St Ann’s Hospice, one of Manchester’s biggest and best-loved charities, approached me recently with a problem. They had lots of footage shot on phones of their supporters at various fundraising events, but they were worried that the quality wasn’t good enough. There were wobbly shots, lots of background noise and varying degrees of picture quality. They wanted to know if I could stitch them together into one snappy video that would somehow look professional and on-brand.
Naturally, I was happy to help; editing clients’ footage is something I do on a regular basis. I love taking raw materials and crafting something polished. By hand-picking the best soundbites, creating bespoke branded graphics and adding some upbeat music, I was able to create a fun video that encourages people to get involved with the charity.
In fact, the phone videos weren’t just useable, they were better in some ways than professional footage would have been. There’s a level of authenticity from the self-shot style that we might not have got from a more traditional filming approach. It’s also a massively cost effective way of doing things compared with sending a videographer to several different events.
