Video in the Digital Transformation

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Video Days 2024. Welcome back. Welcome back for those who joined me in session two, and welcome to all the new digital faces that have just joined for video in the digital transformation with Bird and Bird. So, for Video Days 2024, we strive to be the annual event for everyone doing video. And I'm very happy to announce that this is actually the fifth year in a row that we are hosting. Video Days. We try to come together as a community so that we can all learn and grow and hopefully be able to take our video game to the next level. I'm very happy to announce that Video Days is organized and hosted by 23. Our video tools are used by marketers at growth companies at some of... all over the world, including some of the largest enterprises also all over the world, to do video and to do webinars. We strive to bring together everything you need in one integrated platform ready to scale up to hundreds of marketers and hundreds of marketing teams across your organization so that you can really get real with video. And our belief here at the company is that video is the real thing. Video is one of those fundamental things that makes the digital world feel more human and more real. And every year we host both video days and webinar days. Thank you very much. To drive the field forward. But we want to do it together with all of you. So if you have anyone that you think could benefit from any of the sessions and the content being shared today, please feel free to share the event with your teammates and your colleagues. On-demand sign-ups is also completely free. And we are happy to learn together. So thank you so much for tuning in. I know that we're not sitting together in the same room. But I still hope that we can create that. That sense of global community that are really founded around video and webinars. And, of course, a special thanks to all of our speakers who during the next two days will help thousands of video marketers, video producers, webinar program managers, and business leaders all over the world to improve their video efforts. I just want to give you a little sneak peek or tour, if you will, of the webinar room. To my colleagues. You will see our chat. I highly encourage you to engage in the chat. Get to know who else is in this virtual room with us together. Let us know where you're tuning in from. How do you work with video on a day-to-day basis? What are you curious to learn more about? And if you have any questions, please use the question tab that's located right above the chat. This way we are able to bring your question on screen. It's a golden opportunity for the speakers to be able to answer your specific question. If you don't have a specific question that you want to ask, but you still want to engage a little bit with our speakers, but you might be a little bit shy. We have a reaction. We have a reactions feature. So there are a couple of different emojis, a heart, a light bulb, a digital applause, so that you can still give some feedback and engage with the speakers. Another good reason to remember to engage is that we are hosting a little competition. So now that you are well familiarized with the chat, I encourage you to engage, engage, engage, because at the end of day two, we will pick a winner based on who has the highest engagement score. And we will allocate a video toolkit to this lucky winner and to their toolkits. And we will also allocate a video toolkit to the team members that will be shipped off to you anywhere in the world. But that's enough for me. Let's get into the session, shall we? For video and the digital transformation, the third session of today, we'll be taking a little tour of the Bird and Bird studio. And we'll be getting taken inside on how they have been pioneering with this fresh approach to content in the legal world. We will be hearing from Aliyah Legg, who is a senior marketing and BD manager at Bird and Bird. She looks after their employment and their DR groups. She's a video and podcast guru well known within her company and produces some of the most popular client facing video content. And to have a chat with her is none other than global client director, Nicholas Schroeder. Who? Nicholas Schroeder is going to have a nice chat with Aliyah about some of the insights that they can take from Bird and Bird. So if we can please bring them both on screen to get. Yes. Hello. Hi and welcome. How are you both doing? Doing well. Thank you. Very excited to be here. Great. Thanks so much. And thanks for having me. Super. We're so happy to have you both. So without further ado, just take it away and I'll leave the screen to the two of you. Super. Thank you, Amelia. And thank you for joining me, Ayla. So as Amelia just said, I'm the global client director here at 23 and I've had the good fortune of working with Bird and Bird over the last couple of years. And Bird and Bird is quite truly a video pioneer. When you think of the law industry, you don't necessarily think of creative video. But nevertheless, Bird and Bird has has been a great partner. And Bird is paving the way in that front. So Ayla, you are kind of quite a key part in that process. I'm really excited to have this discussion with you. And instead of me introducing you, I would love to hand it over to you to kind of share a bit about yourself, what you do in Bird and Bird and the journey you've had with Bird and Bird over the years. Yeah, sounds great. Thanks so much. And yeah, like I said, thanks so much for having me. Really happy to be here and to get to chat to you today. As introduced, I'm Isla Legg, and I'm a business development manager at Bird & Bird, and I lead business development activities for the international employment and international dispute resolution groups. So yeah, being a global law firm, we have lots of collaborative marketing initiatives to try and drive business, which gives us lots of opportunities to create and utilize video marketing. So yeah, video marketing is just one of the ways we try and get our name out there. And as for my journey within Bird & Bird, it's been really exciting. I've expanded the scope of practices that I look after. I lead on a number of cross-practice and really collaborative projects, create and participate in various different content streams, including video and podcasts, which has already been mentioned. I get to mentor a number of different people here, which is really great, and deliver targeted training to the wider firm. So yeah, within that. So especially within the training, a lot of the things have been around implementing international marketing campaigns, including video projects and being able to advise on best practice. So yeah, that has sort of concentrated on things like driving efficiencies, scripting, being able to really devise a really solid marketing plan behind each video. And yeah, I'd never created marketing videos before I got here. A closest thing would probably be, you know, seeing Shania Twain. So that was probably as far as my video experience was before getting here. So it's great that I've been able to do so much with it. Yeah. And, and, you know, the journey in Bird & Bird, you know, we get to travel, we get to contribute to a number of really great initiatives. So yeah, it's