Forty years, told in twelve minutes

Forty years of a multinational pharmaceutical business, told in twelve minutes, for a national sales conference audience who already worked there.

The problem with an anniversary film

An audience of your own people will not sit through a corporate history. They know it. What they do not know is why any of it was difficult, and that is the only thing worth twelve minutes of their attention.

So the film is not a timeline. It is built around one number the company had never put in a film before, and the interviews were steered toward it from the first day of the shoot rather than hoping it emerged in the edit.

Planning one shoot for ten deliverables

The conference wanted a twelve minute piece. Marketing wanted a three minute web version. Social wanted verticals. Those are the same shoot only if you plan for them, because vertical cuts need vertical coverage and you cannot crop your way out of it afterwards.

Every interview was covered twice, and every plant sequence was shot with a vertical pass. That added roughly a day to the schedule and removed a second production entirely.

Archive

Forty years of material existed as prints and tape in three different offices. We scanned what was usable, restored what was worth restoring, and were honest with the client about what could not be saved.

What it produced

One three day shoot yielded the twelve minute film, a three minute web cut, six vertical edits and a title sequence the client now reuses. The film opened the sales conference and is still on their careers page.