TV Ad Screen Shot

Exmoor TV ads produced by Skylark Media

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Two new TV adverts extolling the virtues of Exmoor National Park, The Quantock Hills and the West Somerset Coast air this May to a targeted audience of 3 million plus viewers. Commissioned by the Exmoor Tourism Partnership with funding from the Exmoor National Park Authority’s Partnership Fund and produced by Skylark Media, the ads aim to raise awareness of the area’s spectacular natural beauty and what visitors can do to make the most of their time here.

“We’ve produced two ads to appeal to slightly different markets,” says Exmoor National Park Authority’s Dan James who sits on the ETP Marketing Committee. “The excellent production team, who have previously worked with the BBC, shot some amazing aerial footage which really displays the wonderful diversity of our landscape to its full advantage. We wanted to highlight Exmoor and the surrounding area as a quality UK holiday destination and hope that this will impress audiences who may not have considered visiting the area before.”

The first advert, ‘Aerials’ begins with a breathtaking birds eye view sweeping up Hoar Oak Water at Watersmeet and goes on to show Exmoor ponies above Porlock, the National Trust Village of Selworthy, the dramatic coast at Heddons Mouth and Dunkery Beacon, Exmoor’s highest point. The second advert, ‘Activities’ is more activity-focussed, portraying the many outdoor opportunities that the area has to offer such as sailing, high ropes, mountain biking and riding in addition to aerial views of the coastline.

The footage will also be used for a brand new immersive 10 minute audio visual experience which will be a key feature within the new Lynmouth Pavilion National Park Centre opening later this year.

Inspired by the great footage on the new ads, the Exmoor Tourism Partnership is also launching a new Exmoor Video Competition this month. Entrants are being asked to create an authentic, original and creative video – lasting 1 minute or less – showing what it is that they really love about Exmoor.

Anything that is engaging and captures the spirit of Exmoor will stand a chance of winning. Waves breaking on the sands at a secret beach on the coast, kite-flying on the Quantock Hills, a local farmer who produces delicious local produce, goat antics in Valley of Rocks; there is plenty of scope for the imagination. Easy to enter (the few simple rules are posted on the www.Visit-Exmoor.co.uk site) all videos entered will be put on display on You Tube under #ExmoorVideoComp.

7 Top Tips to Commissioning a Successful Corporate Video

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At Skylark Media we help companies to get the basics right.

When we meet a new client we like to spend some time getting to know them and understanding how we can help them to make a successful video.

To this end we have created these top 7 tips to help companies looking to create a corporate video.

We hope they prove useful.
commissioning a corporate video

Why is Video SEO important?

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A few years ago, videos were these huge, cumbersome things that you could only share if you had special video players and broadband Internet. Video SEO was largely unnecessary, because people couldn’t watch videos very easily.

But, events now make video SEO necessary: more people have cheap broadband, videos have become smaller, and it’s now possible to stream videos on mobile devices. A video with your key search terms as its title is 50 times more likely to appear on Google page one that text or a still image.

80% of Internet users are watching online video around the world. Part of that is because Generation Y (people between the ages of 11 – 27) outnumbers Baby Boomers, 81 million to 78 million. So we’re starting to see more and more people use smart phones and mobile devices to watch online video.

There are several free video sharing sites around, all of which are excellent candidates for video SEO. Of course, there’s the big dog, YouTube. So many people are aware of YouTube, it’s a must-submit for any of your online videos. But smart search engine optimization pros also use other video sharing sites like Vimeo, Viddler, or PhotoBucket. There are dozens of video sharing sites that make video search engine optimization easy.

Just like the difference between Google and Yahoo/Bing, when it comes to video hosting, YouTube has the biggest audience, but it’s harder to get seen. If you host your video on a smaller site, like Vimeo and Viddler, you have a much better chance of being that big fish in the small pond.

Consider Specialized Sites for Video SEO, like VideoJug.com for how-to videos or ScienceStage.com for science, teaching, and research.

Video works today because it aims to provide users with an inside view into your site and what it has to offer. If structured properly, your video can be focused around your site’s unique value proposition. Video SEO can also help to promote the content, especially if the content includes those keywords most sought after by your potential customers in online searches. The title of the video is everything, but the content within the video speaks volumes!

Just remember to create videos that are short and easy to watch, fun and interesting for viewers, and hosted on one or more video sharing sites. You’ll see your efforts pay off time and again.
As videos become easier for marketers to produce, and easier for consumers to, consume, video SEO is becoming a necessary part of any online marketing campaign.

Skylark Media Group, What we do

Autocue at Change Group office

Green screen presentations

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If you’ve got a long and detailed values and mission statement to present to a global audience, what’s the best way to go about it? Change Group, an international retail foreign exchange and bureau de change company, with headquarters in London, is launching its new Vision statement. But how to inform staff at over 120 branches worldwide? Sacha Zachariya, CEO of Change Group, chose video to reach out to his workforce.

