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11 years of gratitude

Time for an annual gratitude post.
Today marks 11 years since the idea of BL Media Solutions took form and started to grow with thanks to Renee Attwells. It began with Day 1 of my first freelance contract at Sportsbrand Media and the countless awesome crew there, to Brendan Bell for trusting me to continue all the social media and post production for MXTV, building it to what it is today.
I now count myself lucky to have some great agency and corporate clients, and some invaluable connections and friendships. Running your own small business can be tough, no doubt, and having moved through the last two years of having business placed under some tricky conditions, to the crew at Epic Studios, the advice, council and friendship especially during lockdown has proven invaluable.
As always the grind and hustle are worth it when your clients reactions and “word of mouth” recommendations are the only form of marketing you’ve ever really had to engage.
Finally a massive thanks goes to all of you who have helped in any way small or large, and an even bigger thank to everyone who’s given me the chance to work with them to create great content.
The biggest thanks of all goes to Josie Molloy, without her I think this would genuinely have struggled at times.
Hustle hard and stay humble.

Videos for all types of content

We’ve had the chance to tackle some wide and varied content over the journey of BL Media Solutions, and even more so in the last 6 months. From videos for exercise apps, case studies, television commercials right through to landing page promos, designed to shape a little buzz and fun about a product offering.

A video that met the “product offering” brief, hit our edit suite recently. It came from our brilliant mates at Scooter Creative and their client BMW Australia and the Mini marque.

With a great storyboard, and shot selection for key points in hand, we set about music selection and accessing a great footage collection to build a funky little 30 second promo, designed to outline the benefits of engaging with a new flexible ownership option for Mini owners and any future options for cars from the Mini fleet they might like to consider. Watch the video in the link above!

This type of video can be great in outlining some top-line information in a quick bite size format for potential customers.

We can create this and any type of content from our video production office based in South Yarra, Melbourne. Get in touch if you have any video questions!

A great way to express large scale information

Ever driven by one of those large industrial parks, and wondered to yourself “who owns all theses warehouses?”

Recently we were tasked with creating a video package for Charter Hall for their MidWest Logistics Hub in Western Melbourne.
Taking a range of stills, drone and video shots and add in a well major statistics, we created an engaging piece to express the size and caliber of the tenants.

Drone shots in particular were perfect for conveying the location and it’s proximity to Melbourne and the Port of Melbourne, which then gives potential customers an idea of how this location would be perfect as a base for companies that need to distribute goods, and the city, state and country.

Projects like this are great as the present creative challenges and it gives us a chance to use both leading edge camera gear and drone pilots to capture strong images to place brand message at the front of mind.

Corporate video returns to Melbourne

Needless to say, everyone’s probably been a little distracted over the last 18 months or so. We certainly hope you’ve been keeping well!

We’ve been able to keep creating some great and valuable content for our South Yarra, Melbourne HQ. Being based in the great space that is Epic Studios has been an invaluable space during this time.
Now things are opening up, and we’re getting out there and helping brands and organisations, both local, national and overseas based, tell great stories and create strong messages.

Getting back out to help leading brands is something we love. NEC, BMW Financial Services, Dulux, Segway Powersports, Suzuki, Lifestyle Communities, Olde El Paso and amazing charities like Red Nose Australia and Very Special Kids have been amoungst some of the names we’ve worked with. It gives us a chance to use both leading edge camera gear and drone pilots to capture strong images to place brand image at the front of mind.

A huge thanks goes to all the agencies and direct clients alike who have trusted us to help them either remotely or face-to-face when restrictions have allowed, your support has allowed us to go from strength to strength and look forward to an epic 2022!

Confronting a personal fear – It can change your life

 

Melbourne Corporate Video.

It can always be daunting, that moment someone challenges you to confront a fear, and Jon Barrie from Adobe did just that this year when he asked me if I was keen to present a couple of talks as part of Adobe’s sponsorship of the St Kilda Film Festival and the emerging filmmakers open day at JMC Academy.

 

This was great, as it helped me recognise that I may have a little bit of industry knowledge… and that people may be interested to hear it! So a few days spent writing and getting my slides sorted, a lots of practice still wasn’t helping my stress levels, which I found ironic as I know what it takes to present and create content, but as this was my first time presenting my own, all of a sudden it was very real!

The day in question came and both presentations went as well as can be expected, and were well received by the audiences. I spoke on a project that I edited that I now part of the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (ACMI) and a talk on what it takes to run a post production process on your own as part of the production process I undertake when editing and delivering MXTV to Australian broadcaster the 7 network.

On reflection it was great to be asked to do this, as I feel you can only learn and grow when pushed to do things that may be a little out of your comfort zone, be it riding a giant roller coaster at a theme park or standing up in front of a room full of your peers. Once you do it, it’s all completed, it’ll feel like a blur and you’ll wonder what you were ever worried about at the start!

 

A Proud Moment

At the start of 2020, before Covid shutdowns really hit Melbourne hard, I was lucky enough to be asked to assist on a project that was a little outside of what my usual field is.
This was a moment that I didn’t hesitate to say yes, as this was a moment to help create something that was going to become a legacy, not a fleeting moment like most of the projects we can sometimes work on.

I was tasked with shaping a great piece shot my my friend Brad Gibb and told by the awesome sports presenter Shelley Ware, as a background into her connection to country and the place that she has seen her family legacy grow, Koonibba in South Australia. It was a privilege to be trusted to help tell a story about family and cultural connection, and to work with two brilliant people in Shelley and Brad. From my early rough cuts, we traveled through several drafts and fine tuned edits before presenting it to ACMI in Melbourne for their final sign off, and for it to be integrated into the newly renovated public display.

