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ChrisMugford.com A high quality Video Content Agency who produce professional online videos for business.

08/07/2021

Best wishes to Emma Raducanu at Wimbledon.
Anxiety can get the better of anyone. Even the umpire at a Grand Slam tennis tournament. That was the key emotion for this short film we made for ’s. Strawberries, clotted cream and tennis? Surely the perfect sponsorship opportunity for this famous FMCG brand. We were asked to create a short sponsorship ad for the at the last minute, but (as so often with these briefs) we saw an opportunity to make a film with a much bigger feel. So, using green screen we put the brand right onto Centre Court. To watch the film, see the umpire's anxiety and find out more:
https://chrismugford.com/roddas-lta-sponsorship/

25/06/2021

ROI can also apply to relationships.

If you’re responsible for marketing, what do you do when your business gets some very good news? A terrific review, for instance. Or winning an award. It’s not just customers who could be impressed. Think about agents, distributors, suppliers or investors.

So you need to jump on any good news and market it mercilessly. That’s what’s just happened to Percussion Play. They’ve just won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise – the highest accolade any UK business can win. In just three weeks we conceived, shot and finished a film that shouts from the rooftops. The company makes outdoor musical instruments, therefore why not have courtiers playing the national anthem in regal settings, complete with corgis?

This isn’t self-aggrandisement. The film was targeted very precisely at overseas agents and distributors, and it was designed to re-enforce the company’s very high quality core brand values.

And did it work? For very little cost, they boosted awareness and saliency overnight.

To watch the film and find out more:
https://vimeo.com/chrismugford/review/555631008/8045c22199

23/06/2021

How to announce winning the highest accolade

Imagine your business has just won the highest award. If you’re responsible for marketing, how do you use some very good news? A terrific review, for instance. Or winning an award. It’s not just customers who could be impressed. Think about agents, distributors, suppliers or investors.

So you need to jump on any good news and market it mercilessly. That’s what’s just happened to Percussion Play. They’ve just won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise – the highest accolade any UK business can win. In just three weeks we conceived, shot and finished a film that shouts from the rooftops. The company makes outdoor musical instruments, therefore why not have courtiers playing the national anthem in regal settings, complete with corgis?

This isn’t self-aggrandisement. The film was targeted very precisely at overseas agents and distributors, and it was designed to re-inforce the company’s very high quality core brand values.

And did it work? For very little cost, they boosted awareness and saliency overnight. ROI can also apply to relationships. To watch the film and find out more:
https://vimeo.com/chrismugford/review/555631008/8045c22199

15/06/2021

G7 – food for marketing thought

If you’re managing a food brand, here’s an unlikely source for some good advice. The whole world saw the G7 leaders meeting The Queen at the Eden Project. They went on for a banquet prepared by Cornish chef Emily Scott.

We filmed Emily for another client launching a different kind of networking business. There are three secrets to making food and drink look wonderful in film. Watch any ad for M+S and you’ll see them in action straight away.

Rule one: film in super close-up. This represents the subconscious moment whenever we are presented with something to eat. We immediately scrutinise it for a micro-second.

Rule two: use a soft light from above and slightly behind to show texture but also backlight with a very bright pin spot for fine highlights and shine.

Rule three: make the food move, either during cooking or on the plate. A dribble of caramel easing down ice cream looks amazing. Leave it static and it looks dead.

The result? A highly successful launch for The Samphire Club. To watch the film and find out more: https://chrismugford.com/the-samphire-club/

02/06/2021

Car chases? Mad Max? No, school bursars

On this day six years ago we were propelling another brand to stardom at high speed down Cheddar Gorge. The secret to making roads and car chases look exciting on film is to shoot very wide angle and very low down. This sequence put the camera just one inch above the tarmac. Then amplify the impact by crossing road markings or make a static object like cats’ eyes fly past the lens.