been a great journey and it's a really nice place to work. That sounds like, like most jobs in marketing, especially working with video, you have a plate on your hands there um quite quite impressive i would say if we kind of take a step back a little bit and look at bird and bird and the focus on technology and innovation how would you say bird and birds approach to video aligns with kind of overall strategy of bird and bird yeah i think that you know we were one of as you've said we were one of the first law firms to sort of embrace video as part of our our brand and our brand dna being that we are you know curious bright we're always evolving and we're at the forefront of change so our approach to video marketing is is no different um we want our personality to come out in our video marketing and trying to keep a step ahead of what uh you know every other law firm does with just the sort of more traditional marketing so i think our bold presence in this space really aligns to our focus on innovation um and there's a big emphasis on authenticity as well so yeah we work in a place that encourages us to bring our whole self to work so yeah we want that to come across in our video marketing as well yeah i think that's great i think we we often say that if it's if you're not meeting someone face to face or in person video is the next best thing and authenticity ties in very well with that when you're actually when you actually say okay i want to create a video i want to produce a video what is the kind of first or key consideration when actually starting that that process or project so to speak i think when it comes to professional for professional services firms like ours trying to capitalize on digital transformation and reach their target audience with these kinds of projects effectively it all comes down to a really structured um well-structured video marketing strategy so in terms of what we try to do at bird and bird when it comes to video with each project it's all about defining clear goals and objectives so being able to set measurable goals defining what the firm wants uh to achieve with a particular project um you know is it brand awareness is it thought leadership is it lead generation is it client education so being really clear in that and aligning it with our business strategy so we're looking to ensure video um marketing objectives support the firm's overall strategy their overall business goals and whatever we might be trying to achieve with that particular project so it might be expanding into new practice areas or growing client relationships um so yeah really aligning it with the bigger picture of what we're trying to achieve and i think another key point in devising video strategy is identifying the target audience so you know we that for us could be segmented by practice area um so we tailor it based on relevant legal services understanding the client's pain points so you want to address specific client needs and specific legal concerns and also demographic consideration so targeting different types of clients so for example multinational businesses needing you know cross-border and collaborative support as opposed to individual startups who might be trying to scale so it's relevant content to varying types of clients um is is is going to be very different um and it's really important to tailor appropriately so there's that and i think also just making sure that you have consistency in your messaging um coordinating with your wider audience and making sure to balance the formats so vary the types of videos to keep the audience engaged across your channel thank you so much okay really nice i think what what is some of the i mean there's a lot of different video content here you're producing there what are some of the biggest challenges you face when uh when when producing videos i think this one of the key obstacles is probably honestly in our industry is is coming down to confidence of people being on camera um if people are speaking on a video um so you know they might be very comfortable with speaking to a client across a boardroom table face to face um but sometimes that can feel very different when it's just you talking to a lens um so i think there can be a difficulty to sometimes get people on board to sort of shift that mindset um because lawyers are not actors um and yeah it's not the day job so it's it's understandable that sometimes it maybe doesn't come as naturally um and the ways that i would get around it are i'm a guy as in a?", and this is just case in case you've ever thought about this for you before and i'd say really kind of like as negativity on this like you know there's a few things and say being really clear on scripting that sort of charm to get people to trust you and open up is really, really key when people are in a position they maybe aren't the most comfortable with. So, and also I think I massively believe you shouldn't be getting someone to do something if you aren't willing to do it yourself. So I think getting stuck in yourself, being saying, you know, I'm going to get in front of the camera and I'm going to do this. And then maybe it'll give other people confidence to do the same thing. And here you are creating that street credit for you to go to your, to your colleagues and say, get in front of the camera. I love it. That's great. One thing I've noticed with bird and bird is the kind of increase in the video format around user generated content. Is this something you, you did deliberately? Did it happen organically and how has that kind of changed your, your approach to video? If, if at all. I think the first way that it changed, the first point of how it changes things is it's an emphasis on authenticity. So. So law firms tend to rely on quite traditional professionally produced videos that is sort of polished testimonials. Um, and very informational content. So honestly it's, um, yeah. Getting, getting people. In front of it. Um, being customer focused. So, you know, saying we're great and this is rather than us thinking, you know, what do our clients want? What do they need to hear? What do they want to achieve? What are their business objectives and how do we get them there? So I think that the user generated content kind of has a way of flipping that. So incorporating that, it shows us able to give real client experience in their own words, which might be more relatable and credible to potential clients as well. And there's another side point of why it's good. It also has lower production costs. So it requires less investment in production since clients or, you know, the public, if it was in another setting, create the content. So there's a great benefit there whilst maintaining authenticity. And other ways that I've seen it show up as a really good thing is it means that you can have really diverse perspectives. So a really broad range of content, a wide variety of stories that could appeal, to a broader audience by showcasing, you know, that we've handled things really well for lots of different people. And I think in terms of engagement and interaction, it also encourages clients to participate actively in our marketing efforts. And there, you know, that can strengthen a relationship and it can also make them feel valued and that they, you know, we care about your opinion and we want