Content and Services Director, Rebecca Durose-Croft talks with Simon Haynes, producer and owner of film and video production company S H Creative, about how the use of video in educational materials has changed over the past decade, and what the future of video looks like in the advent of new media.
Find all of our episodes on your favorite podcast platform or at our website.
Content and Services Director, Rebecca Durose-Croft talks with Simon Haynes, producer and owner of film and video production company S H Creative, about how the use of video in educational materials has changed over the past decade, and what the future of video looks like in the advent of new media.
Find all of our episodes on your favorite podcast platform or at our website.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Durose-Croft, Content and Services Director at Westchester Education. Welcome to Westchester w ords, UK and international. Today I'm joined by animator and video producer, Simon H aynes, director of the video production company, S H creative. And if I can be so bold to say also a great g uy to know and work with. Welcome to Westchester Words, Simon.
Simon Haynes:Thank you very much, Rebecca. That's a lovely introduction.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:You're more than welcome. So let's start with a little bit about you Simon. How did you get into this industry and in particular working on educational materials?
Simon Haynes:Uh, yeah, that's a great, great question. And, and to be honest, it's over a long period of time. Um, I think we've worked with each other haven't we? For what would you say? 12, 14 years.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yeah. Yeah. About that. Yeah. Way back when I first started OUP.
Simon Haynes:So yeah, I started as a junior creative in, in the advertising industry back in about 95. Uh, my role, if you like, was working above the line. So we worked across film, TV, cinema print, radio.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Okay. So everything then. Yeah.
Simon Haynes:Yeah. Well, not everything actually, because you had below the line agencies then, uh, that dealt much more with direct marketing and what, what then became EDM.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Okay.
Simon Haynes:But agencies suddenly took on this kind of change, transition. Uh, they became more integrated, uh, which meant that they combined all the skills and really this happened when the digital age kind of came along. Mm-hmm um, not to give you the history of, of ad agencies and what they've become today.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:No, it's interesting. And it's relevant.
Simon Haynes:Oh yeah. No, absolutely. And I think cuz actually it is relevant because a lot of the clients that I work with today talk about, uh, omnichannel marketing and omnichannel marketing is quite complicated. Um, there are experts in this field, so I'm not pretending to be one of those experts<laugh> but I work with a lot of them and, and it is my role generally in this, uh, arena is to, is to take an idea and make sure that it remains constant to all the users in that journey, no matter where, at what point they interact with the brand, if you like. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that is, I think that is really relevant to what film does and uh, film being an encompassing word for everything that is, uh, moving visual mm-hmm<affirmative> uh, so that could be, uh, motion, graphics, film, animation, that kind of thing. But I, you know, in that industry, you, you do, you, you work agency side, some people go over and work client side. I did a little bit of client side, um, work, um, but around about 2002, I started to see a shift in the market. Um, in film production, we were starting to see briefs come in from, from clients where not to put too big a figure on it, but they were kind of 300,000 pound budget, film, production budgets. And that would be, that would be, uh, a kind of average film production budget. And we were seeing them cut and we were seeing them cut to something like 30, 50 K, which, uh, sounds like a lot. Yeah. But, but there was a shift in change in, in the way that people started to use film. And one of those changes was in, at the time they were calling viral mm-hmm<affirmative> um, you know, viral was something that was stuck on YouTube or any other SOC what we are calling social media platforms these days. And it was then marketed to be a high performing viral. So high performing virals were things the, you got lots and lots of people watching them effectively. It was kind of early days. Yeah. But, uh, there was definitely, there was definitely a shift there. And I think one of the shifts that followed it was making film production more affordable. Mm-hmm<affirmative> um, not only the equipment, but also the B the means by which you could edit and produce those films started to become more affordable and more accessible as well. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so fast forward really quickly to say 2008, when I started sh creative or sh creative was already started to be honest, but the clients I was working with were demanding more and more film. I was able to enter the kind of film production arena on quite a small budget compared to what I would've had to have probably spent 10 years prior to that. So cameras were cheaper. There was a, a bit of a funny time around about then where there was a, uh, a D O P. So director of photography, someone who, who was, was very much championing the, uh, fived mark two camera as, uh, a means by which you could, you could shoot really beautiful high quality film using a, a stills camera and Canon were kind of, Canon kind of started leading that. And that gave a shift in the market and PE and gave, it, gave, it gave people like myself, the ability to be able to shoot really good quality film, uh, at, at quite a low budget cost. Um, so that was, that was an interesting, that was a really interesting time. Yeah.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:And like you say, on, on an accessibility note as well, you know, opening it up and, you know, not just, it is not just making it accessible for people who want to create, create the video and create the, the art and all of that, but actually it's accessible for people who want to watch it as well. Isn't it? Cause suddenly you can go onto the internet to watch things, which we didn't have, you know, back in the nineties when you were starting out. Um, so it's interesting on that note as well, and especially thinking about in education, how to view video in a, in a classroom will have completely changed at that time. Um, because of the digital revolution.
