For our new website, the main imperative was to feature online video as much as possible – not just loads of video clips of our films, but in a way that showed people in the non-video production sector just how valuable and important video on a website can be. The first thing we asked Webstars to do was to develop a new bespoke media player for us. We were thinking along the lines of the BBC iPlayer, something that offered a great viewing experience and that allowed the video to be shared with other sites for online propagation. And we wanted a media player that would not only work across our site, but that we could supply to our customers.

On our homepage, the media player would take centre stage. The film it showed would have to encapsulate something unique, and something special about Spectrecom rather than the work we produce. Last August, we went up onto Blackheath on a sunny Friday afternoon (probably the only one last summer!) to put all of our creative heads together and to decide what the film should look like. Steve even brought his kids with him, and amidst the fun, and later the drinks, a brief slowly emerged.

As always with any brief, we identified the messages we wanted to get across in the 90 seconds available. We felt that a fly-through would be able to show off our studio, hospitality and post-production facilities, introduce key members of our staff, show our work behind the scenes, and of course, allow us to screen some examples of our work. The film would have to be high-end (we opted for ‘cinematic’) so that in itself, without us having to resort to clichés like ‘creative’ and ‘quality’ in our narrative, we could simply show what we are capable of. It’s a bit like a personal ad boasting of GSOH. Don’t tell me, prove it! Just make me laugh. And finally, the film in its whole had to say something else about us, something that emerges which is more than just the sum of its component parts. We wanted this to be ‘honesty’, and in this case, being open and honest about who we are. In other words, we weren’t hiding behind the anonymity that a website can engender, where you get to see only the parts they (whoever ‘they’ are) want you to see. And for me, this precisely sums up the power of online video.  

a.greener@spectrecom.co.uk