Thomas Clifford /// Humanizing Business Communications

It’s a peculiar combination: organizations and documentaries.

Well, not really. Here’s why.

In 1960, filmmakers DA Pennebaker and Drew Associates developed a mobile camera and sound system that enabled big, bulky cameras to fit on their tiny shoulders. Almost overnight, sights and sounds could be captured with little or no interruption to those around them.

The camera tripod, called “sticks” by film crews, now evaporated on many sets.
Filmmakers could be a “fly on the wall.” Almost overnight, the documentary format was born.

Documentaries for organizations were a real possibility. Finally, companies could capture their own story directly from within; not re-created somewhere else, like in a cavernous studio with a "talking head" pointing at a flip chart.

This "hand-held" camera innovation created endless possibilities and benefits for organizations, like:

1. Producing and owning their own documentary program.
2. Recording many scenes at work without a lot of set-up time and trouble.
3. Capturing a sense of “immediacy” and “reality” within the company.
4. Filming “real” people doing “real” things in “real” environments.
5. Affordable production costs with small crews and portable gear.

“Sticks, anyone?”

“No thanks. I’ll pass.”

---Tom

Corporate Documentaries