Video Production

Good content is king

Gone are the days when it was enough to have any old video up on your site. Today’s consumers are a picky bunch – and with good reason: the web is bursting with things to watch. So if you want people to come to your site (and stay there), then good content is crucial. Content that says something about your brand, and keeps your audience coming back for more.

We’ve been involved with online video since it began, so we know our stuff. Whether you’re after a bespoke online channel that’ll speak volumes about your brand, a slick corporate film or series of engaging videos to populate a site – or perhaps a viral that will get people talking – everything we do has your brand strategy at its core.

From concept and scriptwriting to producing and directing, we’ve got it covered – including supporting editorial content for your own website or your promotional partners.

Give us a call and we’ll be happy to take you through it in more detail and show you some of our work.


Media Ark – The strategic content specialists

The Media Ark is crewed by a passionate team of creatives, editorial experts, film-makers and brand specialists.

Launched in 2006 by television presenter Julian Hanton, and travel journalist Matt Carroll, as a full-service production company specialising in food, travel and automotive, we’ve been involved in online video since its infancy.

But these days, great content alone is not enough to attract consumers’ attention (and keep it). So as well as producing top quality editorial and commercial films, we help our clients make the most of their video assets by harnessing our media partnerships and detailed consumer insight.

We love nothing more than getting stuck into a challenging creative brief (kettle on, sketchpads at the ready), whether it’s coming up with a big campaign idea, producing exciting content for a client’s online channel or creating a microsite to house it all. We’re fanatical about television, too – having produced over 50 hours of programming, which has sold in over 100 territories worldwide.

What we do

Put simply, we create high quality editorial and commercial films for distribution across multiple platforms. With a background in food, motoring and travel journalism, we know what makes a good story – but more importantly, we know what makes the media and consumers tick, and how to grab their attention.

Whether you’re looking for a beautiful corporate film, or a series of videos for an online campaign, we’ll work with you to establish who you want to talk to, what you want to say – and what you’d like to achieve. We’ll then come up with a strategy and creative concept to make this happen – and (if you wish) analyse and measure the results.

Most importantly, though, we do all this quickly, efficiently and extremely cost-effectively.

Our production services include
  • Concept
  • Scriptwriting
  • Direction
  • Production
  • Post-production
  • Bespoke online channels
  • Content for campaigns
  • Supporting editorial
  • Virals
  • Corporate Video
  • Event filming
Our digital services include
  • Web Design and Build
  • Apps
  • Copywriting
  • Concepts and content for social media campaigns
  • Content seeding
  • Analytics and reporting

Clients

Clients

THE GUARDIAN - VISIT WALES

The challenge

Show UK travellers that Wales means more than just a wet weekend in the valleys. As ever, the deadline was supremely tight on this one…

The solution

Working in partnership with Seven Publishing, we produced a series of five videos and written articles for The Guardian newspaper – supporting the ‘We Want Piers’ ATL campaign produced by Wieden + Kennedy.

While W+K’s ATL campaign saw competition winner Piers Bramhall take a tour of Wales to experience all the exciting stuff on offer, Media Ark’s presenter, Andy Shepherd, took a Welsh road-trip of his own. Along the way, he enjoyed a round of golf at Royal St David’s, a hike along the Anglesey coastal path, a cookery session in the Vale of Glamorgan and even a swim in a river (after falling off his mountain bike). Luckily for him, that bit was off camera.

The result

A Guardian micro-site featuring our bespoke content, which balanced the newspaper’s brand values and editorial credibility, while staying true to Visit Wales’s ATL campaign. We’re looking forward to seeing the stats on this one…

ASPEN RESORT, COLORADO

The challenge

Mention Aspen to most people and they immediately think of expensive hotels and celebs in oversized sunglasses. We needed to show the great British skiing public that there’s more to the place than this – much more…

The solution

We created a series of five films, each telling a unique editorial story that showcased the variety of experiences on offer here. Thanks to our in-house ski expert, Matt Carroll, there’s not much we don’t know about winter sports, so coming up with story ideas that resonate with UK travellers was easy.