to showcase it. And there's also a certain social proof as well. So videos that are created by our network serve as, you know, a powerful social proof demonstrating our credibility. So, yeah, and I think you mentioned opportunities as well. It can act as a sort of word of mouth marketing tool where people are sharing their positive experiences and they're building trust. And also there's quite a nice level of transparency with it as well. So it can enhance our reputation for honesty and integrity. And additionally, for search engine optimization or SEO, it favors relevant content and user generated videos often come with sort of, you know, organic keywords, phrases that clients naturally use and it helps the firm to, it can help to rank higher in search results. So, yeah, but within that and building a sort of sense of community, I think it's been a really good approach. Yeah. Sounds like it has a lot of really, really valuable benefits there. But it does require a lot of, you know, a lot of people to coordinate with, whether it be, you said, George, your colleague was very charming and to kind of disarm people in front of the camera. But how do you get people to get involved, whether it's for user generated content or internally? Is it kind of a top down approach or how do you get people going in the same direction with your video strategy? I think the best way is to just always, always involve people in the bigger picture. So as much as you can, try and say what the aims are and why you want them to come along on the journey and just people being able to feel like they're part of a bigger initiative, like this is how it fits in. This is what we're going for. This is what we're trying to do. Being really clear on bringing them along with that journey with you, rather than just saying, can you record these two lines? We need it. You know, that's a good way to make people feel involved and valued. I think it's really important to involve a broad range of here of global team members to actually be in the videos and participate and have their say. And like I say, with proper scripting and briefing and bringing the team into the strategy, you tend to get really good engagement. My pointers would be to anyone trying to do the same thing is just to always consider diversity as well. Make sure that there's a really good spread of people with different accents, different areas of the world, you know, and also important for diversity of thought. And your projects. And I think would make a point of, you know, people, people like George as well would always, you know, you always give the editor, whoever is doing it, or if you're doing yourself really good background on the story. You know, if it's for a pitch, what themes are you trying to convey? What, what is it trying to play to? What's the message we're trying to get across? And when you bring team members in on the bigger picture, yeah, it's a really nice way for them to feel included. Yeah. I think I would imagine getting started is kind of tough, but now it seems like your bird and bird is at this point where you've done so much great things with video that people almost are probably eager to get, be a part of the community, so to speak. So I'm sure that kind of makes things easier in that sense. I think if we have time, which I think we do, I would love to hear some of the more memorable videos or experiences you've had working with video. any videos that, or projects that stand out to you in your time with bird and bird? Yeah, I think I would, um, I would say that the specific one that comes to mind is one that we did for our, um, for a conference at the ACC conference, which was in Vegas of all places, which was very cool. If you can imagine a conference going on there for lawyers. So yeah, it was basically, it was like an intro video that we, sort of outlined the presentation session that we were doing and we were structuring it as if the audience were the board of a fake company. Um, and they were having to vote on a variety of different issues that the speaker panel were discussing. Um, so yeah, the video, the format that we were going with was quite innovative. Um, so the videos kind of had to match. Um, so the first bit was me doing voiceover. That was sort of like a corporate introductory voice video. Um, but just, I had comedy, value anyway, and nobody took it seriously, which was exactly what we wanted. And it really worked for the Vegas audience. Um, so yeah, it really, it, I think it did work in terms of making the audience feel like they had just watched a corporate video outlining, um, this company and they're now part of it. It's their day one, they've had their induction and they're sitting down now to do the board meeting. So, um, that was one of the things, and we basically did smaller videos as part of the same session. So ones where, you know, I was pretending to be, an HR director calling my legal counsel saying there's a dispute kicking off, uh, needed advice and reporters calling in to get comments on the story, um, and all this. So it had, it had a lot of comedy value. And I think the fact that all the voices sounded pretty much the same, because I was playing all the characters probably added to the humor as well. So that was really memorable. And, um, yeah, normally I would spread the wealth more, but it was fun, but we had to get done really quickly and I was really close to the content. So it just made sense. Um, and yeah, I think it was really memorable because it wasn't taking itself too seriously. Like I said, it had major comedy value for everyone involved. Um, and yeah, people, people really felt like it brought the story to life. I like that. That's thinking outside the box under pressure, something, uh, something brilliant came out of that. But would you, would you deem that or how would you deem that as successful? Is there, is there kind of a template where you look at a project as, okay, that, that really did well, these metrics perform well, or, is it kind of a, a feel or how would you determine success for, for you? I think if I was talking about that particular project, um, I would say the impact of people coming up to us personally and giving us feedback straight away, saying that it was really great. I'm saying that it was really engaging saying that it made the session feel really different. It helped them take the information in and it was memorable. So, um, the fact that, you know, people, you know, didn't just come up to us straight afterwards. They came up to us at lunch and came to our stands where we were, um, advertising the firm, um, and recognized us, you know, in other places in the venue, especially me, even though I'm not able to give them any form of legal advice, but that, um, just in terms of brand recognition, um, and to get our profile out there for a very instant and very distinct way, it was definitely very successful. Um, so yeah, we kind of felt like celebrities by the end of it, but, um, in terms of, in terms of success with that project, I would say, yeah, that's how we would have measured it. Okay. I would imagine, being a celebrity at a conference in Las Vegas, that that must've been fun. So that's good. I mean, yeah, it's just very unexpected. I like that. Well, when, now that we, we, uh, 23 is a software platform. So how, how do you