Corporate Film Essay

Corporate Film Essay

What is a corporate Film?

A corporate film is a format in which a business can promote themselves in a structured way enabling themselves to gather more customers through the use of a promotional media film. Simply put it is a extended advertisement with a background and story.

Throughout this essay i will be looking at what makes a corporate film flow analysing other films i have already seen as well as planning out my own corporate film taking in all legal issues and other disputes throughout my planning process. 

The codes and conventions of a corporate film are broken into five sections these five sections are.

• Style
• Form
• Content
• Representation of social groups
• Message of the film

The style of a corporate film is a way in which a story is presented to the audience style can also so link to sub genres for real movies such as comedy.Many styles of a corporate film follow a specific employees journey but also change the pacing and way it is filmed adding context and feeling to the film. Furthermore the style is a way in which the film is told to the audience either through what they offer or an employees stand point in the company.

The style of this film above is very character driven as the characters are key to the success of the message the film is promoting.Furthermore the pacing of the film changes from time to time but it creates a slow reveal to the audience.On the other hand the style of the film is a story driven film the point of the film is to promote using a previous story of a victim who was in an unfortunate but using the characters story and put in each element of the story to eventually give the audience relief and a public message it is an excellent corporate technique for promotion. Furthermore you can see that music is used in this film to promote the tension in every scene as well as voice overs by all the main cast but in different time frames and also using cutaways to not keep your eyes to focused on one various scene.Finally towards the end you see that company promotes themselve through the use of there own company logo and also using text and graphics to give the film somre more interest.

Form of a corporate film is what they are trying to do with this film it is there goal in this case for the film above there form was away to promote awareness of health and safety in the work place and to speak up about corner cutters.

The content of the film contains a dark story of a previous accident of a worker who cut corners in there job which lead to the worker having a horrible accident on site for a job. The content though dark has a point to the story as it is try to deliver the convert message to the audience that you should be safe in the work place and to always let your superiors known that people are causing unfortunate circumstances.

The social groups of the film above represent middle class workers who have dangerous jobs with electronic cabling.Furthermore you see it creates tensions between the trainee and the experienced people of the job. The older generation seem to look down on the youngest member of there so called "pack". This represents the hierarchy in the current situation of this film but this then leads to dyer consequences.

The overt-message of this film is to raise awareness in the work place of people who are not being safe through the use of a re-enactment with actors and having a slow pace. To build up the tension and then deliver the final blow to the audience this gives the audience more power of the audience which delivers the message further.

While filming a corporate film you must take into consideration the amount of resources you will need when filming for a client or business this can range from location to actual handheld devices. While planning out my own corporate film for my client a list of equipment was drawn up by my team and was checked over repeatedly.

Filming a corporate film

While on location we planned to use a DSLR camera for a good quality in our shots as well as tripods to get various angles while filming interviews for the representatives of our clients. However in terms of audio production we used a device called a "H2-Recorder" a small handheld device used to record sounds mainly used for our interview proses of the film as the cameras do not pick up crisp audio we are looking for.

Furthermore once filmed and laid out we will be using an editing software known as Final Cut a standard editing software for many capability's  in out movies in the ways of editing. The audio would be later added and synced up with out clients speech pattern to lock the audio in place to make it appear as they are speaking on point.

However in the film we had just seen above the film had more of a budget due to the fact that it was produced and paid for companies and investors to promote themselves as a healthy and safe company using a variety of studio cameras,lights,microphones and editing booths the film above has used a staff of hundreds to promote this movie. For a few scenes they have used special effects from visual effects as well as special effects make up to make the victim appear to be burnt.

Months of planning and editing your product will be finally produced now you decide in which way you would want to produce your final product into for example. Most companies decide to hold a meeting then present the product to the company as a grand revel also carry with them a physical copy of the film as well as a link to a web streaming service which is then posted on the companies video player if the company has one on the website.

For the film my team made we decide to give them both a link to a direct video as well as a physical copy on a disk or USB to show at meeting or company events to advertise themselves to the public its also a great way to spread advertising through this self promoting technique.

