From Pitching to Production: Producing Polished Product Videos

When Neptune CRM contacted us for a catchy product video to launch their CRM software, we were thrilled to pitch and produce the resulting creative solution.

As a software product, it'd be easy to simply create an animated explainer video with screen shots of the CRM in action but with no actual human interaction.

And that would be a missed opportunity. Why? Read on to find out.

What A Real Face Does

A good film will evoke an emotional response. Having a real person speak to us adds a huge increase to the engagement level over the fully animated style. A real person connects us with the product as they engage directly with us, using their eyes and their face to deliver relatable, lively and captivating emotion.

When pitching our idea for this project, we felt that creating a video combining live action presentation with graphical animation and actual screen recordings of the CRM would be the most engaging and informative approach. To heighten the engagement factor, we wanted the video to be on trend, stylised, integrated, polished and commercial looking in appearance so that viewers would see the product as the innovative and high-quality business solution that it is.

Hence, our creative idea was to put an actor in a stylised office environment and allow him to break the fourth wall to talk to the audience, letting them in on his secret. Our concept was a hit and we quickly moved from pitching to producing.

Scripting

Inline with the creative idea, we wanted the dialogue to feel conversational, so that the outcome would resonate as approachable. It was important that the script didn't have a presenter, voiceover or news reader vibe to it, and not feel too technical or dry. Friendly and informative was the goal.

Casting

You might wonder what motivated our casting process and how we arrived at actor Daniel Felkai to be the face in front of the camera? Having relatable faces is another key to a successful video. We believed Daniel's look, style and voice would resonate with the intended target market. After reviewing Daniel's acting profile, his showreel and audition tape, we agreed Daniel projected a friendly quality that would work well with our conversational script. When placing our casting ad, we were clear that we would not be providing a teleprompter. The successful applicant had to have a strong acting background, could remember lines, deliver a conversational tone that didn't require prompting and would connect with the audience. This was super important to us. Presenters are skilled at reading. Actors are skilled at learning lines and delivering them with personal conviction.

The Shoot

The video shoot was conducted at Baker Street Studios in Sydney. Baker Street have a 300sqm warehouse style daylight studio with beautiful large frosted windows and white painted brick that makes for a stylised environment. Many fashion video and photography shoots are also shot here.

Putting our art direction hats on, we transformed the space into a modern, trendy office space with white tables and chairs, greenery and computers. Since the brand colours are a shade of blue, we had the actors dressed in blue casual business wear and sourced a blue jumper for Daniel to wear from our good friends at Lowes.

The filming part of the video production was conducted over a 5-hour call with a small crew of just five, main actor, two extras and our client. Working with a small but efficient team makes production easy to manage (especially at times when social distancing is required).

Post Production

Baring in mind our delivery timeline, following the shoot we proceeded with the video edit and process to include the graphical animation and screen recordings. It's not just enough to simply record the software application as different tasks take different amounts of time to complete, so to keep the video moving we add an additional level of animation and support graphically to ensure the video maintains its intended level of engagement.

That's a Wrap!

We hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look into creating the Neptune CRM video. If you have a project you'd like to discuss you can get in touch with us here, we'd love to hear from you.