Simon Haynes:Really. Yeah. I think it's amazing. Um, we've, we've, we've, we've had issues, we've had problems and I know that working with production, with publishers as well, accessing classrooms can be quite problematic. Of
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Course. Yeah.
Simon Haynes:Um, yeah. And so, so, but you get over these issues by working with, um, everybody who's in the chain, if you, if you like. Yes. Yeah. So working with local councils, perhaps looking at how, um, you can work with schools in a, in a, in a larger group to be able to, um, to be able to work with their it departments and people who govern what can be seen in schools. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. Yeah. So I think there's quite a big responsibility with everybody as well. I've always said that, I think it's really important in these environments that you are, that you are safeguarding the people that you're working with. Uh, so that's a, quite a big production responsibility. So I think running a production company, you realize that you have to have many hats. You're not only are you not only you looking through the camera and working, obviously with people like yourselves to make sure that we are capturing exactly what you're after, but also you are thinking about safeguarding, not only the school safeguarding, but safeguarding all the people that work for you as well. Yeah. So that you're creating a really open and honest environment for people to work
Rebecca Durose-Croft:In. Yeah, absolutely. And it, it's really interesting thinking back to, I mean, we've been working together for way over a decade now. And when I think back to the types of things we were working on, when we first, when we first started working together, they tended to be, uh, like in a studio based or, you know, set in an office lot, lots of talking heads with experts and that kind of thing. And then I can, I can see the, the, the, the shift we took to then, you know, then we'd be on site, we'd be, um, working in schools and filming teachers and, and pupils and to your point, you know, working on that safeguarding and that kind of thing. Um, and then I can see how we've, we've now moved. And the, the types of things we've been working on together have tended to be animation and more, more of like a digital base, um, rather than kind of live live footage and live, live, live action filming, if you will. Um, I just wonder if you've seen that change as well, or if that's just how, how I've viewed it, because the projects we've been working on together, it'd be great to see, to understand your, your kind of perception of how, how the trends have shifted in the education market since we first started working
Simon Haynes:Together. Yeah, sure. I mean, this is, this is easy.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:It's a big question.<laugh>,
Simon Haynes:It's a big, it's not, no it is is a big question, but also it's, it's a lovely question because, you know, we've had the luxury of being able to see the last decade, if you, if you like with, uh, how, how, uh, video and, and production film production myself, and also working with other people how that's progressed. And I think people have filled a role if you like, where perhaps when we first started working together, we were there wasn't a dedicated role to film production per se, within, within production companies. At least I, I, wasn't seeing that, um, to then creating roles and those roles came through people taking on the responsibility initially within their existing role, but then soon finding out that to, to do real film production takes an awful lot of time. Um, yeah, it does. And if your, if, if your role is, is not film production, then yes, you've gotta rely on other people supporting you, but also self development's really, uh, important. So I've been involved on a number of different projects that, that, where you work directly to people who are responsible for video production, you take on the role in other projects where you are responsible for the video production and then of late, if you, if you come the whole circle, I've been working with clients to help them train staff to take on their own video production. So having in house producers,
Rebecca Durose-Croft:That's interesting. That's really interesting. No, I felt a similar trend actually. Um, recently there's been a bit more understanding of wanting somebody in house to do things like the editing afterwards, you know, to, someone's gonna sit on final cut and do some editing in house and, and work it that way so that the content can be reused or reversioned, uh, for further down the line, which I've, thought's quite interesting, cuz yeah, definitely over the past 10 years it's been that you, you produce it and you hand it over and it's done and dusted, but I have that. Yeah. I, I, I've been seeing that a bit more too, just that more of an understanding of video production and more of a want to get involved.
