Monday 29 October 2012

Dischro Creative Explains the Different Types of Films and Videos Available for Advertising and Marketing.



With the advent of short films being used for company marketing and advertising purposes, there is confusion about what some of the standard terms actually means. In this article you will find a short explanation to help you decide on what is best for your business. 

Teaser:

A Video Teaser is for an advertising campaign, which typically consists of a series of short, cryptic snippets, which anticipate a larger campaign for a product or event launch etc. Teasers are usually used in the build-up to a product or event launch.
Teasers usually last between 20 and 60 seconds, largely depending on what the product or event is and what the client is hoping to achieve from their campaign. These can also be placed on the specific company page of Facebook or YouTube. 

Trailer or Promotional Video:

A trailer or promotional video is used in a more traditional advertising campaign for a product or event. This usually anticipates some feature or reflects on the quality and success of an occasion. It is ordinarily a more straightforward and to-the-point account of what a product or event is hoping to achieve or what it has achieved. 
Trailers typically last between 90 – 210 seconds; again depending on what the product or event is and what the client is hoping to achieve from the campaign.  Once again, these are ideal for social network site business pages.

 Showreel:

A Business or Company Showreel is designed to cast a spotlight on the best items in your portfolio of services and products, through telling the story of how the results are achieved in a polished and engaging video-format.  A Showreel typically lasts anywhere between 3 and 6 minutes depending upon the amount of footage available which could include archive shots or newly filmed imagery and interviews.  This type of video can also be useful in gaining potential customers trust in allowing them to put names to faces and to understand your company ethos and work ethic.  It could also be used as a customer testimonial video for the website or again on Facebook and YouTube giving companies an ideal marketing tool.

Feature:

A feature is a video lasting anything from five minutes to an hour or more. It could document a recent success story surrounding a product or event.  A Video production is often published to websites or supplied on DVD duplication production as a promotional product. It provides an opportunity to include in-depth demonstrations as well as interviews and additional content that would not usually be included in shorter videos like Teasers, Trailers and Showreels. They are additionally useful to be added to tenders.

How to:

A how to video is an instructional aid used to demonstrate the functionality of a product; and/or to provide information to customers. Popular uses of this type of video are to deliver health and safety information or to create a presentation about the features of a product. This ensures that staff can continue to assist customers in the most effective manner without the pressure of performing a live demonstration. Additional benefits of this type of video include; no over-reliance on a single staff member, especially when that person is unavailable, the ability to show the same scenario from multiple angles simultaneously and the facility to play the instructions more than once - ensuring customers are able to move at their own pace.
The duration of a’ how to’ video is entirely dependent on the complexity of the topic in question.

Monday 22 October 2012

Design Tips from Dischro Creative to Achieve the Best Results and Save Money in the Process.



In these difficult financial times, small companies and individuals in particular are trying to save money by doing their own graphic design without knowing enough to be able to present an acceptable image to their printers. Sometimes this proves to be a false economy due to changes that are necessary in order to have their job printed.
Here you will find a number of helpful tips to enable you to present your artwork which is print ready and eliminate expensive mistakes which many printers will charge for:

1.       Check the specifications before starting the artwork creation. Set up the canvas, which is simply the area you are using for the design, ensuring you are using the correct dimensions to the specification supplied. This will show the length of each edge or a ‘to scale’ template which will enable you to lay out your graphics. It is most important that you follow the exact requirements of the printer you are going to use as many use different parameters. Although some products such as CD Jewel Case Booklets vary little it is still advisable to stick to the script. Even with an A4 Poster which is unlikely to cause any confusion.

2.       Bleeding Out is one of the most likely problems that people get wrong. All artwork for print must include an extra 3mm of the background on all outer edges. Therefore, if the total finished size is 210mm x 148mm which is the size of an A5 Booklet for instance. You need to add 3mm extra background on each edge resulting in the full dimensions of the artwork being 216mm x 154mm. Also include crop marks indicating where the actual cut line is. This always true whether using Digital Printing or any other form of printing.

