Europe on a budget

When Beiersdorf (that’s Nivea to you and me) asked Ovation and Player to produce a short (and very low budget) video to introduce a series of Europe-wide meetings, the idea of personally visiting the 13 countries on their list with a camera was inviting, but out of the question. Obtaining stock video footage too was a non-starter due to budgetary and time constraints. Even with the internet, it can take a long time to locate, research, view, order and receive video to include in an edit, not to mention the prohibitive usage costs! So we appealed to the various tourist offices to give us some high quality stills to use. We were entirely up front with our intended usage and they were happy, I guess, that their city would be featured alongside crown-jewel cities like Vienna, Madrid and Birmingham. Viewing, selecting and usually downloading the large photo files over the net made the tight schedule a possibility. Everyone was very co-operative and together with some nifty editing a delighted client was delivered a master DVD ahead of schedule.

While on the subject… the late, not so great, Robert Maxwell once gave me a brilliant idea while shooting a video for him for the launch of a revolutionary newspaper called “The European”. Shocked on being asked to add into the existing programme vox pop comments in every European language on the layout of the proposed paper two days before the final edit, he gently pointed out that London, an international city par excellence, was bulging with tourists. Why didn’t I go out on that Sunday with my crew, find a person of each nationality and film them against a suitable non-London background? We did. Though the Finn took a while to track down. It worked and we were home for dinner. Genius.