Simon Haynes:Yeah, this goes back to film production being more accessible and effectively making budgets more realistic. So we're not looking at blown out budgets that doesn't make film affordable. It does make content, uh, film affordable. And then I feel that there's also the addition of affordable content. So you've got huge libraries as well that you can access for content. So you don't actually have to go out and film anything you can rely on, uh, stock video, uh, and quite a lot of production, larger production companies, uh, don't have the ability to go out and film. They, they will use stock. Um, and we could, we could get onto a larger conversation about, uh, these bigger media production companies who work directly to clients. Um, but from, from what you were saying internally, I think there is, there has been a shift. Um, and I think it's a, it's a simple change. It's simple change in film production. Um, if you like is the use of the media across multiple platforms. Um, and if you have a piece of film that's cut and edited and produced in the, if you, if you rewound 12 years, I think that will be put online and then you would assess how many people came to watch it. Yeah. It's no longer the case, is it because what you do is you have that simple film. If you used an external agency or whether you've used an external production company, um, or whether you've shot it internally, you, you can have the, you can take on the role of reuse. And I think reuse is what you were talking about earlier is quite a big thing now. Yeah, I agree. It's a good thing as well because you've shot something and you don't use it again. And it seems crazy doesn't it now to think of it.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Really does. Yeah.<laugh>
Simon Haynes:Uh, because there's so many ways of using it, uh, even if you are publishing something which is, um, continual professional development, for example, that's hidden behind a pay wall. There, there there's there's elements of that, that you can use to share to market it. Um, for example, it might be a really simple example, but, uh, and, and then relying on externals to do that for you is quite costly. Whereas doing something internally seems, it seems much more from a production value point of view to have somebody in house who's able to do that.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yeah, I completely agree. And just to your point about marketing as well, I think it's thinking back to when we were first or I was first working in film with you kind of, you know, 12, 14 years ago. A lot of the film that we were producing was for marketing reasons. It was either, you know, working with publishers and it was, it was education based, but it was either marketing or it was supplementary to a piece of material, but, but wasn't kind of asked for by the, you know, by the client or by the, the, you know, the, um, the market, they weren't actually asking for it. You know, it was something that we were kind of giving to them because we could, um, whereas now they're coming to us for, for that, you know, they've got that, that bigger understanding of video and, and how it can, how it can work in the classrooms, especially in light of blended learning, um, and in light of the pandemic as well. And I, I was wondering not to talk too much about that, but did, did you see a change in what clients were asking for, um, during or after the pandemic? Did it impact the kind of work you were producing at all?