kind of see the role of technology, um, in your current setup, working with video in the future? What's what role does, uh, does that play? I think, yeah, when you think of the role, technology and future video marketing, it's poised to be transformative. So, you know, it's gonna offer new ways to create and engage with audiences more effectively. Um, if I was gonna say the hopes for how, where we could go with it, you could consider sort of AI, AI powered content. So as we all know, it can help to automate and enhance video production. Um, so it, in terms of being able to feature, um, in our future to drive quicker production times, uh, and maybe more targeted content, that could be really cool. Uh, maybe something around augmented and virtual reality. Uh, you know, I know it can offer it immersive experiences, so that could be something that, you know, you could simulate, simulate, uh, legal scenarios, um, maybe providing, uh, more engaging ways to, to showcase our expertise. Um, and yeah, there's a lot that can be done, uh, around personalization and data driven content, maybe with the use of interactive videos. So, yeah, where there's an option to sort of include, include interactive elements such as, you know, clickable options or decision trees. I think where viewers can choose the information, uh, to see what they want next. I think that can make the viewing experience, um, a bit more engaging. Um, but yeah, there's, there's so many things that technology can help us with around distribution, engagement, analytics, uh, performance tracking and efficiency. So yeah, it'd be really great to see where we can go with it. It's gonna, it's gonna be an interesting future when it comes to video in the, and technology in the future. I think, um, I think we're close to the end, but I want to squeeze out one last question that I, I have, like you're clearly front runners here. You're doing your thing, you know, you know what you got going on. If there's what kind of piece of advice would you give someone just starting out producing videos for their organization? Um, are there any first steps or any, any pieces of advice you would have given yourself when you first started? I'd say it's just honestly, just, just get stuck in and give it a go. Because it's, you know, it's, it's not groundbreaking advice, but like I say, I've never created video marketing before coming to bird and bird. You really just video is a great way to show some creative flair to just really get down some key messages that you want to get across and put yourself in the position, um, as well of who's speaking in the video, try and think, you know, what can you do to make it easier for them or more enjoyable for them? What are they likely to ask in advance? You know, try and have those questions squared away, um, in your back pocket so that you can, you can calm any fears that people might have and be able to deliver a great project. Um, and I'd also say, um, you know, when you're first starting out with things like, um, editing, trust your instincts, you know, if you think that it sounds weird to you, it probably does to others. Um, if you think it doesn't flow quite as well, um, you know, just trust that. And if you think different angles or different transitions could be more, could be slicker, just, you know, trust your instincts and really try and just, um, show your creative flair and yeah, the sky's the limit. I like that. So everyone listening, get stuck in, just go for it. There's no better time to start than now. Um, thank you so much. I let that was, uh, super insightful for me and I'm, I'm sure for many others. I'm not sure how we are doing on time. Amelia, are we, um, are we, you are right on time. Okay. That's, that's good. That's a first for me. So that's, that's great. Yeah. So, uh, thank you so much. Uh, to the two of you for, uh, letting us in on this, uh, super insightful conversation and really interesting to get some of the, um, yeah, the strategic thoughts and kind of approaches is behind the reasons why and what you see a video content on the web, but actually, you know, all the thought and the process that went into it behind it. So, um, thank you both very much for joining us. Thank you. And thank you, Isla. It was a great, great hearing from you. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Now, next up, we'll be hearing from George mole, senior video and brand executive at bird and bird. So George is a professional videographer, uh, with decades of experience creating video and managing high quality video content for companies of all sizes. So let's see if George is with us today. Do I have a George bowl in the room? Hi, can you hear me? How are you? Yes, I can hear you just fine. Perfect. I've been messing around in the background with all of my setting. First time using OBS stream, but I'm here. One of the microphones is working. That's all that matters. Exactly. But that's all, it's always a little bit more pressure when, when you're the studio guy, you know, the setup has to be completely on point and sharp and. Well, yes. And if I've done it correctly, you can actually see the studio potentially. Yes. And me as well might be blurry now, but yes. Okay. Fantastic. I'm glad that's working. Amazing. It looks like your setup is all good to go. Are, are you ready to take it from here? Yes. So I can share some slides as well and go through some things. Is that. That's perfect. And then maybe we'll even be lucky and get a little studio tour, a little peek of where the magic happens. You'll get a sense. I, if I've done it correctly, I'll be able to move over there later and carry on some questions from over there, but we'll see fingers crossed where we're trying to get the magic. I can't wait to see it. I'm going to be so jealous of your setup when we're done with this. Thank you. Right. I just need to make it check entire screen, making sure that all the tabs are open and all the, yeah, everything's there. I mean, I've done the test three times, but you never know if I share screen and hopefully this will bring the audio as well. So if I share that. Looking great. Is it coming to me? And I mean, you almost look a little bit like a video Ninja somehow. Yes. Background people call this the studio, the black void. It's all soundproofing. It's like old egg boxes, you know, it's that soundproofing material. So it's very, very good. But yes, when I joined video calls, I joined from the black void or as some people say, my Hobbit hole, but there you go. Yeah. Cause the tip we got for trying to deal a little bit with the echo we're built or located in a, pretty concrete based building. So we got the tip to put up curtains around in the different rooms, try to like take away some of that echo effect. And it works very well because not only do you have a little bit of a fabric to buff the sound, but you also have a very easy way of going from one studio background to another. Just pull it out in curtains, which we'll get to when we talk about my video wall and how hard it is to light it up. position to let it go, you know, well, you know, I kind of like hand it to that camera boy because I'm like cutting back here to and then come back to the gjorting tidbit, for Bird and Bird. This is a bit of a studio tour of what we've got going on here. You heard from Isla