely be a micro view. For Theo, we actually wanted to put the spotlight on his labouring skills on the shelf and hence we spent the most time out of all films to get the shot right. This is a memorable one for me not only because of the time we spent on it but also reminded me of all the techniques that I’ve learned from filming school. I was 100% all in for this one!