With Shell being a leading corporate player in their industry, they are constantly developing new fuel technologies. The film that we produced was to showcase one of their new consumer products, Shell V-Power Nitro+ diesel.
Matt led a single shoot day at Shell's fuel technology lab in Hamburg, capturing the processes and environments that are involved to produce the product. The creative approach was a visual essay, so no talking heads and no formal interviews taking up screen time. Instead, a carefully crafted voiceover laid over cinematic footage that illustrates what's being explained as it's being said.
The visual style was deliberately clinical and ordered featuring precise compositions, clean lines and a look that reflected the scientific environment. It's a format that works particularly well for technical subject matters with the visuals giving context to the voiceover.
The voiceover itself came from an interview conducted with a Shell fuel scientist on location. The questions were designed specifically to yield material that could be shaped into a seamless narrative in the edit. Doing this requires careful preparation in pre-production, but the pay-off is that it produces a far more natural result than a scripted read. The interview was actually recorded in a car, which turned out to be the most practical solution on a tight one-day schedule!
The key is to lead with the story rather than the science. Technical subject matter becomes engaging when it's framed around something the viewer can connect with such as a process they can follow, a problem being solved or a result they can understand. The visuals do the heavy lifting, the narration translates. Getting that balance right requires thorough research and planning in pre-production.
In our experience, the best voiceovers on technical projects come from interviews with the people who know the subject best. We design the questions with the key messaging in mind, so the material we get back can be shaped into a seamless narrative in the edit. The result is a voiceover that carries genuine authority and lands the right messages, without sounding like it was written by a marketing team.
It depends entirely on the brief. For Shell, filming in the actual laboratory in Hamburg was a non-negotiable, the whole purpose of the film rested on showing the real environment, the real equipment, and the real people behind the product. A recreated set would have undermined everything the film was trying to achieve.
Yes. Large organisations come with their own set of requirements such as multiple stakeholders, structured approval processes, brand guidelines, and a level of scrutiny that smaller commissions don't carry. We're very experienced working within those parameters and understand what is needed to have a film signed off at that level.