Grabbing your viewer’s attention is all-important in commercial video. Lose their interest and you’ve wasted your time and your client’s money. In this case we were filming for an annual conference of 600 School Bursars. Demonstrating the wide-ranging help provided by their Association made us think of situations of jeopardy, highlighted by their bright blue branding. So – branding metaphors all the way.

The result? The film opened their 3 day conference and received a standing ovation. To watch the film and find out more: https://chrismugford.com/isba/

28/04/2021

The devil's in the detail…

On this day three years ago we showed how a brand can benefit from the tiniest attention to detail. Here you see a small model of some industrial handrails that we made. We then shot the miniature against green screen. Separately, we’d filmed a sixth former with aspirations in radio astronomy. Then matte into a spectacular background. All of which lasts less than 5 seconds in the final film.

Is it really worth going to this much trouble? Well, yes it is. When creating video that appears in a commercial context, remember that your audience hasn’t paid to watch your film. So you need to show them something they haven’t seen before to keep their attention. That’s not easy. Nowadays, people have seen it all.

There’s another point that’s even more important. Marketers and video companies often underestimate just how intelligent their audience is. Especially in a B2B context. Never play to a lowest common denominator because everyone else will switch off.

So if that means fiddling around making tiny models just to get one more shot that’s never been seen before…so be it.

To watch the film and find out more: https://chrismugford.com/cardiff-sixth-form-college/

19/04/2021

Helen McCrory, Actress 1968-2021

With this weekend’s sad news about Helen McCrory, I’m reminded of when we filmed for her school Queenswood a couple of years ago, in the studio theatre that bears her name.

It was a challenging shoot. We wanted to create a scene 25 years into the future in which some of Queenswood’s current pupils had grown up and now had children of their own. In our story, they were having a reunion, looking back on their time at school using massive holographic images (as in Bladerunner 2049).

Take pity on our cast! They were willing mums from Queenswood’s PTA, asked to act in the black void of the theatre against green screen. That’s tough enough for experienced actors, but look how well they did…

The result is highly emotive and bears out our fundamental philosophy: if you want to create a really strong engagement with your audience you can’t just show the reality of something. You have to dig deeper. What does your brand stand for? What emotion should your brand engender? Does this emotion match the “feel” your audience wants?

Complex stuff. But essential if a video is to succeed in today’s massively cluttered commercial environment.

To watch the film and find out more, go to https://chrismugford.com/queenswood-school/

16/04/2021

Can brands inspire? Yes they can…

On this day seven years ago we were looking for powerful brand metaphors when we came across this stunning waterfall. All the more lucky, as this was the only time of year when the sun shines briefly down a narrow chasm, striking the water and changing its colour to rich gold. Look closely and you’ll see the waterfall radiates light back into the shadows.

The task was for Rodda’s Clotted Cream, an FMCG brand leader, sold worldwide. The metaphors were needed to highlight the brand’s provenance: the purity of the water and sunshine that gives the grass such high carotene levels found only in Cornwall.

Companies find communicating their story really hard. They gravitate to what they do but humans respond to why they do it. That’s where the emotional story lies and that’s what hooks your audience.

22/03/2021

Something most people will never see

On this day five years ago we were helping yet another brand tell its story. In doing so, we ended up miles from the UK, hundreds of feet below the Swiss mountains.

Hardly anyone is allowed here and you need the full James Bond retinal scan for access. We were told not to drop anything metallic as even a screw would do enormous damage when the magnets are turned on. This is CERN where the world’s physicists are looking for the sub-atomic “God Particle”. And here is a colossal detector, opened up for its once-a-year maintenance.

We were following four women who had built four utterly different careers. At CERN, Stephanie’s job is to explain mind-bending concepts to the world’s media.

Film and video is an emotional medium. Creating video is the easy bit. Creating emotion is really hard. But it’s worthwhile, as emotion drives engagement through the roof. This film held 87% of viewers at its mid-point and retained 73% at its finish. That’s far higher than industry norms.

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