The result

We distributed the films to the Daily Mail Ski & Snowboard Magazine’s online channel, MetroSnow.TV (accompanied by a major print feature in the magazine itself) and secured an editorial commission in The Independent – giving Aspen quality, targeted exposure to more than 300,000 British skiers. The best bit? UK skier visits were significantly up the following year.

AUSTRIAN NATIONAL TOURIST OFFICE

The challenge

Although Austria is a favourite with British travellers during the winter, the majority of people are unaware of what the country offers in summer. That’s where we came in…

The solution

For the second year running, we produced a series of 10 videos to the Austrian National Tourist Office’s traffic-driving campaign, aimed at increasing visitors to their website – and ultimately Austria itself.

While the client had already identified the stories they wanted to feature in each destination, it was down to us to decide how those stories were told. So rather than have a presenter talking to camera about how great these places are (there’s too much of that online these days), we simply showed our man Matt Carroll meeting colourful local characters. After all, it’s the people you meet who really make a place special, right?

The result

Not only did the client love the films, but so did the opinion formers and bloggers that they were seeded with. Traffic to the client’s site increased, as did visitor numbers to the destinations that we featured. Job done.

CHANNEL 4 FOOD: HELLMANN’S

The challenge

Show UK consumers that there’s much more to Hellmann’s mayonnaise than salads and sandwiches. The client wanted to showcase their products as a key ingredient to delicious, easy-to-make dishes; but rather than going down the obvious route of using well-known chefs, they wanted to feature celebrity mums…

The solution

We put together a series of 12 videos that showed Hellmann’s in a whole new light. This was Channel 4’s biggest cross-platform project to date, so they needed a reliable team to manage the production. Having worked with them extensively over the last five years, Media Ark was the logical choice. We sourced the celebrity talent – including Sarah Beeny and actress Fay Ripley – negotiated with their agents, managed the location and delivered the films. all while working alongside the project’s other stakeholders, to deliver a series that C4 and Hellmann’s are rather proud of.

The result

In fact Hellmann’s were so proud, they decided to roll the project out to include the UKTV Good Food channel and a bunch of other sites.

TREBOR

The challenge

Produce a series of videos that show comedy writer Alex Worrall embarking on various ‘life-enhancing’ experiences in order to make him a better man. The films were destined for a Guardian microsite, designed to support the Trebor ‘Taste of sweet success’ campaign launched by Fallon. So we needed to balance the brand values of The Guardian and the messaging of the main campaign – without any reference to Trebor itself. Tricky.

The solution

After sourcing the London locations, we came up with a creative outline that made people laugh, without straying into obvious comedy. The films were produced to extremely tight deadlines (aren’t they always?), and stakeholders Seven Publishing were rather thrilled with the results.

The result

Strong direction from us, and some self-deprecation from Alex, ensured that the films were a roaring success. if you’ve ever wondered what zumba is all about, click above.

CHANNEL 4 - STORM CHASING

The challenge

Introduce the Mini to a wider, non-automotive audience, and showcase the fact that it’s more than just a fun ‘car-about-town’.

The solution

We took the Mini on a storm-chasing trip through Middle America. Or rather, our resident adrenaline junkie Matt Carroll did – spending a week following tornadoes across seven states including Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska and the Dakotas. We secured editorial commissions in the travel pages of some of the UK’s most respected newspapers and magazines – including The Independent on Sunday – and filmed it all for Channel 4. So the nation could watch Matt wetting his pants as a super-cell storm attacked the car. See for yourself in the clip above…

The result

Aside from netting Mini editorial press coverage worth around £200,000 in equivalent ad spend, Matt appeared on the Weather Channel in the US – in front of millions of Americans, nationwide. God bless him.