One of the things we pride ourselves here at Mill Creek Pictures is the way in which we film. The OLD SKOOL way of filming of anything of quality was to have enormous crews, enormous cameras, enormous trucks and support vehicles. The assumption was that quality meant a large circus in tow. This is true of Hollywood, or New York or LA. WIth the advances in camera equipment in the last ten years the actual requirements of having to lug a film crew around have become almost microscopic.

In the last few years we have begun making a practice of paring our size of crew down with the intent of being able to allocate more of the budget in front of the camera; stuff the viewers and client actually see. Individual crew members must be able to perform more than one task quickly and efficiently. This philosophy has created two interesting side benefits; our productions move very quickly with very little disruption to the area in which we’re filming and our fuel and transport costs became almost minimal.

When we began filming overseas in places like Vietnam and Argentina, this ability became crucial because of the large physical area we had to cover in a short amount of time. At one point, due to traffic in Buenos Aires, the whole crew of 5 ditched the large trucks and jumped into cabs to complete filming. Even then we decided that it was yet quicker to walk through the city with all of our equipment strapped onto back packs.

This past summer, we had the pleasure to film for two cities who were to be showcased for the 2010 Olympics. As it was summer and the budget was somewhat limited, we opted to camp in government campgrounds. This offered us two great advantages again; camping close to our next days location, which was hours out of the city, meant we could catch early morning light to capture the absolute best footage. Our small crew, all of our camp gear and rations, our entire photographic equipment package which included a small crane fit inside a, get this – a 2007 Toyota Yaris. Yes, the cheapest car in Canada with among the most frugal fuel economies was our production vehicle over the course of 16 days filming in the entire of BC.

You can view the completed clips on our samples page

Spirit of BC City of Cranbrook AND Spirit of BC Williams Lake

Video has been given a bad name over the last 30 years. Why does the audience begin to yawn after the first few minutes. When uttered, the words ‘Corporate Video’ bring to mind ‘news style’ photography, cheap ‘canned’ music and droning announcers with friendly, yet cliched scripts. In most cases the videos have been much too long and conclude much like a bad date; lots of useless information and no ‘zing’, no sexiness. When the City of Surrey hired Mill Creek to produce a video for them we had to consider a number of things before we began. The brief was simple: “Don’t produce a ‘typical’ video for us”, oh and by the way “we are considering previewing it to Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, so it better be good”. After years of creating anything but typical we relished this opportunity and the fresh attitude presented to us. The City of Surrey had a lot at stake; with a very distinct reputation of being one of the most crime ridden, suburban armpits of western Canada, city officials needed to show something very different about their city and get visitors excited about investing in their plan. What we created for them addressed this issue to the letter. Today, the Mayor uses the video to open every function and economic development staff actively send the video as a calling card on a USB stick to every new contact.
And we did this by NOT doing everything that is incorporated in OTHER videos. We kept it short, minimized the announcer scripting, we filmed footage with our award winning cinematographer and created an emotional piece which got viewers sitting forward on the edge of their chairs. I remember when we first previewed the rough cut to city staff there were a few damp eyes of pride in the room!
I would dare to venture that 80% of videos produced in the industry are long, boring and a complete waste of money. Done right though, and the effects are immeasurable. Video can be that emotional connector to someone who’s never met you before by conveying who you are and what your company is about . Things that no other medium does be it print (no one reads them really), phone calls (everyone forwards your call to the message box) or glossy photos (too static). Business people still look for relationships, something personal, before they make a decision to engage in business with you. A well produced video like the one we produced for Surrey can do the same thing. In this changing economy, video, as a representation of what your company is about and what it stands for can be highly effective in influencing potential new relationships.
You will see it make a resurgence as a communications tool.

View the completed video on our samples page. It’s called “The Future Lives Here”

I’ve posted this on the blog but I’m so proud of it I thought I’d post it here as well. We’ve just been notified that we were awarded a silver and a bronze for cinematography for our work on Equilibrium Resorts four part presentation. Thanks again to Paul, CJ and Joe (for introducing us) And not to mention thanks to Rohan for coordinating seven weeks of travel, equipment and crew logistics from -25 to 45 celcius weather and logging thousands of miles through the great states of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. Scott, even though you almost died at altitude I hope you come back to Canada soon for more fun on set.

Check on this space as I tell the story about the production crew’s escapades on a three week shoot in Texas! Travelling by car from city to city with a mostly Australian Crew whilst filming aerial footage from a tiny helicopter that had fan belts (more than one, in case the other one’s broke) which drove the rotor blades piloted by a guy named Steve who wore jeans and sneakers. And he had a shotgun tucked in behind the seat with a couple of loose shells rolling around on the floor. Contrasted with the pilots from Denver who wore full flight suits and those helmets with the dark tinted face shields and radios sprouting out of them. One of them flew campaigns in ‘the Gulf’ on a helicopter gun ship. Both flights were exciting and terrifying in different ways.

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