beforehand. You may be thinking to yourself, it's a law firm based on what Isla said as well, but what sort of video and audio content does a law firm actually need? Well, it's actually more than you think. I always say there's never a dull day at Bird and Bird because there's always something amazing going on. We've got over 16,000 lawyers and 31 officers across Europe, North America, Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Africa. Random selection of work I've done in the past three years. I've edited a video in between Christmas and New Year's because there was a law that was going into law on the 1st of January, and we had to quickly get that displayed. Building a studio and getting excited by new kit day, putting on your comfiest trainers, having a light breakfast deliberately, and traveling to our recycling center, stepping over broken glass, climbing a single file stairway, and clutching your camera and tripod ever so tightly to make sure you don't drop anything. Recording our lawyers and a British MP to discuss changes to the online safety bill, recording international podcasts with top female leaders in tech with fellow colleague Isla, and also filming the solar panels on our roof on the coldest day in January to update our colleagues on our sustainability goals. So there's never a dull day. So to kick things off, here's a short video. I have no idea if there's any audio for this, but we will see. If not, is anyone getting audio? Either way, it's a video that shows off some capability. No audio on that. Okay. How can I make that change? Device. Yeah. So in-ear pieces connected to the computer, that's why it doesn't play audio in the room because the sound is picking up from your, or streaming to your audio or your ear pods instead of into the webinar room. Have you tried to disconnect those? Yes, I've disconnected them now. If I press play, can you hear this? No. Hang on, I know what. That is, that's okay. Just a moment, apologies. No worries. I go to sound. I click my speakers. That should now be playing out on the speakers. Is, can you hear it? Bird and Bird is a specialist. National. Yes, we hear it. Perfect. You're good to go. If it's intense. Uh-huh. now, Yes. All right. Let's fish. lovely stuff brilliant one fan nice right i'm probably gonna have to change that back now because if i don't do that we're gonna lose everything else that i've got set up so just one moment okay it should be back in my ears still sharing screen seamless this is why i work in offline editing and never live so that is a excuse me brief overview of a video and podcast process at the firm so at the bottom here we have our two birds tv sort of page on the website that's where all the videos some of the videos you just saw in that little montage are hosted it's backlinked from 23 pulled through to our website we've also got our youtube channel which is probably our least used channel nowadays it's got a lot of legacy content on it and for podcasts we've got soundcloud which is our repository which links us in rss feed to spotify apple podcast zencaster podcast and what was once google but it's now youtube podcast as well so our youtube channel is finally getting some attention once again because the podcasts are going there so that's bird and bird however to me i forgot i put that gif in there um i have 10 years of working with brands to create and deliver their content from filming music videos to corporate events from within helicopters to manually flying the drones myself to even having one of my job applications featured on the bbc news website it's safe to say i've succeeded a fair bit in my career so far been with burn and bird for three years helped deliver our video podcast strategy the top photo is me filming back in 2016 and underneath is a gif of me filming videos for the first time in my life i started making videos as a child i borrowed my mom's camera that she purchased to film her children on holiday when we returned i decided i wanted to film doctor who videos in the garden so yeah that's the history and yes all of those videos have been safely hidden from the internet so all i have to say is good luck in finding them so for video days in may back in that was my second time in copenhagen at the time the first time was in 2022 to capture our annual european football tournament that the firm puts on i learned a lot of lessons that year which is one have great footwear because it turns out you're going to be running almost as much if not more than some of the other teams that we've had in the past and i think that's a really good lesson for some of the players because if you hit a goal on one side of the pitch you don't have to run all the way over to capture it and two maybe even more importantly is to bring waterproof lens covers failing that have a lot of tape on hand i've got my tape here in the studio you must have it so you can jerry-rig an umbrella to the top of your camera work smarter not harder people always have tape so moving on why do we need a studio what a great question to start this with now isla's probably going to smile because she might recognize what this is and she didn't know that i've already presented this but um here's why you need a studio if you just film a you don't need the sound for this so it's fine but if you film against projector screen on an overcast window sometimes the event tech will work against you so he starts speaking and then we go oh sorry just to point out the projector screen is slowly rising in the background ruining the shot well the sound that you didn't get to enjoy there was isla's voice in the background going what are the chances but i'm sorry that everyone missed out on that i can see isla laughing in our little speaker view so um this was an event with isla it speaks for itself in london we're very lucky to have room 113 the studio and here are some nice photos of it i'll hopefully be able to cut to it a little bit in the background in the moment as well but yes that's when we filmed an in-person podcast i'm going to put myself in the corner of it as well so you can see it in my little window that's exciting that's what it looks like when it's just set up we've got the sort of shoreditch brick wall sort of vibe um which we might even be changing you heard it here first as part of our brand but we've got a multi-camera recorder it's an aja digital recorder two sony cineflex a7s cameras fed it by hdmi got a mixing desk and a lot of untidy wires it's a lot tidier now but that's only because i've hidden everything but yeah we've also got a teleprompter set up behind camera one which is for the director camera shot it can be controlled by the speaker or more likely me from the back of my monitor area here i've actually got it next to me with some questions on it i read it in reverse so for me it's egyptian hieroglyphics because then the text is flipped for the mirrored glass i've always said i don't know when reading backwards or writing is ever going to come in handy it's not been a useful skill but i can now do it after doing it for three years here with this teleprompter setup however for my mother's birthday earlier this year we did an escape room and i was actually able to read some mirrored text that was flipped so there you go my superpower finally has a usage um we also have a table with