15 STREAMPUNK Chocolate Films
Chocolate does some corporate and events work, but its bread and butter are the UK’s cultural institutions. Currently, the company is working with The National Gallery, the British Museum, The British Library, the V&A museum and Hampton Court Palace, just to name a few. These institutions are using video in increasingly innovative ways too. There are promo videos, but also content for education, events and advocacy as well as creating AV content for installations and exhibitions themselves. 1000 LONDONERS Outside of the museum world, one of the company’s large-scale labours of love is its 1000 Londoners project. Each week, the company shoots and uploads a micro- documentary about an ordinary Londoner – underlining the fact that there is no such thing as an ordinary Londoner. The project is almost one third of the way to completion - so only 12 more years to go. At the 1000 Londoners website, Chocolate has showed off its museum content skills by making the hundreds of short films searchable in a variety of useful – and fun – ways. Viewers can peruse Londoners by age and gender,
by location, and even by star sign. Different themes or ‘seasons’ include Activists, Dog Owners and Londoneers enjoying Halloween. “It’s almost a random sample of a 1000 different people from this amazing city. We have stories of the super-rich and people in food banks… Our mantra is everybody is interesting, and we have to keep reinventing it.” 1000 Londoners is distributed in just about every way except traditional broadcast. As well as the website and online social platforms, the films are shown at special screening series and have appeared as pre-show content in Vue cinemas. Upcoming are screenings at London’s City Hall and the National Portrait Gallery. GETTING THE FORMAT RIGHT Chocolate Films’ experience in short form content has allowed it to accumulate real expertise in what works across new platforms and audiences. One of the key services it provides to its partners is the strategy for what types of video are most effective in a given outlet. “When people come to us and say they want a video, we always try to track back and ask who their audience is and what
platforms the audience is using and then work out a plan from there. People will want a film and then think they can break it down into small bits to put on social media, but we’ve found that doesn’t work as well as planning out a strategy. “These strategies used to just be things for the big ad agencies, but we do that now for even our smallest client,” explains Currie. “Each video is there to help serve a purpose and solve a problem for you, so we need to work out the best way of shooting them to achieve your goals. “If people have a massive YouTube presence, we’ll recommend a slightly more narrative-shaped film. But if it’s Facebook or Twitter or Instagram we’ll look at it in a completely different way. And the storytelling changes for each as well. For Facebook we often recommend a more journalistic style, an inverted pyramid, because you know that there’s going to be drop off. On Facebook, telling the story, then putting all the information at the end is not great. “For us consultation up front on the shape, form, and how to tell the story is absolutely crucial.”
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