Simon Haynes:Yeah, I think the short answer is yes.<laugh>. I, I, we, we go, um, if we go back one little step, I think that just before the pandemic, um, the shift, as you've rightly said was where you were creating what I would call awareness, led marketing. So you're making people aware of a product and you're giving them a reason to go and find out more about that product. And that kind of, that is perfect for marketing, isn't it, mm-hmm,<affirmative> perfect marketing, sales and sales. I think people started to want content for nothing content for free, um, because I can go online, go to BBC. I can go to other, um, platforms and I can find what I'm looking for and I'm not charged for it. So there's, there's a dilemma there isn't there of what you are prepared to give away. Yes. Well, we do. I, I dunno what you call that, but I, in a way, what it is is it's, it's kind of quite reactive. Um, and what I'm looking for is mostly digestible chunks of content. And I think audience behavior in online in general is, or was looked at as being what's what's the attention time that, that this person or this, this user is prepared to give to this piece of content. If I, if I'm not looking for a piece of content and I chance across a film and it draws my attention, I might have 20 seconds to grab you and make you watch that film. Okay. Yeah. Or piece of content. However, if I'm a captive audience and I'm really looking for a piece of content, you've got me for longer, but there is a, there is a time that I'm going to give up and stop watching. And then there's a time where I'm going to take more interest and I'm going, what, what else do you give me? What else can you offer? Um, and in a way I I'm looking at also self-serving content as well, and this is pre pandemic. Yeah. I think some of this still, you know, most of it still stands today, but there's a kind of element of self-serve as well and how, how we use that, uh, type of content. Um, so a good, good example of self-ser is how to film. So how do, how do I use your website? How do I use your product? You know, and I can educate myself a little bit and become, become knowledgeable as well. Although it'd be a very small amount of knowledge. And I think you could leap from there, especially in education to the PD, um, opportunities. Yeah. And I've done a lot of work in PD and I love working in PD because you really get into the nitty gritty and you really work on huge projects. So I've worked on a project where we've produced 300 films, for example, um, I worked on a project that was a secondary, um, um, revision, uh, platform that was used in conjunction with publishing and books. So you'd be reading something, learning something, teaching something, and in the classroom, you could then bring the videos into the classroom, or you could empower the student and get them to do some learning before they come into the subject. So a little bit of pre-learning, um, and the, these, these, these kind of platforms are paid behind a pay wall. You have to pay a license for them, but they're great to work on as well, you know, from my point of view.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Thinking, yeah, that, I mean, the revision platform really was, was that, was that type of work being done before the pandemic then? Or was that something that came out of the pandemic, cuz you could see that kind of, that kind of setup really working, you know, when, when, especially when kids were at home having to be homeschooled.
Simon Haynes:From my point of view, we were doing a lot of it before the pandemic. Okay. And I think I started to see a lot of people giving away, um, that kind of content for free. Yeah.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yeah.
Simon Haynes:Because the pandemic United a lot of, uh, educationists, didn't it? It did. Yes. And that Includes publishers schools. We were effectively looking for ways to be able to continue delivering, you know, education using the excellence that we've created. Really.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yes. It was a real working together effort, wasn't it?
Simon Haynes:Exactly. Um, and I think you, you asked about how did, how did the pandemic impact work? My, my work or any work that anyone was producing? I think you can successfully say that COVID stopped a lot of projects from starting.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yeah. I can imagine. And I mean, thinking about any live filming as well, that's just, that's just out the window, isn't it?
Simon Haynes:Yeah. I found that internal started to make their own...
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yes. Yeah.
Simon Haynes:Content, and that, that was happening already. U m, I was working with a client, u m, not an educational client, actually. It was a, it was a completely different, but what they were doing a lot of i s they were doing a lot of going to events and filming and interviewing people. U h, they, they couldn't afford to have production companies in tow all the time. It wasn't a Netflix production of formula. I d idn't know. Y es. Y eah.< laugh> it was k ind o f, it really, i t really, it really was low budget, so I h elped train them in developing t heir use of their phones. O h. So smart using smartphone and how to integrate, u h, alongside that, u m, remote, u h, recording. So audio being a massive issue with recording with smartphone. So this is basically, u m, what I call internals making their own. Yes. Y eah. S o people, clients, marketing departments, publishers, editors, they were able to create their own content, working with educational experts as well. U m, and I think, I think that that had a huge power to it. And t he, the beauty is that you can rerecord these days. You don't make something and it's up there forever. You if, i f, if you w ant t o update it, if you want to make it better, you just rerecord it and you can update through the platforms that you a re broadcasting on and, a nd using.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:It goes back to that from the top of this chat really about around accessibility and being able to access all of this, you know, and thinking about accessing on mobile and accessing on internet, you know, um, we, none of this, if, if the pandemic had been 15, 10, 15 years ago, it would've been a very different outcome in terms of that accessibility and access to materials and information, wouldn't it?