tissues and always a glass of water nearby because it turns out that i'm speaking for an extended duration excuse me it can um it can make one's throat rather dry apparently sorry anyway back to the rest of the presentation so yeah we've got a studio built it here in our london office very close to our own client lounge where our clients can come in or even our speakers and they can watch the news or read or privately work in the little lounge bbc news on the screen we actually had nicholas who was just on with isla and ties from 23 they popped into the studio a few months back and they can see the beginnings of the podcast area on a table that i'm setting up as well um we're going to be upgrading this to a new in-person podcast format uh quite soon i want to have the classic headphones i'm thinking of maybe a neon ampersand logo our logo to have behind them as well not quite joe rogan but you know a bit more legal and professional um yes so the reason why i don't like live this story was going to come up so bottom right is a little live stream i did a few months ago for the first time we did one um and this person furthest away his microphone placement was really really bad it was right underneath their neck and every time they moved it was rubbing against them and when you're live it's quite difficult you hope you've got speaker chat but we were just doing this me one person in my room so i wrote on the teleprompter hi please can you move your microphone and then basically spent 20 minutes of this live with everyone in the comments saying the microphone sounds better microphone sounds bad basically to uh contact him and get him to change it and then eventually what this person here did in the corner was is they read the teleprompter pointed to him and said hi sorry i think you need to change your microphone and then she slapped her microphone to demonstrate what she needed him to do which made the noise even worse and even louder so i quickly muted him whilst he fixed his but that's why we don't always love live we have a second teleprompter as well i learned a lot from that but yeah as i said before soundproofing foam tiles all over the black walls um we have a live playback monitor several lights that branded video wall you can see over there where we can put screens on it we can change the background as well John Moat who's actually a fellow speaker and friend of 2023 um he helped us build this studio which we'll get into a moment we even got a light up on air sign placed outside the door how did we actually build it though so that is a little video that I have that haven't put in but here are some of the rough layouts of the studio from when we designed and built it in late 2022 used to be a completely separate meeting room that was no longer in full public use it was used for filming and for capturing new starter photos before I joined that's the lighting rigging that John Matt set up it's quite nice here all planned out to spec many meetings standing in an old concrete room and planning where we're going to play stuff but that was the original idea for how we're going to do it pretty much went to plan these are some of the mock-ups so it used to be a meeting room for reception back here um we knocked down this back wall that was over here from the two meeting rooms to make it the one big one that you can see from behind my camera right now um yes so we knocked it down reception team of our London office still haven't quite forgiven me for taking over their private extra room but we really need the space to be able to do this um in the previous years of late 2020 interact 2021 I filmed from this same meeting room but sideways like this and then we started work on the room and it was finished in September of 2022. I would sit here edit I would lean forward over my desk like this to press the record button because it was very very cramped and getting two people in the shot was fine but it then got very very hot in the room because we didn't have full control of air conditioning and you've got several people speaking so that smaller meeting room was what I used to call the white void um that's what I used to call video shot before my time it's always good to slack off the person before you know um it just felt a bit like an uninspired holodeck from Star Trek but without turning on any of the power or sadly imagination like these videos and this sort of denote you know denoted a clean professional techie law firm of the 2010s so we were okay with it but for now to be the tech law form of the future we've had to make some changes and upgrade our sort of video brand as we only had a lot of had a white or grey backdrop to film against this meant a lot of lawyers wanted us to take our cameras up to meeting rooms and film against the window which as you've seen is a terrible idea not only does that mean carrying the lighting kit and the cameras upstairs it now makes a one-hour recording a two-hour recording um but it also just meant we still had this meeting room that was closed off for no reason other than storing the kit in between sessions so it just made total sense for us at the time we appreciate it we're lucky that we saw that we needed to do that so this is more of like a tip for for actual filming and the like itself so that's kind of layout the studio we'll come back to it in a minute as well but um filming lawyers putting them at ease is a tough enough task as it is but if they're running out of the room to take client calls or they're preparing for a meeting right afterwards I always say then they're not in the room they seem disengaged with the camera and the script and the audience can feel it too I mean it can come off as disingenuous if you don't want to be in the room let alone the next 10 seconds I always say like book off more time than you think for a recording session that's smart planning my default recording session is an hour even if it's a three minute final output because there's a setup time the multiple takes and set up you need to get the camera focused on the subject the microphone's clipped on test the audio levels it's quite difficult to do on your own when you don't have the other speaker in the room yet or a helper or a business development contact for example there's even time left in that hour for hair and makeup tests as well just do try and remember to take the lapel mics off of people before they go to the bathroom that's always an embarrassing conversation trust me I've got sadly more examples than on one hand um there are many steps to recording the practical parts of the recording but for what me what's very important kind of what Isla and Nicholas spoke about before as well is it's the mental parts you know it's my job to put the speaker at ease they've got to be relaxed with the environment they've also got to be receptive to feedback they might be their baby they might be a subject matter expert this might be their specialist subject and you've just asked them to change it and put it into layman's terms and you know you've got to deal with this ego damage control as well for yourself and for the person because at the end of the day we want to make a good video I always say I refuse to make a bad video but you know sometimes it's not a great one no of course you just gotta work and you've got to relax I feel