This brings me to the main reason for this post, some times it is great to be able to step up and be involved in a project that you may not have normally said yes to, a project that helps tell a story greater than your own, and to have something that countless people will hopefully watch and gain an under standing of things that are bigger than just themselves. The fact that there is a piece in one of Melbourne’s most important cultural venues, the Australian Centre of the Moving Image, telling the story of an amazing indigenous woman in Shelley Ware, makes me proud beyond words.

Great to finally get toACMI to see “the desert meets the sea” in its new home for myself was so surreal to see it on display in the buzz and hum of the gallery. Huge thanks again to Brad Gibb for getting me involved in helping to tell this great story of Shelley and her connection to country and community. #acmi #storytelling #storiesonscreen #connectedtocountry #indigenousstories #aussierules #womeninsport #melbournevideo #contentcreation

Ben Lane Melbourne Based Video Editor at ACMIBen Lane Melbourne Based Video Editor at ACMIBen Lane Melbourne Based Video Editor at ACMIBen Lane Melbourne Based Video Editor at ACMI

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
Way of the Peaceful Warrior - Dan Millman

If you had asked me in the summer of 2020 what I’d be up to work wise in September, it certainly wouldn’t have been “sitting at a desk in my lounge room editing from home”.

But that’s just one of the curve balls that 2020 has thrown at many of us this year!

Like many in Melbourne’s creative industry I’ve been caught in a state of flux, I have plenty of work to do and clients to create content for, but I’m not allowed out of the 4 walls of home legally for a few more weeks due to Melbourne’s covid restrictions. So one of the challenges this has presented is where to find other sources of work and not to dwell on what can’t be completed.

That’s where a well timed phone call from a former colleague proved to be perfectly timed. Adam from Firefly Media Production in Tasmania reached out as he was in need of a new post production collaborator for regular Television Commercial and Corporate video editing. To step back into an area that I first started my post career in many years ago has been a creative outlet that has been well timed and needed at the moment.

Working again with someone with whom I had a great past workplace relationship with has been brilliant, and once again helping someone deliver timely and cost effective TVC messaging has been fun. There’s only so much you can say in 30 seconds!

So in these challenging times, always be on the lookout for a new opportunity, it may be just around the next corner!

When we can all get out there for adventure!

Sometimes the easiest way to show your audience and potential product buyers how well your item works is to get it out there and road test it!
This is exactly what the team from Suzuki Motorcycles Australia did earlier this year when they took delivery of the new model V-Strom 1050 adventure bikes, before their release to the broader Australian market recently.

It was the perfect way for the team to communicate to a wider audience what the changes were with the new models, some of the heritage elements that were involved, and also how easy it would be to “build your own bike” via their newly relaunched website.

We eventually created two pieces, a longer form at around 5 minutes, and a shorter version for usage across more social media platforms.

Consumers like video because it’s easy to digest, entertaining and engaging, and marketers like it because it can give a potentially huge return on investment (ROI) through many channels.

Video is also very accessible to anyone with internet access, both to watch and to produce. While there is certainly a trend towards higher quality video on a professional level, anyone can hop onto their laptop and create their own video in under an hour. We always aim to make the whole process as smooth as we can for our clients, and achieve the results they are after.

All kinds of rewards!

Recently we collaborated with one of our long term clients to produce some engaging content around the re-invigoration of one of their partner brands. The aim was to show the changing of the program, and the options on offer that members would be able to redeem, through the use of animation.

Through a series of storyboard sessions, creating a fun script targeting the style of audience in mind, teaming up with a great animator, then within a short period we had a great piece that met the expectations of all involved. we think it’s a fun and engaging way to quick educate viewers what will be on offer as the program refreshes and rebrands!

Animation can be a great tool to vary how you communicate with clients, and is a cost effective method to create a message that meets all your requirements.

Animation is important because it makes us be able to tell stories and communicate emotions and ideas in a unique, easy-to-perceive way that both small children and adults can understand. Animation has helped connect people throughout the world in a way that sometimes writing and live-action films cannot. Today, anyone can pick up a drawing tablet and show their ideas to the world. Drawn figures can be funny, or make something sad or serious have a playful, less intimidating feel to it to make the viewer feel more comfortable.  Often, it has simply served as a way to make a heartwarming story that makes you think.

No matter what the exact use, animation is one of the most powerful creative tool we have, and we should continue to use it as a form of uniting people, no matter their beliefs, biases, or interests.

Melbourne Stage 4 doesn’t mean content has to stop

A little bit of social distancing doesn’t mean content has to stop, but it can present some challenges! Recently we put this clip together for Brendan from Melbourne-based dirt bike show MXTV and his product review of the great iDRIVE Australia throttle system for turbo vehicles. He and his son Cam filmed it all themselves with a small camera and then sent us the footage to put together in to a great looking package for them.

Even with your trusty mobile phone, you have the power to create great and engaging content. It gives you the ability to show your customer base new products you may be launching, through to customer testimonials, or you may just want to show new customers what it is you actually do. Every person, business and organisation has a great story just needing to be unlocked and told!

Reach out today if you have any content you’d love to put together to reach your audience.
You can reach out via the website contact form, our facebook page, or even an old fashioned phone call!