3.       Keep relevant data away from the edge by ensuring it is at least 3mm away from the actual cutting line within a safety margin. So a total of at least 6mm away from the very edge of the graphic design. This is because there is always the possibility of small shifts when printing which is why the bleed area is necessary. Furthermore, this could affect both edges so you could find that some of the area inside the cut on one side will be lost as more bleed zone comes onto the finished unit. It doesn’t matter if it is design of brochures, booklets, leaflets, CD packaging or whatever always stick to these principles.

4.       If in doubt create a PDF rather than saving to JPEG to save your work as most programmes are capable of outputting files of this type. This, along with the quality aspect makes it much easier to get your crop marks added prior to production. If the whole process can be designed inside Adobe Acrobat for instance, this is most likely to save you money too. There are many software packages around that are used for graphic design but not all are truly suitable. Some will not let you add crop marks or registration marks showing the cut line but you can overcome this by ensuring you have compensated for the bleed and keeping all elements far enough away from the edge as stated earlier.

One thing to remember is that it is impossible for any printer to help you improve your images if it is presented in poor quality and using an unreliable or inadequate software package like freeware. Sometimes it is worth getting the design professionally completed, especially if there are branding issues and particularly for a logo design. In the long run, if you do not have sufficient creative design skills and are conversant with the software you are using you will finish up with more problems which will result in additional costs and time wasted.

Thursday 11 October 2012

Dischro Creative Welcomes Jobe Bruzas as Senior Creative Executive.



As the Creative arm of Dischromatics, Dischro Creative has been formed to enable the innovative elements of the business to be brought together with their forward thinking personnel to work together in one section to the benefit of our existing and potential customers.

Jobe Bruzas, who has joined Dischro Creative and is a graduate of Carmarthen University in Digital Media and the Arts, has also worked as a Journalist, Producer and Editor. Whilst still at university, he worked with an ITV current affairs programme. Since graduation he has continued working with ITV but also produced programmes for both TV and Radio for the BBC, adding S4C/Avanti to his impressive portfolio, he is a fluent Welsh speaker.

Whilst working for these major broadcasters Jobe has worked in some capacity or other on many well-known TV and Radio programmes. He has a passion for the media, enjoying trips to the theatre in between his busy schedule when he also produced news programmes, he just loves being at the sharp end expressing his artistry to the full. However, to be completely fulfilled he needed a new challenge where he could be more involved in the decision making process and  in a challenging commercial environment. As a true expert in his field, he joins a young management team of like-minded forward thinking individuals whose total commitment is to achieve absolute customer satisfaction. 

With many opportunities presenting themselves, Jobe decided to accept an offer from Dischro Creative to develop their creative business and with his already invaluable experience and skill base it was a natural step explaining “I needed more opportunities to be able to express my talents and ideas, somewhere I could build something I could be proud of which was unique and would offer companies and organisations a marketing opportunity they couldn’t get anywhere else. Dischro Creative gives me what nobody else could, a free hand to push the barriers and mould the creative business around me. ”

Dischro Creative already offers a range of creative services like Graphic Design with branding opportunities and logo design, DVD and Blu-ray Authoring and now Filming and Editing producing Company Showreels, Music Videos for groups and bands as well as promotional and event videos, even wedding videos and YouTube videos. With App Development, 3D Animations, Motion Graphics and Mobile Websites.  Their Web site design service includes SEO. They believe they are the only company around with the ability in-house to offer a complete marketing package along with printing services including direct mail variable data printing and digital and optical media duplication. 

Dischromatics the well-known CD and DVD Duplication company which was formed in 1989 and holds ISO accreditations in both quality and the environment has a vast customer base who are already starting to tap into the talents and services offered by Dischro Creative and reaping the rewards. With new state of the art camera equipment just delivered thanks to a grant from the very pro-active Caerphilly Borough Council, it is expected that more personnel of the standard of Jobe Bruzas will be needed to keep up with demand.









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