The Power of Sound

Last weekend, my younger son announced that his homework was to research three locations around the world and then produce a piece of work describing each of these locations. One of the suggested formats was to write a post card.

Letting my enthusiasm run away with me, I suggested that he make three recordings as though he was leaving voicemail messages, one from each location. He did the hard work of finding out the facts and working out a short script for each location. Then we did the fun part of recording the "voicemails" before I fired up Adobe Soundbooth for a little creative audio editing.

Soundbooth doesn't claim to be the most sophisticated audio application on the market but for quick and easy jobs, it's ideal. It took a surprisingly short time to cut out the umms, errs and tidy up some sentences that had lost their way, then I decided to polish each one with some appropriate sound effects from the fabulous BBC Sound Effects collection - a crowd of Italian teenagers plus some traffic for Rome, and a whistling wind and a train whistle for Mount Snowdon.

I have to say that we were both quite surprised at how well they turned out, and it reminded me how important a great sound track is, whether as a standalone audio clip or as a sound track to a piece of video.

If you're interested in finding out more about how we put sound tracks together for our projects, feel free to drop me an email.

Make more of your Powerpoint presentations

I must confess that I've had to sit through some fairly awful powerpoint presentations in my time. But having said that, a well-structured, creatively produced presentation can be a highly effective way of getting your message across.

Most presentations are live, with presenter and audience in the same room at the same time. But what if you want to reach an wider audience, in multiple locations and at different times?

You might be surprised to hear that it's a fairly straightforward job to convert a set of powerpoint slides into a video. Add a recorded commentary and your presentation can be added to a website, used on a stand-alone automated kiosk or exhibition stand or distributed on DVD or CD-ROM.

You can even combine the presentation slides and a video of the presenter on a single screen to re-create the atmosphere of the original live event.

If you'd like to make more of your presentations, get in touch and we can talk through the options.

A 60 second video for your website for £99

A couple of weeks ago I did some research on the 4N business networking site on why more businesses don't use video content on their website. The top answers were that they hadn't had time to look into it or were worried about how much time it would take up, they weren't sure what to put into a video and that they were concerned about the price.

As a result, DPMB is launching a new fixed-price video production service aimed at smaller businesses and those who haven't used web video before.

The DPMB Business VideoXpress service lets you to see how a 60 second video on your website can help your business, without breaking the bank. It's ideal for product promotions, customer case studies/testimonials and video blogs.

Business VideoXpress is an easy three-step process, designed to keep things as simple as possible:

First we'll have an informal chat about what you would like to achieve with your video. We'll provide practical advice on the best way to get your message across, clearly showing what you have to offer and what makes you stand out from your competitors.

Then we'll film you, your staff, your customers, your premises - whatever you'd like to include, up to a maximum of 1 hour of filming at one location.

Finally we'll create a 60 second video clip, ready to upload to YouTube and add to your website.

It's fast, it's simple. In no time at all, your video is on your website helping to generate new business.

We're offering the DPMB Business VideoXpress service for just £99 to any business making a confirmed booking by 30th November 2011. The price applies to businesses within 50 miles of Reading. If you're based further away, we'll need to charge a little more to cover travel costs.

If you'd like to hear more, please get in touch!

“How to” business videos

A friend of mine has recently started a new business and is currently grappling with the classic conundrum of how to attract more customers. He's an electrician and wants to create a series of short "how-to" videos for his website to show prospective customers exactly what's involved in some typical domestic electrical jobs.

We're currently working on the storyboards to make sure we get the information across clearly and concisely. I think it's a great way of demonstrating his skills and creating that extra bit of confidence for new customers. The videos will also show what's involved in what can sometimes seem like very simple tasks, hence justifying his (very reasonable) prices!

If you think your business could benefit from something similar, give me a call and we can have a chat – even if you're just kicking around some ideas, we're always happy to help.

Making a Facebook game commercial

I had a very early start last Friday to get to Weybridge for 7:30am ready to start shooting a commercial for a new Facebook game. On this job, I was the location sound recorder - the man with the boom, headphones and a worried look every time a plane went over on its way to Heathrow.

The shoot took place in what seemed to be an ordinary large 1970's suburban house, but it turned out that the lady who owns it makes a good living by regularly renting it out for film shoots, including a "MoreThan Freeman" advert! Sounds good, but I'm not sure I'd like a crew of 16 people tramping in and out of my house and moving half the furniture out into the garage.

It was a long, long day but the crew were great fun to work with and by 7pm the director seemed happy. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished commercial which should launch with the game around the middle of September.