Finance Shoots

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Senior Content Manager at ComplyAdvantage, a financial crime risk detection firm helping companies globally to meet their regulatory requirements around money laundering.

For what projects/services did your company hire Finance Shoots, and what were your goals?

We hired Finance Shoots to produce a video outlining our vision for our products - the goal was to create hype and excitement around the direction of our product portfolio. Specifically, the video was designed to be used at our annual customer conference, and our internal all-staff kick-off event.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed a number of companies, but we chose Finance Shoots because they are FinTech specialists, were connected with other consultancies we work with and trust, and because they work with customers of ours. We also felt a good connection to their team, and felt they understood our vision for the project.

Describe the video(s) and the process in detail, including the project steps and all stages of production.

We started with a briefing, outlining the content of the video, our brand style and how the review and development process would work. As we only had a month to complete the project from start to finish, after that we moved quickly, iterating on a draft of the script over email.

Finance Shoots helped us to build out the visuals to go with the script, and find a voiceover artist. We completed review cycles on drafts of the video in 24 hour windows, iterating for the final week until the process was complete.

Who did you work with and what was the feedback process like?

We worked with Finance Shoots' creative director as our sole point of contact, which made the project really efficient. They were quick to respond to questions/feedback, and were also not afraid to push us out of comfort zone with some of their ideas.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We completed the video in a very tight turnaround time (4 weeks from brief to completion) but no one who watched the video would feel it was rushed, or that compromises had been made. It appealed to a wide range of internal/external stakeholders, and pushed the creativity of our brand.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

As we worked on a tight turnaround, we mainly collaborated over G-Suite products: Gmail and Google Docs. Finance Shoots were efficient, direct and upbeat, keeping us well informed and helping me to manage the team internally.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their creativity - it's so easy with B2B and tech content to resort to easy, generic visuals and overdone, cliche ideas. Finance Shoots elevated our video by ensuring we effectively told our story.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I can't think of anything - with more time we could always have iterated more, but the tight turnaround was dictated by our team in this case.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Projects Manager for a trade association in payments. We provide a community and various platforms for payments companies to connect and engage.

For what projects/services did your company hire Finance Shoots, and what were your goals?

We run a project open banking working group, where several payments executives come together to discuss open banking developments and also deliver a work programme of activities for the association. We sought to deliver a thought-leadership whitepaper on open banking 'use cases' to convey how open banking is solving problems for businesses and consumers.

As part of the research we interviewed several stakeholders over zoom to collect insight.

How did you select Finance Shoot and what were the deciding factors?

We have worked previously with Finance shoots on a separate project and were impressed by their professionalism and understanding of our company brand.

Describe the video(s) and the process in detail, including the project steps and all stages of production.

Finance Shoots organised a KO call where they asked us how we would like the videos to look, how long they would be and whether we wanted to create shorter clips to use on our social media platform. A brief was created and then I shared the recorded interviews via google drive. I was then in touch with some of the Finance shoots team every couple of days to be kept updated on process.

I was shared the first draft of the videos and then provided feedback to get them closer to our preferred design/look.

Who did you work with and what was the feedback process like?

We worked with their Director on the brief for the videos, before being introduced to a more junior member of the team who edited the videos. They shared the video files via Vimeo which allowed us to comment on the videos frame-by-frame, which was a useful and quick way for us to provide feedback.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We included links to the videos in our thought-leadership whitepaper which was downloaded hundreds of times. The videos really added to the slick design of the whitepaper. The stakeholders interviews also thought the videos were well produced when we shared them for approval. Shorter clips we put on social media were also well received by our followers.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Their style of finance shoots is clear and punctual, from the start to the end of the process. A clear brief is created and shared at the start of the project (which includes clear and broken down costs), invoices are shared promptly using Adobe sign and Vimeo is used for file sharing of the videos so we could provide feedback.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They understood our company brand and messaging just from a short call and were able to clearly communicate that through their video production.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

They could perhaps offer other alternative options to their choices and explain (in greater detail) why they chose particular aspects of the design.

Please describe your company and your position there.

