Sometimes a client comes along that totally trusts you. It’s a nice feeling. In this case, it was Daniel from Custom Mobile Apps in Australia. We’d never met, never even spoken before but he trusted us to make an advert for a new App. That’s what I love about my job. It allows Ailsa and I to ‘meet’ and work with some amazing people from all around the world.

I’d been regularly moaning at Helen about how I used to make something other than paper craft explainer videos. So I was desperate to show her what my job used to be like. It was real fun. In fact it was a bit like play time for Ailsa and myself.

Here is one we made for SunglassesUK. Our client Jonny just left us too it. He might have regretted it though 🙂

We’ve been so engrossed in our explainer videos over the past 3 years we’ve forgotten to advertise our viral video production services. But not anymore though. I’ve got the filmmaking itch back and I’m going to make sure I scratch it!

This web advert was for an App called PaintMyPlace which allows you to paint your house using your phone. It’s very useful if you’re going to be renovating your property and want to test out a few colours.

Now, as you all know. Ailsa and I work day about so we can look after our 1 year old twin boys. But luckily we have Helen working with us now so it was down to us to produce this advert. This was the first big project that Helen had been involved in. She found it a little odd that part of the job was watching other online videos to see if something sparks off in the brain. It really does work!

I’ve long been a fan of Rhett & Link on YouTube. So I showed her the T-Shirt War video they made a few years ago.

Amazing. Stop motion it was then. I understand the basic principles of stop motion but had never made a live stop motion advert before. So I watched a lot of how to videos and realised one thing. It’s was going to be hard! But with the right planning everything should be fine.

The timing was the most difficult part to get my head around. Because we were animating the video to music everything had to be frame accurate. It may sound simple, but trust me, it isn’t.

The biggest shot was definitely the logo. It took Helen 7 and a half hours to paint. But why did we paint it in full first and not frame by frame? Well, we cheated. We (when I say we I mean Helen) painted the logo first so we could paint it out frame by frame and then reverse for the final shot. This ensured that the logo was 100% accurate because if you didn’t’ recognise the logo then the video would’ve ended on a low note. And we can’t have that!

I’ve made a very short video for you all to see how some of the shots were created. I hope you like.

The thought bubble is still on our wall. The truth is, I can’t bring myself to paint it out. I just don’t just feel like I can. I’m not sure why. This video isn’t just another advert or attempt to make a living for The Cuillin Collective. It’s something that we created. It started off as a thought and despite the complexity we made it work.

In the past few years of business we’ve made well over 750 videos, all of which I’m extremely proud of. But this video holds a very special place in my heart and I want to be reminded of it every day. Nothing is impossible! So if you’re ever visiting Elgol, look out for the wall with the thought bubble on it because I think it will always be there. (I’ve not told Ailsa yet so this may change)

What did you think of the final video?