Hello everyone. You join us today as we’re off to Ireland with Richard, our videographer.

“Say hi.”

“Hello mate.”

There we are. We’re off to Ireland to shoot with Activ8. Cut it very fine because we were actually shooting with Actorsmart today in Birmingham. But we’ve just arrived, going to check our bags in, check Richard’s 12 batteries in, ready for the shoot, and you’ll see us on the other side—probably once we land in Ireland.

Here we go. Just got my daily fix of complaining about price ads on LinkedIn. So I’m feeling good, feeling refreshed, and well nourished.

“Happy days, eh?”

Happy days.

So, after a lovely stay at that hotel, we turned up at the first site and David got right to it. We always like to record things on a gimbal and do things a bit more handheld—more movement in the background. It makes it more engaging. And then we had a funny moment with David getting off the wall here.

Okay, so we’re actually going to review live one of the creatives from the first site and I’m going to talk a little bit about why we did certain things at different points. So here we go.

“David here from Activ8 Energies. We’re at a traditional Irish home here in County Louth, a beautiful house…”

Right off the bat—within the first five seconds—we want to make sure there’s some sort of visual change that completely changes what’s on screen. That’s super important so it’s very clear to the viewer that they’re not about to watch a two or three minute video of one single angle with no editing, just following someone around, which could be perceived as boring.

We want it visually engaging within the first five or six seconds at a maximum. And we like to do some nice transitions using the company branding as well.

“…home here in County Louth, a beautiful house and they’ve had solar system. Where are the panels?”

Again—drone. We bring a drone to every single shoot. It’s super good for versatility and gives you angles you just can’t capture from the ground.

“They’ve also got an outhouse connected to the home. We’ve used this roof…”

Yeah, so our editors have experience with tools like CapCut, which helps with captions and things like that. But what really takes it up a notch—and provides editing that genuinely makes things easier to understand and improves conversion—is that they’re also familiar with more advanced tools like After Effects and Premiere Pro.

That’s what allows them to do things like highlighting and drawing attention to the exact element being discussed. If someone says “mounting system”, it might not be instantly clear what they mean. With the highlight, it is.

“…mounting system that pitch the panels further. This is an 18 panel, 8 kW system…”

Another thing: don’t shy away from technical details. A lot of leads already know what kilowatts are. They know what battery they want. They’ve done spreadsheet maths. They’ve watched a hundred YouTube videos. The market is becoming increasingly educated.

Yes, there’s still top-of-funnel people learning, but more and more you’re dealing with informed buyers—and technical talk resonates with them.

“…engineered for the Irish weather in particular, for high winds. These panels aren’t going anywhere…”

And again, you can see we consistently change the background, framing, distance from the camera—close, far—so it stays engaging.

“…where’s the inverter and where are the batteries? This is the cable coming from the panels…”

Again, highlighting the cable and route of the power makes systems that look complicated feel simple. You can show where power goes and how everything interacts.

“…this is the dongle. This gives you all the information on your phone.”

This is also worth calling out. We like to record the subject speaking with the camera focused on them while they talk. Then afterwards, whatever they mentioned or gestured to, we go and capture B-roll—secondary shots of that exact thing.

So the close-up footage you’re seeing was often recorded separately to the audio you’re hearing, but it lets us get tailored shots that elevate what they’re talking about.

“…two 5 kW Duracell energy modules… in the event of a power cut, this Duracell battery pack will feed this backup socket…”

And there you go—again, using more advanced editing techniques to illustrate concepts that are otherwise hard to show. In this example, you literally can’t see the cable run by design, but it’s important because it’s extra effort the company went to for a better end result—taking power from the outbuilding into the home.

So we draw attention to it.

“…under the ground going from the building right up this fence… this grass is growing back…”

And you can see we get multiple takes so it feels fresh. Poor David did this two or three times. We start with a ground take, then the drone for the bird’s-eye view, then back to ground, then back to drone.

“…coming to this gravel area and into the home. From a practical point of view, this is an access area…”

We also love drawing attention to real-world application—why certain choices were made for the homeowner. It’s rare that two systems are identical. Even something like an access walkway isn’t fascinating on its own, but it supports a wider point: Activ8 care about the customer’s end result and day-to-day life.

“…if you want to do it once and do it right, click the button below, share some details, and we’ll be in touch.”

You always want a call to action in the video. Sometimes there are multiple because people may take action 10 seconds in, or at the end. In this case, it’s at the end.

We also use a hold screen at the end. Quick tip—this gives people time to digest what they’ve just seen and actually click the button. And we add a logo animation at the end for every client. It’s a nice touch, and it’s important for brand recognition.

When you’re running multiple ads, people keep seeing the logo. They see it in transitions too. It gets cemented in their mind. And if you’re doing other marketing activity—Activ8, for example, are advertising in local supermarkets—then when people see that logo elsewhere, they’ll think, “Oh, I remember David’s video on Facebook.”

Here we are turning up at Activ8 SSC Electricity offices. We’ve just finished filming on the first site. Classic me—got to record behind-the-scenes. We got some really nice content: an underground cable lay, a high-mounted battery and inverter system to keep access clear for the walkway, and here we are. No idea where I’m going to park, but exciting times.

Spot.

Okay, so classic from me—I completely forgot to record the rest of the day because I had to lock in on getting the content. But as you can see, we went to the office, got some lovely office shots, then went into the warehouse and did a lot talking about the Atlas panel, which is exclusive to Activ8, which is really cool.

What makes Atlas solar unique?

You might think it’s weird that he’s holding the leaflet, but it’s a nice shot to cut between and show what’s on the paper as well.

“All right, David…”

“So why did we bother? Why did we come up with Atlas solar? Activ8 have now consistency, reliability…”

Then we went to another two sites. One was a really picturesque modern house that had only been built about five years ago. The homeowner bought it themselves and had a background in construction. And finally, we went to a house with a more typical solar array that had been referred by a neighbour. We got some really nice content there too, which you can hopefully see on screen.

And there you have it. We finished up the day with a bit of a goofy pose. We like to get our clients to do that at the end of filming—it’s always good fun.

Then Richard and I rushed to Dublin airport because we weren’t sure when the shoot would finish. Sometimes we finish around 4:30, but often it runs to 6:30. The latest we’ve ever done is about 7:30. So we rushed to the airport, checked the Ryanair app, and it said there were spaces available, but you could only buy the ticket at the check-in desk.

We returned the hire car early, got the shuttle to the airport, got to the desk, and then they told us the flight was full.

So we were stranded in the airport with no hire car anymore. We ended up going on a nice little trip—walking down the canal into the centre of Dublin, having the best burger ever, reviewing some of the footage from the day, and getting excited about the ads that would be produced.

So there you have it. That’s a typical filming day—well, it’s pretty atypical because it’s international—but it gives an insight into what might happen on a shoot day.

A lot of clients ask first: what’s going to happen? What’s it like? Is it scripted? Who’s there? So hopefully this gives you a bit of insight. Cool.