Project

At Built In’s request, Jump Point developed two standardized video series to showcase the people, culture, and technology at innovative companies. These video styles were pitched to Built In, approved, and then a demo video was produced for each. These standardized video styles are now sold to Built In’s clients as part of a larger package of services The execution and continued development of the video component of the packages has been put entirely in the hands of Jump Point.

Origin

For the “Behind the Tech” series, Built In tasked us with developing a low-cost, high-value, and consistent video product to showcase their tech industry clients with the ultimate goal of boosting the end client’s recruitment efforts. The videos needed to be produced on site, anywhere in the country, with a low-lift pre-production process and standardized pricing. 

Treatment

Going into the project we identified three main problems we had with most corporate videos: Bad lighting, bad sound, and bad acting. The first two can make the video (and as a result the end-client) look cheap, and careless. The third one, bad acting is just cringy. Any of the three can make a video hard to watch, but it’s especially bad if they’re all together. We tasked ourselves with creating a production approach that would result in high-quality visuals, high-quality audio, and that wouldn’t require much acting from the regular people we would be working with.

The approach we landed on focuses on a quality-over-quantity approach. We limit ourselves to a single interview setup and just three other scenes in order to make time to get the visuals perfect and to have time to get authentic, un-scripted thoughts from our interviewees in the interview. For the scenes of teams working together, our trick is we don’t fake it. We have them do real work, and then shoot in slow motion, so that when something great does happen, we can stretch that small moment into a longer shot.

Just these couple consistent elements give the series a visual through-line regardless of whether they are being shot in Boston or Austin, San Francisco or NYC, or Tinder or Caterpillar. At the same time, because they feature the end client’s office and people, each video is unique to each client. 

Results

We are now more than 100 videos into the series, and through it we’ve worked with some of the nation’s top tech companies. The approach we developed for this series has proven to be extremely successful and attractive to companies of all sizes and industries, with many becoming repeat customers over the years. And what’s more, in all that time we’ve required zero re-shoots. Every project has been delivered on time and on budget.

Origin

In 2020 the pandemic meant many companies who had been ordering Behind the Tech videos, had to suddenly move their workforces remote. With the prospect of in-office shooting indefinitely removed as an option for most of their customers, Built In asked us to develop a video series to show off company culture specifically designed around remote teams. 

Treatment

The “United We Tech” series was born from that request. Working inside the limitations, we decided on a hosted talk-show format. Guests are sent a phone mount, instructed by a professional filmmaker how and where to set up, and then they record live with our host Jesi who is with the Jump Point team in the studio.

This elevates the quality of the series above a long-form podcast and ensures we don’t need to use the guest’s lower-quality cellphone video full-screen. Instead, it can be windowed and inset on the higher quality video captured in-studio. A director in the studio works with both our host, and the guests to make sure we’re getting everything we need for the final product. The final video is edited down under five minutes, allowing time for free-flowing conversation, but keeping it from becoming “long form” content. It also features a “lightning round” designed to get some personality and laughter from the guests while still communicating a lot about the company culture and approach.

Results

With more than 25 episodes sold in three years, United We Tech has proven extremely attractive to companies of all sizes and types. Some episodes feature guests from different states, and some from different continents, but in both cases, this product has proven to be a great way to show how a company culture is not constrained by borders.

Conclusion

Creating a video series is a much different task than creating an individual video, because what can work once time can’t necessarily be repeated over the course of one-hundred videos, in locations all over the country.

We say we “engineer videos for success”, and what we mean is that we scrutinize not only the creative approach, but also the production approach, approach to budget, schedule, and all the systems that will be a part of the process. Those elements all contribute to the success of the series in the long term.