Institutional film: saying what an organisation is, without reciting it

What is an institutional film for?

To replace the presentation you cannot give in person everywhere. It opens a convention, plays on a trade-show stand, starts a sales meeting, sits on the home page, goes into a tender file.

The test is simple: if the film only serves one of those situations, it is badly scoped. If it claims to serve all 6, it is too long.

How long should an institutional film be?

2 to 3 minutes for the main version. Beyond that, attention drops online, and in a room the film becomes a parenthesis instead of an opening.

Good practice: one main film of 2 to 3 minutes, plus 2 or 3 one-minute extracts that live their own life on social media and in emails. The extracts are prepared in the edit, not afterwards; planning them at the quote stage costs little, adding them 6 months later costs a re-edit.

Who should speak in an institutional film?

As few people as possible, and not necessarily the most senior.

An executive sets the direction in 3 sentences. An operator, a nurse, a technician provide the proof. The second is almost always more convincing than the first, and almost always the one nobody thought to schedule.

A voice-over says in 30 seconds what would take 3 interviews. It has a real cost, and it saves a great deal.

How do you handle internal approvals?

They are the first cause of delay on an institutional film, ahead of the weather and ahead of speakers' availability.

What I ask at the scoping stage: who approves, at which step, and within what time. Then approval happens in writing at 2 precise moments, on the running order before the shoot and on the first cut, and not continuously.

A film approved step by step comes out in 6 weeks. A film where everyone gives their opinion when they see it comes out in 4 months, and it is worse, because it has been smoothed over.