Filed under: Filming Tips, Subtitling, Testimonials | Tags: corporate video, Napoleon Creative, solution, subtitles, subtitling, Testimonials, Video
Today we’ve done a subtitling job, adding English subtitles to an existing video that was filmed in French. Here are our tips for adding subtitles:
- Centre the text, it makes it easier to read
- Break sentences in phrases, rather than just when the text reaches the end of the screen
- Don’t leave ‘orphans’ ie single words left on a line. Always have at least two words.
- Make sure there’s sufficient contrast in your text. If necessary, put a background behind it, preferably a semi-transparent one
- Sans-Serif fonts work better on video footage, especially when encoded for internet use. This is because the serifs are more complicated, and the edges around the words become badly defined
- Ideally, each subtitle should be onscreen for twice the time it takes to read it. However, in reality, this isn’t always practical.
It’s often awkward to put subtitles in after a project is complete because it often takes longer to read the copy than hear it. There are times when ideally you’d stretch out some of the breaks in the film so the subtitles can hold longer. However, unless the film has no music, or you’ve got the audio split into dialogue, effects and music, that’s going to be hard.
But anyway, with a quick turn around we managed to get the video subtitled, a couple of rounds of changes and back to the client in a couple of hours. Problem solved! In fact their feedback was great:
“The Sales Lead said it is perfect! Thanks again for being so fast and helpful.”
Filed under: FutureGov, Gallomanor, GetMeSocial, NC, Social Media, Testimonials | Tags: Animation Projects, East London, GetMeSocial, London, Napoleon Creative, Simpl, social media, testimonial, Twitter, Video
I’ve been putting the finishing touches to some touches to some new marketing materials today, including some testimonials. Sometimes it gets hard writing about your business. How you’re great. How you do a good job. How you’re a nice company to work with who also deliver good results.
So it was nice to see a thread of conversation on Twitter, which started from someone complimenting Carrie from Simpl, one of our clients on the video we created for them. Then Shane from Gallomanor and Justin from FutureGov chipped in. Gave me a completely unprompted boost to get the marketing finished!
This kind of unprompted, public testimonial is one of the great things about Twitter. If you want help building up your Social Media presence, check out GetMeSocial.
If you want to read the conversation, start at the bottom and work your way up.
We just finished a project for a client, who shall remain nameless. They wrote us a nice thank you, which made us laugh!
“Many thanks, to you and the whole team. Very impressed with the “film-day” and the ease of using the site for communicating. BTW – I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was doing, which was a bit of a concern! But the result is great – Thanks”
We had no idea the client was worried, but we explained exactly what we were doing as we went along, so by the end of the project he’d definitely cut his teeth with video and now has a taste for it!
Filed under: Testimonials
We got a nice email from a client we created a short video to go along with their presentation. We had to pull out all the stops to get it delivered on time, and with the client abroad and unable to give their full attention to the edit, we had to guess the content they wanted to include from the brief. Anyway, we delivered on time, and got this feed back after the event:
“A quick note to thank you for all your great work for the compilation video for my presentation. It really worked brilliantly and finished it off with a bang! “
Always nice to get notes like that!
Filed under: Animation Projects, Capgemini, Clients, NC, Testimonials | Tags: Animation Projects, call centre, Capgemini, Corporate, corporate video, cost, East London, Expenditure, London, NapoleonCreative, Operational, Opex, savings, Video
We delivered this clip for our client last week. It was screened for our client, our client’s boss, his boss and their boss. That far up, surely that has to be Barrack himself? Anyway, after the screening, they burst into a round of applause! So our client is very happy indeed.
Filed under: NC, Testimonials | Tags: Corporate, corporate video, East London, Filming, NapoleonCreative, Shoot, testimonial, Video
We’re doing some research in to what our customers like about our service and what we need to improve. We’ve got some really encouraging feedback so far, but this one sticks out:
“I’m impressed by the fact that you really care about the content – it’s not just the logistics of the filming. If I work with you guys I have peace of mind because I know that I’ll have an ‘ally’ in the building of the story.”
This sums up, I think, what NC is about. We like being our client’s ally, collaborating with them but still taking a degree of impartiality to make sure the client gets their story told in the best way. And caring about the content? Well you have to. If you don’t know what the project’s about, it you don’t engage and really try and understand it, then no amount of fancy camera work will save the video!
Filed under: Commetric, Testimonials | Tags: Commetric, Corporate, east, London, NapoleonCreative, testimonial, Video, voice over
We’ve just completed a piece for Commetric, who do some really interesting work connecting communications with business activities. We produced a voice over with music for a powerpoint presentation.
As it was our first job we did for them, we asked for a little feedback. Here’s what Chris Shaw, CEO of Commetric, wrote:
“As someone who has never done any form of production – where to start/what to do/what is involved were a complete fog. So we looked for speed and understanding; prepared to listen to the brief and develop it. No technical jargon.
You gave good customer service – accessible – provided advice and a series of options; you seemed to get what we wanted extremely quickly and delivered a great result.”
Great to hear that kind of feedback! I think the reason we do is because we listen to our clients, ask a whole load of questions to make sure we understand what they’re after before starting work. Of course, there are times when we make suggestions in a different direction, but the most important thing to do is listen to what the client has in their mind at the start.
Filed under: Testimonials | Tags: comments, Corporate, NapoleonCreative, pitch, presentation, Testimonials, Video
We’re having to work on the Bank Holiday as one client project is based in Sweden and it’s not a Bank Holiday there… the joys of working with international clients!
However got some great feedback from a few people on a project for the same team we delivered on Friday, which cheered us up. First came these two comments:
“Amazing!!! That’s a great work, thanks a lot.”
“Excellent ! Very good presentation and mix of slides/images/and voice over. Thanks.”
and then this:
“You will be pleased to know apart from their direct messages, the guys have been emailing me all morning with multiple praise over your video!
The graphics are really stunning on it!”
It’s always nice to hear the work is hitting the right buttons!
Filed under: Testimonials | Tags: Client, Corporate, Napoleon Creative, powerpoint, presentation, recommendation, testimonial, Video
Today we delivered some clips to support a client’s bid for a new contact. We were cutting together video material from various sources plus some new material into three video clips as part of their support material. We got some great feedback from the client!
“These all look fantastic to me – really great job guys!! They will make a tremendous difference to our sales efforts and we will certainly use some of them on Friday, plus the others in the weeks to come.
PS we received today an RFI for a similar scope of work, and have already spoken to the acct mgr about using some of these in our response there as well.”
Filed under: Capgemini, NC, Testimonials | Tags: Animation Projects, Corporate, graphics, London, Napoleon Creative, title sequence, Video
We were asked by a client to reproduce a title sequence. We thought we could improve on what they had, and here’s what we created for them. Graphics always make a really big impact on any video project, and can have a great impact on the “quality feel” of a project.
What was the client’s response? “logo works great… btw you rock”
