Every now and again, it’s nice to spruce up one’s website with something new. Given the fact that New Media forms a part of my business, I decided to include a short video introduction to this site. Rather than do the usual thing of embed it using a player or have a link spawning a media player, I went for a bit of ‘wow’ (in my opinion at least).

It started out with me thinking what I wanted the clip to achieve. One, I wanted to talk a little about what I do and how people might use the website. Two, to personalise myself a little more than text and images.

Having established a need, I then wrote a short piece of text. See here for the transcript.

Then, into the studio. The effect I was looking for was the appearance of ‘walking out of my picture’. So, after loading the text onto an autocue, I stood at the side of the studio and ‘walked’ on, delivering my ’spiel’ as best I could.

Once the raw content had been captured, the studio engineer and I worked to key out the background and leave me on screen with the appearance of transparency.

Once the finished file was complete, there were a few ‘cheeky’ hacks required to create the appearance I was looking for and *bosh*, it was up and going.

Take a look by going to my homepage.

There are no doubt some downsides to this kind of approach, especially from an accessibility standpoint. However, it seems a novel way to welcome new visitors to your website! Seems to me that in branding and marketing, differentiation is key.

Along the way, there were a few good lessons learnt. Not being experienced at being on the other side of the camera, it’s amazing what you have to remember. Where to stand, appearing relaxed, maintaining rhythm of speech whilst reading. Actually quite taxing for the brain!