Simon Haynes:Yeah, of course. Uh, but I think in, in all situations, what you do is you look at how you can adapt and how you can adapt quickly. Once you've identified what you can adapt, you, you sprint, you basically make a, you know, you work as hard as you can to achieve that. And whether you put aside as a business, other things that you are doing, then obviously that's, that's, that's a decision to be made by the businesses. But, um, for example, in the pandemic, when the pandemic hit, I, we had quite a lot of work that was lined up. That was, that was, uh, stopped. Yeah. Uh, that was fine. But I looked at ways that I could adapt it and motion graphics was a really obvious way. Yes. Yeah. And also, so I started personally to develop something called scribing, which I had done before, but it seemed a really obvious way to help people to get quick messages out there. And that's what the work was. It was quick, quick work.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yeah. I've seen some of this scribing, I think it's, it's fantastic. Can you just describe a bit about that and to, to the listeners and what, what that is?
Simon Haynes:Describe scribe?
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yeah.
Simon Haynes:Fantastic. It's really good. Um, years ago, they came up with these things that you could put attached to your computer via USB they're called tablets<laugh> and you draw on a tablet, you just draw on a tablet, um, which was, and then it would appear on your screen and effectively that's scribing where you, you physically draw something, record it at the same time and then, and then edit it. Um, and if I was to say that if I spent a day scribing, I'd spend a day editing the scribe. So it's okay really quick. And what you can achieve, what you can achieve in a day of scribing is, is quite, is quite large. There are some, there are some programs that you can buy and you can do your own scribes. Um, they, they kind of rely on you using what they, what they do. They're quite hard to figure out, um, they're time consuming. So if your role is not to learn one of those programs, then, then I think, you know, it made perfect sense to work with someone like me who could, who could make the scribe. The only thing with scribing is that you're reliant on the person who's scribing and their style. Um, but there is a certain look to a scribe and a certain feel.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Which I think works really well for educational materials, especially when it comes to like maths and science and looking at, you know, formulas and things like that and breaking down sums. I think it's fantastic for that.
Simon Haynes:Scribing is a really cost effective way of doing that. Yes. Yeah. It always has been, um, I can produce a minute of scribe in one hour if required.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:That's really, that's Great.
Simon Haynes:To film a minute or to, or to animate a vector in a minute. Uh, it would, wouldn't be an hour's work it's it's considerably more so, yeah. Yeah. It's a really quick cost effective way of, uh, providing, you know, producing content. I like it. I really like it.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yeah, I do too. Um, okay. So to, to wrap then, then my last question really is around new technologies and in the advent of new technologies, where does film fit in now? Cause obviously there's so much out there. Where do you see film fitting in, in the educational space?
Simon Haynes:Um, film has a place in the advent of new technologies and it, and it does fit in, but it's ever-changing. The demand on film will change in that role. So you can't, you can't, if you like, and I've discovered this over my working life is you can't learn something and rely on that. You learn, you are constantly learning. You're constantly adapting and film is constantly adapting with it. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so film will fit in, but it will be constantly adapting. And at the moment, if you said a good example of that is the use of film in AR VR. Yes. And I go back to my expression that that film includes animation motion, graphics, 3d. But just to wrap this up, if you like, I think while film's changing, the one thing that doesn't change is your strategy. The one thing that doesn't change is the creative role of actually writing good content on those platforms. Cuz film is not an answer to your strategic and creative, um, demands. Film is the means by which you show those strategies and creativity.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:Yes, absolutely, Absolutely. I couldn't agree more Simon. I couldn't agree more.
Simon Haynes:It's exciting.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:It is. And like you say, it's about, it's about adapting and reacting, isn't it? It's about keeping on top of, of new technologies and, and moving forward with it so that film does have a place. Um, but that that's fantastic. Thank you so much, Simon. That was such an interesting conversation. Thank you for joining us today.
Simon Haynes:I hope it was. Thank you very much.
Rebecca Durose-Croft:It was Simon. Thank you. For more podcasts from Westchester Words, UK and international, just search Westchester words on Spotify, apple or Google podcasts.