Personally, it was quite a year for us, with a young baby at the start of the year and our Creative Director, Victoria was on maternity leave until March. So now we have 2 lovely studio kids – but babies aside… here are some cool bits of work and some nice achievements!
Video & Design Work
We worked on 97 videos, that’s almost 2 per week! There were also 5 more projects that we started right at the end of 2022, but have carried on into this year (I’m not counting those).
We created 32 of these videos for non-profit organisations, this is a big passion of ours and increasingly important.
We localised some of these videos into 6 languages including French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin and Bahasa (the language of Indonesia).
The industries we worked with mostly included education and young people, families, medical and health, financial and technology.
New Showreel
In 2022 we finally managed to update our video and animation showreel! We had tried a few times in the past, but then work would get so busy that it would go to the back of the queue… Finally, we made it a top priority, and we’re very proud of the work we’ve achieved, you can see it below.
Environment
in 2022, primarily our car travel is for live action video shoots. We did 14 video shoots in 2022 – most of these were in the North West. We prioritised train journeys over car usage wherever possible, for example, video shoots in London are often quite easily done by train.
Our camera operators often have a lot of heavy gear, so car travel can’t be avoided by them sometimes, but directors can usually rely on public transport or a car share.
For locally based clients, we walked for meetings and even video shoots. We also created a number of videos based on Zoom recordings, reducing the need for travel altogether.
We’re able to work remotely very often; we have a strict policy on travel and flying and will only do it when necessary. As such, we took 1 flight in 2022, for a video shoot in Ireland.
Back in the studio. We have been making improvements to reduce our electricity usage, which is our primary source of carbon emissions. At the end of the year, we recently swapped to smart plugs, reducing the electricity used by our equipment when on standby. Initial data shows this has reduced the electricity used by studio equipment by up to a quarter.
Climate Action with Ecologi
Since 2020 we have been signed up to Ecologi, you can see our climate profile here showing the number of trees planted, 450 to date, and the 33 other important climate projects that we’ve helped to finance.
Health
With the stress of covid barely over, mental health has been a top priority for staff and freelancers, with Headspace available to all employees.
We don’t enforce a set amount of days per week in the studio; staff and freelancers work from home.
Video and Motion design is a very generally fast-paced industry. However, we are continually striving towards easier deadlines and allowing proper time for everyone to work with less pressure and stress.
Community
We have worked on several community projects completely free of charge, providing free bits of design and consultancy or advice to anyone who needs a helping hand. We’ve also done a select few projects at a very low cost to help those starting out.
Staff are encouraged to volunteer where they feel passionate about something. In 2022, volunteer hours by the team were well over 100. Primarily working on local gardening projects, working to improve biodiversity locally.
Governance
We reviewed and refined our Ethics policies and environmental and anti-corruption policies.
Goals for 2023
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who was with us in 2022, overall it was a great year producing video and design work we can all be proud of. And thank you to clients for trusting us to help deliver your message.
We are looking forward to working with more non-profits and mission-driven organisations who share our passion for the environment, health and families.
Even though we are a small business, we want to work towards the UN’s sustainable development goals. We already know that we are on the right route, but are working for certification – proof that we are doing it. We’re determined to be a force for good in the world and leave a positive impact.
A big target for 2023 is that we’re working towards B Corp certification. We’re just starting the journey of filling out the Impact Assessment, so we’ll keep you updated as this goes on.
If you’d like to work with us in 2023, please get in touch and we’ll get back to you asap.