like putting the speaker at ease can do that when I was eight years old filming Doctor Who videos in the garden I never thought I'd be telling grown-ups to take a breath sit up straight and tuck in their shirt but here we are um telling a lawyer that they weren't in the room or in the right direction and they were not in the right headspace to record meant that we could both be honest I had it we were recording in the morning they had a meeting they kept leaving they kept coming back all the takes were different and he said why isn't this working I said if you let me be honest you're not in the room right now you're out there you're worrying about that go have lunch come back we'll record it in the afternoon and we did and it was way better but just you know if you feel like you've got at ease and you can do a little bit of a joke with them this is the time where I normally say yeah if you mind um being a bit extra careful with your outfit over lunch though because if we do still use those same takes from the morning I now don't want spaghetti sauce all over you just another little tip to be mindful of because trust me it's happened in this building continuity be damned so yeah this is a quote I love if you were at the video days back in in May in Copenhagen you would have seen this slide as well but a film is born three times first in the writing of the script once again in the shooting and finally in the editing I say this uh all the time in the studio so same with making video content you can write a script in advance for the teleprompter but how we write is uh not actually how we speak so you might have to change it during the shooting so you might have to change the shoot and then again when we edit we can chop and change move the order around as we see fit if we find that the middle works better as an intro we'll change that no one has to know um you may not even notice another quote I say often in the studio is once again with feeling which started out as one of those ironic I was nothing it started out as one of those ironic little uh little things but a lot of the work when it comes to the recording with Junior Associates clients or even the CEO like we said is disarming the speaker putting him at ease I uh actually studied drama and theater studies at my alongside film when I did sixth form of college in the year in the UK um because I originally wanted to be in front of the camera uh before I decided to make a career hiding behind it instead but using that sort of combination of knowledge I'm able to use effectively icebreakers and warm-up games from you know GCSE and a level drama to get people um you know to get into the mind of the person to help them sometimes I'll even read the script back I can think countless times Isla and I have sat with a script and we're testing words out loud and saying does that sound right that's is that that's not a word that's not a word at all but just doing that in the room again leaving enough time in your filming process to leave for that is um sometimes I'm rewriting it into something more punchy like I said it could be detailed legally so obviously if it's law we will get that in verbatim I'll leave that alone but if I don't understand it it's helpful for me to have a rough idea of the content in layman's terms so I can one myself understand you know what I'm actually filming and therefore edit it better but two I can then position this to an external market like for LinkedIn or socials because not all of our clients will understand it that basically means when we're working on a video for socials like LinkedIn I'm the one of the last signs of defense before we go to market if I don't understand it the average person isn't going to either so it's a good little litmus test we have there with me as a little last barrier I'll sign a defense so moving on he says there you go this is just a slide that we've used either and I have used all the time because it's an international law firm I think it's 32 officers now in 23 countries there's a lot of us sometimes I just send this it's a slide it's literally called how to film for marketing content and look good and it's literally just the one page that gets sent I think it used to be in my signature even look at myself quickly using either you know Zencastr teams or 23's personal video area you know to name one um you could just do that and we just try and give them all of this quick advice for a quick social media video it's probably going to be portrait for our new social media guidelines but most of the time when we're being sent clips to like collate all together for a pitch for example we need the videos to look at least slightly similar albeit filmed all over the world so quickly over to podcasting we'll just do whip through this because we obviously hear more about We have a lot of different podcasts for our practices and sectors. We've got Retail Therapy for our reseller consumer group, Competitive Edge for competition lawyers, and Privacy Unpacked for, shockingly, data protection and privacy law, just to name a few. And, of course, Women in Tech, which is a huge one with Isla. I can't believe I haven't written that into this. Isla's looking at me now, shaking her head. I can't believe I almost missed out on that one. It's great. Listen to Women in Tech. Fully recommend it. So as of January 2024, Burned By Podcasts are now available on all the platforms, every single platform. Name a platform. We're probably on it. But please don't go name some really old podcast platform now. That I won't be able to find. But, yeah, this is them. We're on YouTube as well now. This is our stats. So in 2023, we only had 4,345 listeners for the whole year. That was the whole year. We're already at 8,322. So we've almost doubled it. So I'd like to say that podcasting at a law firm is going very, very well. We're not seeing such exponential growth on the video side, although we'll get on internal comms in a minute. We've done a little bit. But, yeah, SoundCloud links everything. We're already doing loads. And this is our internal comms profile I was just talking about. So if a pitch is worth 1,000 words, what does a video worth? So sometimes I say all the time when it comes to video, like I know one of the questions the media is probably going to want to ask me, but I'll just answer it here. I thought this would work well. Like how do you get buy-in? How do you get people to want to do video? Opposite problem. Everyone wants to do video. Everyone wants to do podcasts. If anything, we're asking why. Ida and I spend a lot of time going, not just how do you want to do that? Because we know how. We've got the technical side. We know what works, what doesn't, based on stats. But why do you want to do it? Is it just vanity? Do you just want to promote something? It doesn't need to be a video. Oh, actually, what that sounds like is way more detail. That should be a 30-minute deep dive podcast, or it's a webinar, or it's a newsletter. But it's good to have video to coincide with your internal comms strategy. Because if you just keep sending newsletters, people are going to ignore them or set up a rule in their emails. But if you send an exciting video, it would be a little bit better. Sometimes with all of the offices internationally, we need the CEO to film something very, very