The creative brief was to come up with a stylish visual presentation to help win over hearts and minds. The concept was for a series of presentations by the CEO, combined with motion graphics and an animated character to lighten the mood.

The filming was done in Change Group’s new offices in Holborn, in between building work on refitting the new offices. This allowed us to turn it into a TV studio for the day. We first hung our mobile green screen and rigged up the telepromter to the Sony HD camera. Then loaded the script, mic’d up the presenter, Sacha, and started to roll.

Each section of the script was filmed in wide, then we went to a mid-shot for key sections. Finally we moved onto the sections with props – who knew that Sacha could flambe and juggle whilst presenting!

Now we’re adding the graphics layers to the video, working to create the animated character that will help Sacha to deliver his message.

Ovo Energy AGM

Event Filming – Ovo Energy AGM

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On Tuesday Skylark Media got a call from Ovo Energy, an energy supply company based in Cirencester, England. They were in the final stages of planning for their AGM and wanted a film to record the event.

We quickly responded to their brief, to create a short, engaging film that they could use to record the event and hold onto those memorable messages. A video adds diversity to corporate communications, and it ensures messages stay consistent and entertaining time and time again.

Two days later we are setting up with two cameras at Paintworks in Bristol. The HD Sony EX3 and a Canon 7D for close ups and cutaways. At 3pm 10 coaches disgorged over 200 staff, eager to start playing the Ovo Quiz to win a flying lesson. The AGM was a great success, the company laying out its business strategy and plans for the year ahead. There was even time for a round of bingo. Before the refreshments at the end a group photo recorded a bumper year for employment in this fast growing company.

Skylark Media’s editing team will be preparing two videos for Ovo Energy; a full record of the event and a 10 minute cut-down version for showing to staff, new recruits and those who couldn’t make the event.

Dronecam in Watersmeet

Drone cams

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Experience Exmoor National Park like never before.

Cameras attached to silent drone cams swoop up tree-filled coombes. Fly over the gushing waterfalls of the River Exe then sink into the water on the back of a leaping salmon.

We employed Cineflex cameras to give us staggering rock steady aerials from a helicopter flying along the highest cliffs in England.

The video is reaching the final stages of production and will be shown at Exmoor’s new tourist pavillion in Lynmouth in Spring 2013.

helicopter-for-web

Helicopters over Exmoor National Park

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Well we’re back from our week filming the wonders of Exmoor National Park. The film will be shown at Exmoor’s new pavilion in Lynmouth, opening in Spring 2013. It’s to be an immersive experience, where the audience is ‘flown through’ the landscape, appreciating the sounds, animals and history as they go.

The weather during the shoot was variable, however through the excellent organisation of producer, Rebecca Bangay, we had long enough at each of our amazing locations to catch the shafts of sunlight when they fell. From Watersmeet to Dunkery Beacon we explored Exmoor from the macro to the micro. Our on the ground cameraman was BBC Natural History expert, Richard Jones. Although normally waiting for big cats on the African plains, he flexed his camera at dippers, red deer and slugs (not too hard to find this year!). Our drone cam operator was Phil Dalton, who picked up some amazing shots, flying up trees, under bridges and over waterfalls. Castle Air took on the job of getting the helicopter aerials. I’m pleased to say that we stretched the budget to a cineflex camera and got some beautifully steady tracking shots across the cliffs and valleys.

We’re now into the edit and choosing just the best 10 minutes from the hours of footage! Then, once this is signed off by our clients at Exmoor National Park the work will begin on CGI animations of iron age settlements and bronze age processions. Then the composer will work her magic on the music score. Come back in about a month and I’ll let you know how we’re getting on. Until then, it’s back to the edit suite for me. Jo Haywood, Executive Producer

Running this shoot was very much back to my days as a BBC documentary producer/director. We pulled out all the stops to make this a truly epic experience of Exmoor’s hidden wonders.

5 x cameras
3 x cameramen
2 x helicopters (one remote controlled)
22 x locations
6 x extras

County Council gets refit

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We received an urgent phone call at the end of last month – were we available to film the next day?  As it happens we were.  And the reason for the rush?  Elm Workspace had completed the stunning installation of office furniture for Wiltshire County Council and wanted a video made of it in all its glory before all the staff moved in the following day.

 

Filming furniture can be quite a challenge – as there’s not much movement.  However we used tracks and glides, pans and pull focus to show off the high quality and innovative finishes.  An interview with MD, Daren Spencer, provides the business message and the appeal to potential new clients.

The filming took just half a day followed by a full day to edit, put in the graphics and add the music score.  Elm Workspace are delighted, “The video looks amazing, thank you so much.  We will definitely be in touch about future case studies”.

You can see more of our recent productions on our portfolio page.