Filming a corporate film requires a lot of imagination to the story telling you are trying to get across to the audience using specific techniques to make your film seem more memorising. For example most clients when making a corporate film want to get across a message or to even promote there services of facilities  these are mainly a positive perspective for potential consumers. When filming a corporate film you must keep it interesting but key to the company. A good technique to consider is a montage or a sequence of  shots regarding company staff doing there jobs or looking happy through the use of montages with a pace towards them it helps drives the story further most montages or cut aways which then leads to an interview with the employee.

However using voice overs from the company staff as well as  music with an up beat tempo brings the film more to life as it is showing the consumers how hard working and stable this company will be. Furthermore if you have the resources using time-lapses and a steady cam can help as a time lapse speeds up footage over a long task to seem to be done in seconds and a steady cam can help move the camera around with out the risk of blurring the shot or have a shake to the shot.

As you can see by the film just above the film is very story driven to promote this companies determination to inspire employees to seem more valued. Through the use of a steady cam to allow the character to walk forward. Using up beat music as mentioned before it drives the film further as it is a marketing tool to inspire works of the UK. We can see as well that cut away's  have been use to split the sequence when the figure is talking so the speech is not so continuous and dragged out to the audience. Further another technique used is time stopping in which they take a scene of one individual character and then have the same character in a later time period but having one scene frozen to make it seem like he is a representation of himself and the voice of the workers.
Finally the sequence is cut so every time he makes a motion he is put in another location or in this case another form of job which gives variety  to the film after which the films story is finished you see the companies logo which again is self promotion tool.

Legal

Film a corporate movie is a time consuming task but with this task comes a list of legal issues which  will be discussed in detail further along.When filming on location for a company you must respect privacy of either people around you or even certain areas on location as you will need to get specific permission to go in allocated areas that have been decided by either the company or the law to be clarified off limits or unsafe for the crew to film.Recess a form of documentation used to get permission to film on,location as well as actor release forms these documents ensure you have peoples permission to film either them or the area as you now have a legal contract that binds them to a corporate agreement. If these documents are not used you could face being sued and cost the company a lot of money.

When you are assigned by a firm to make a corporate film you have been tasked to deliver however if something is to happen to you by the company you are filming for they are libel to look after your safety as well are you for you and your teams health and safety.From a business perspective however if you are caught causing trouble on location and making problems for this firm you are libel for your own actions as well as your teams if your have a superior of a high stand point they are libel for you and your actions. If you make a terrible film that makes the firm look worse or makes the company waste money this again makes you libel by law as you have not delivered to your agreement with this company which could lead to prison.

In all of media copy right is one of the worst crimes which can cause a company to loose millions due to small subject of content. To avoid this you must take into account that copyrighted images,music and graphics can cause such distribute over simple over look. To avoid this further first ask permission or agree to pay for a license to purchase these products to use in the film or if you do not have a massive amount of money simply writing a copyright statement insuring you do not make profit on this film and if you do all proceeds will go to the original artist or company that owns that original material.

When filming people you mus ensure that all paticpents in this film are not discriminated against or seen in  a negative fashion this can be from anyone with any sort of disability or a belief or appearance.Following laws ensure you know the correct procedure on how to view all people as equals and if not you will be prosecuted.In this case you would follow the " Equality Act 2010 and the United Nations (UN) Conventions on disability rights".

Going futher into this subject you must consider all humans as equals gender is imporant for example as if you are a person who makes women or men seem weak or promote a bad message to the gender it appears you are sexist.Another subject is religion which is a more servere subject as relgion is a senseative subject as it is a person personal belief also with there being many religions there are avarity of different chracteristics for each one.Lastly race is imporant as you can not depict someone for the colour of there skin or there birth place this can cause to racism.

To avoid any descpencies in these depatments you must follow the laws which allows you to promote a equal subject to all people no matter who they are by following laws such as the "Equalty act 2010 and the united nations (UN) conventions on disbality rights which goes across all three platforms.

This concludes my documentation on the procedure of making a corporate film.

Thank you

Haydn L.Hamilton