quick. Like he's got to do an update because of. You know, something happening in one of our jurisdictions or countries. But when we've got longer projects, we can get a bit more experimental. So we've got the CEO told to take his glasses off because of the reflections, which meant he couldn't see us whatsoever. Sorry, Christian. But he's in our purple reception area for a video last September. And then we use Viva Engage internally to share all of our videos. But we route it back to 23. And we always put in the article for our colleagues as well. Here's the Instagram link. Here's the LinkedIn link. Here's the YouTube. Here's the 23 link. So that basically people get to engage with our video. So we can put content on their platform of choice. Ideally, they'd use 23 every time because it's better for stats. But I think, you know, you should always put content where your audience is. Yeah. So we're trying to do more on sustainability at the moment. This is what I alluded to earlier. I was wearing comfy trainers, protective gear. And this was my tripod. There's nothing stopping it from falling down that staircase and turning into landfill. But yeah, it was great. We filmed on the roof in the coldest day of January. And yeah. So if a picture does indeed say a thousand words. And a video is made up of thousands of pictures. And showing this mountain of waste being moved through our recycling plant says more to our colleagues than just a bit of text saying, please, can you recycle correctly? Like we can literally say, here's what happens when you do. Here's what happens when you don't. Shock. I'm a visual person. But for me, that style of internal video shows much more in the way of the why we do the things that we do. It's nice to put a face to a name. I always say it's nice to put a video to a process. Why say many words when if you do trick, video does that for you. Seeing is believing all that. We're already finding great videos. We're getting better engagement and buying from stakeholders based on the content we film as part of the updated internal strategy. So here's five random tips that I've already mentioned. Remember the rule of thirds. Start and end with a smile. I always say that to people in the room. If you start and end with a smile, it will keep them in a relaxed space. Otherwise they go straight in from I'm a scared lawyer to delivering the content. And it comes off that way. Our chair of the board, Graham McGuire, filmed a lot of videos together. He calls me George. Just one more take, mole. Because he could give me the most Oscar worthy performance of all time. And I'll go, great. And Graham, oh, my goodness. Wow. That was the best take of all time. I've actually been moved to tears by that transcendent performance. But you know what? We're just we're going to get just one more take, you know, for safety. We'll just get one more. We'll get one more. There will also be one more after that. So, yes, that's always, always, always get more takes. Remember, the rule of thirds. Start and end with a smile. Hold your gaze to camera at the end as well when you're done, because if you saw from that first video, we fade out to one firm, your firm. Well, a lot of people tend to do in the studio because I'm over here and the chairs over there that you can see is people like to. Finish that take and lean over and go, Was that good? Yeah, George, was that was that the one? Was that good? And I go, Yeah, well, it was, but you just ruined it. But yeah, never be afraid at any point. Stop and say, think to yourself or even say out loud to your speaker. Once again, we're feeling not everyone has the benefit of being able to build and budget out for a studio. But if you can make one dedicated space to just generate recordings, be video and audio, then you too can start the journey of generating world class content in the corporate world. So that's a brief overview of video production and our video brand at Burnham Bird. Whistle stop tour. Probably very fast apologies, but we do questions and the like. But yeah, one piece of advice I leave you with is this. If you work in video or with video and marketing and you want content for your personal brand on social media. Well, as I mentioned, working in this career often means hiding behind the camera. So if you leave it to your colleagues to take a photo of you doing your job, it might just be the back of your head instead. I'm not entirely sure why I was filming a door, but hey, I'm nothing but thorough. Anyway, if you're particularly nice lift on the way upstairs to record an event, you might have to take matters into your own. Hands. Thank you very much. That is the bulk of the presentation. I will stop sharing screen. Oh, Connie inputs. I think it's really exciting to hear how you guys work together. Sounds like a dynamic duo. And I can also tell that you guys have a lot of fun at work, which is also super important. So you got the question of like if you had a favorite project that you had worked on or a favorite video. So we don't really have time for real Q&A. I just really quickly want to hear from George. Do you have a favorite project or favorite video or moment or something that stood out to you in particular after you started working with video at Bird and Bird? Yeah, let me just change to these back in my favorite project. That is a belly in the shop. That is a very good question. There's been so, so many sometimes where, you know, down to the. I'm in the middle of one project and then we've got another one to do. I'm trying to think I was going to see if I can think of one that I've actually done with either, of course, of which there are so, so many. I liked her one where I had to help her record a fake phone call. The other side of that for that presentation. She's laughing. It was very good fun for me. I've never been sent a video before from one of my BD contacts who's normally like, here's a video of a lawyer and said it was right. Don't laugh. That's the first message. Here is a video of me that you need to edit and get the voiceover for me to make for an event. So that is definitely memorable. Otherwise, I mean, flying to Frankfurt or even Copenhagen in 22. I've only been here in the marketing department for about a year. And then they said, right, you're filming the football tournament. I don't even like football. I love it now because going and actually piecing it together and using my sort of visual narrative to put together a story. And it turns out if I film football, I like it. So it's got to be those two. Definitely. I see. But thank you guys so much. Both Eli and George. For joining Video Days 2024 and coming with so many great insights. I'm sure that there is someone out in the audience taking like small notes from your studio set up in order to try to recreate something similar back at their company. So thank you both. And thank you to Bird and Bird for joining this session. And for the rest of the audience who wants to continue and stay on with us for throughout the day, we have one more golden session left to show you. That starts at four o'clock. So if you're already here and you want to stay tuned, then just hang out in the webinar room. You will be automatically redirected and I'll see you there very shortly. Bye bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for watching!