This is the trailer for a days filming we did in conjuction with the British Council. Arts professionals from the UK and Afghanistan came together for a day of meetings to discuss the many challenges that face those trying to rebuild the culture of Afghanistan. It is a fascinating insight to a side of that country that we don’t hear so much about.
In Focus : Afghanistan
We have worked with the association to help film and launch all their footage as the first stage of them having their own dedicated video channel.
This a new trailer cut from old footage but we loved the challenge. We had around 14 hours of film to cut down to less than 150 seconds. It was tricky as nearly all the footage was of ‘talking heads’ but we felt we still could make something with energy and dynamism and here it is.
ACTV Launch Trailer
Tak Atak: The work of Haroon Mirza
We have just completed a set of films as part of a joint venture between Criticaleye and Accenture. It is our second set of films that we have completed for them. We interviewed 9 leading professionals from companies as diverse as Virgin Media, Diageo and Scottish Water. Most of them were the CEO’s of their respective companies.
The main message from the interviews is how all companies have to adjust their businesses to an ever savvy and demanding set of customers. All of them saw digital delivery as a key part of their new strategies. Filmed content is just one of the offerings that the ‘new consumer’ will expect. If your business isn’t thinking along these lines - please get in touch and we can explain how films could transform your business.
Criticaleye is a member-only organisation so we can’t provide a link yet but when the films go live on the Accenture website we will provide a link.
Below is our short film following people from 24 countries reading from 24 different works by Charles Dickens to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth. All the footage was shot locally across the world, some professionally and some on mobile phones and then sent to London over a long weekend.
We believe it shows our skills as editors in bringing many separate pieces of footage together in a coherent way but also shows we work well under pressure. At 6.15pm on the following Monday, 400 people sat down and watched it at the British Film Theatre as part of an evening of events to celebrate Charles’ birthday.
Dickens 24 hour read-a-thon
Below is the trailer from an interview we did with Hanif Kureishi for the Literature department of the British Council. Whenever possible we strive to give our clients back as many films as we can. We produced the trailer and a full interview but on top of that we split the interview up into each individual Q&A thus giving our client the best opportunity to maximise the content. It also allows the client to use different versions of the film in different parts of their website or indeed the internet itself. Trailers can go out to Vimeo or YouTube for example to drive viewers back to your site to view the remaining content.
We had very little time to film Hanif at his house and we decided not to bring lights in to make it look a bit more ‘BBC’ but rather to use the time so the interviewer and he could be comfortable thus making for a much better interview. In the end, the content of a piece is it’s most important aspect and we never forget that.
Hanif Kureishi Trailer
The film below shows the installation of a statue of the Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin outside the British Council offices in London in 2011. To mark the 50th Anniversary of manned space flight the statue was gifted to the Council for 12 months by the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos. A few days after installation, it was unveiled in front of British and Russian dignitaries by Yuri’s daughter Elena Gagarina and Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space.
Our challenge was that we didn’t shoot any of the footage ourselves, we had to do the best we could with what we were given, some of which had no sound. We think we succeeded. Our film also shows just how important music can be to short films. We work with the rather talented Mikkelsen and his compostion is absolutely perfect, bringing both energy and dynamism to the piece.
Gagarin Statue Installation
Here is the trailer we made for a whole set of films following Dame Paula Rego as she curated an exhibition of work in her native Portugal from the British Council Collection. This trailer was a short cut made from 13 other films that we produced that included in-depth tour guides and an interview with Dame Paula herself.
The two films below were part of a whole set we made for the British Council following the five exhibitions it held at the Whitechapel Gallery as part its 75th anniversary. We made tour guides for all 5 shows but also made some installation films such as the two here. The brief was to capture the process but also to make engaging short films.
We strongly believe that web based film content has to be as interesting and dynamic as it can possibly be. ‘It is just for the web’ is not a philosophy we share. We make films that are stories in their own right that engage the viewer from the start. We believe short films can be artful, clever, informative as well as carrying any messages our clients require.
We aren’t claiming these films as up there with ‘Citizen Kane’ - that is why we used the small ‘a’ in the title - but we do feel they show what can be done in a short time, on a modest budget if made with care and understanding.
Michael Craig-Martin installing his own work at the Whitechapel Gallery.
The brief was to shoot something live and to be as unobtrusive as possible as he worked. We had a small opportunity to get him talking (unplanned for - we were meant be quiet and not interupt) and we took it. Michael’s own reflections on the work really add texture to the film. It is a rare opportunity to see an artist creating a piece from blank wall to complete.
When we were editing we couldn’t find the perfect music that worked with the quiet and reflective feel of the piece so we composed and recorded our own.
We are a London based company specialising in producing online film content for all kinds of companies. We make front-page films, trailers, interviews, filmed events and original programmes. We can work to your brief or create something entirely original for you. We write scripts, original music but most importantly of all we engage completely with your content, ensuring you get the film you need for the audience you need. We formed in 2004 and since then we have made over 1,000 films for our clients. A lot of our work has been for internal use / member only for large companies such as KMPG and Criticaleye so we can't show them here. Instead we have chosen to highlight here some of our work for the British Council. We have worked across the organisation making exhibition guides, training films, interviews on one hand to 30 minute programmes and entirely original creations on the other. We hope you enjoy them and feel free to get in contact with us at ask@electrofilm.co.uk
