Lights, Camera, Action?
For the past two years we have been running what we call the ‘Festival of the Future’ It’s an ambitious event where we showcase innovation happening in Dorset.
Today I'm going to talk a little about directing for the festival of the future, how to present and communicate your ideas, and how its always best to stand out and be unique.
So lets start in 2021. We were just getting into the detail of planning for the 2nd year of the festival and this year we decided we wanted to go out and about and be hybrid. We were brainstorming looking how we could promote it to a wider audience. This is when i came up with the idea for a trailer…
Why a trailer?
Movies, tv shows, private sector events all have trailers so why is it so much of a leap to use one for promoting something the council are doing?
Anyone can put together a few PowerPoint slides and call it a trailer (believe me i have seen a lot of these) but actually going out and filming something and having an actual production is weird, different, unique. Especially for a council!
As cliché as it sounds I had the idea for the trailer late at night and had to email myself the outline so i could remember the idea the next day.
The next challenge was how i was going to take this outline and turn it into an actual video…
Communicating the idea
One thing that repeatedly came up is trust. I had a very specific vision for what i thought the trailer should look like and created storyboards and summary's to try and put this across in an understandable way was hard.
What happened is it came down to the rest of the team to trust my ideas and just roll with it… all the way to Durlston Country park where we filmed for the day!
There was lots of apprehension to this because its not really something anyone had done before. Learning scripts, doing takes, getting correct composition and lighting. These all took time to learn. You can watch this for an example of the BTS…
Eventfully we got into the rhythm of it and recording a days worth of footage. A days worth for a 1min trailer…Another aspect of filming that needed to be learnt!
I then edited this all together and this was the result:
I'm no Tarantino but i do the best with the tools (and actors) i have. Part of being a Director is the get the best out of people but it was the trust in the vision that really helped give me the confidence to pull it all together.
Its not the most incredible and amazing thing but it was different enough that it got a lot of attention, its still the most viewed video on our YouTube channel!
Festival days:
Further honing my skills, i filmed for some of the days for the Festival. Being hybrid and livestreaming over YouTube means you have to have a full crew of technical people, presenters, script supervisors, and directors to make it all run smoothly.
Although some of the filming was very static and didn't need much creativity there was lots of pre recorded content that needed editing and filming which allowed for more creative control and learning.
So that was last year…
What about 2022?
Now that the trust was established and the team would be behind any idea i suggested i wanted to go weirder and more unique! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result so i wanted to go ‘off the deep end’ as i described it to my team.
I was inspired by the scene in Antman where Luis tells a story and all the characters lip-sync themselves with his voice over the top.
Again, it took some convincing the get everyone on board but there was the trust built from the success of last year. Lets hope this years is up to standards and can be even more of a success!
At the very least i hope you enjoy it:
I guess the point i am trying to make here is to not restrict yourself by saying that an idea might be too different or too wacky and its often the things that stand out that get the most attention. So be different, be weird, and be unique. Stand out from everyone else instead of trying to conform or staying in a box.
The trailer is great! Where can i learn more?
I'm so glad you asked! Here is a link with more information and the bookings to sign up for:
I look forward to seeing you in person or virtually for the Festival of the Future 2022.