BOOST&Co is an alternative lender that provides term loans and growth capital of £1m to £10m for UK SMEs, particularly those in the tech sector. I am the head of content and marketing at the firm.

For what projects/services did your company hire Finance Shoots, and what were your goals?

We hired Finance Shoots for our #BolderThanTheBanks campaign. This used our bright, characterful, distinctive visuals to show how we differ from traditional lenders. We have an in-house art director and senior graphic designer, but we needed external help to transform their storyboards into a one-minute animated video.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Finance Shoots was recommended by a former employee who had previously worked with the firm. We were new to commissioning videos, but were reassured by Gabriel and Jack's approach. They explained the process clearly and transparently, quoted a fair price and set out swift, detailed timescales for completion of the work.

Describe the video(s) and the process in detail, including the project steps and all stages of production.

Our in-house art director and senior graphic designer created a detailed storyboard for Finance Shoots to work with, also liaising with Gabriel and Jack on our desired completion date.

Finance Shoots established a detailed schedule, setting dates for delivery of the various drafts and receipt of our feedback. They provided drafts in the form of links, which proved much easier than downloading large files each time, and Jack made the process of choosing a soundtrack simple by providing a shortlist of potential tracks, again saved in an accessible form online.

The work involved animating a series of fun, hand-drawn images (for example, a unicorn fighting a flock of sheep) and adding captions throughout the video.

Who did you work with and what was the feedback process like?

After establishing the process and costs with Gabriel, we worked with Jack to provide feedback on each draft. This was a smooth and simple process, given the detailed schedule that he had established for delivery of each draft and receipt of our feedback. All feedback was incorporated swiftly.

There were only a couple of occasions where clarification was required: in these cases, Jack asked the right questions and quickly made changes to reflect our requests.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have had a good number of impressions since posting the video on our website. It has also been popular on our social-media channels, where the bright colours, fun animation and well-chosen soundtrack have helped it to stand out in the feed.

We also paid to promote the video with two major national business publications – on their websites and Twitter accounts, and in their digital newsletters. These instances also received a good number of impressions and we received excellent verbal feedback.

The animation was also well-received internally and its success has given us the impetus to reserve part of our budget to create more videos in the future.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

I found Gabriel and Jack extremely easy to work with, thanks to their pleasant, friendly manner and impressive organisational skills. They met each of the deadlines they had set to provide drafts, asked questions when they needed to clarify any of our requests, and went the extra mile to ensure that the animation was as good as it could be and also exactly what we had envisioned.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I have worked with many agencies where communication is an issue, causing delays because the production process is either unclear or not adhered to. It was therefore refreshing to work with Finance Shoots, who promised swift delivery of high-quality work at a fair price and delivered on this. I would highly recommend them and I will work with them again.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

There was a misunderstanding between me and their head of finance at the beginning of the project, but Gabriel swiftly smoothed this out. I'm a perfectionist and very fussy about external suppliers, but I honestly can't think of anything they could have done better.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Head of Communications at Britannia P&I which is a mutual marine insurance club with our membership made up of shipowners and ship operators.

For what projects/services did your company hire Finance Shoots, and what were your goals?

To plan and organise a virtual event consisting of pre-recorded video talks with our senior managers as well as live Q&A sessions with all the speakers. Our goal was to provide less experienced and more junior staff at our Members with an introduction to Britannia and our key departments and activities.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I was contacted on social media and I liked the work showcased on the company website.

Describe the video(s) and the process in detail, including the project steps and all stages of production.

We planned both the videos and live event in a series of virtual conference calls. We had two days' filming at our offices and then Finance Shoots edited the videos with regular feedback from our team. We had a set-up and rehearsal day ahead of the live events which were also in our offices.

Who did you work with and what was the feedback process like?

We worked with s film crew of two and one editor. The feedback process was very effective.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We surveyed participants following the event and feedback was very positive.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The team was very approachable, reactive and generally very easy to deal with.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was particularly impressed with the editing process and the addition of branding/graphics to our video talks.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Perhaps a little more direction during the filming of our video talks to get the most out of our spekaers.