Most of the people who will decide your company’s future will never visit your lab. Film is how they see the technology working, the facility it’s built in and the people behind it. This guide covers what to film, how a shoot day runs, what drives the cost and where the footage earns its keep.
Why film works where documents don’t
A deep tech sale runs on trust in things the buyer can’t easily verify: that the technology works outside a paper, that the company is real, that the founders can deliver. A well-made film answers all three in about ninety seconds, because seeing a machine run and hearing a founder explain it plainly does something a spec sheet can’t.
Film also keeps working across a long cycle. A buyer who watched your film in March still remembers your facility in September, and forwarding a two-minute video around a buying committee is easier than forwarding you. Our Video & Photography service is built around that fact: the film sells while your team does other things.
What should a deep tech company actually film?
Four things cover almost every commercial need, and they can all come from one shoot:
- A hero film: the company story in two to three minutes, anchored by the founders and the facility.
- Audience cutdowns: shorter edits of the same material, one per buyer type, each leading with what that buyer cares about.
- A founder interview: the long, honest version that investors and journalists want.
- Facility footage: the machines, the lab, the process. Quiet proof that everything else you say is real.
What you rarely need is a brand film full of drone shots and orchestral swells. Deep tech buyers are sceptical people; the more produced a film feels, the less they trust it.
One shoot, a year of assets
We plan shoots around a method we call Core + Module: film the main story once, properly, then cut it for every audience you sell to rather than reshooting for each one.
Part of that planning is a list most companies never think to make: the questions you answer over and over. How does it work, how does it fit an existing process, what happens in the first month. Each one gets answered on camera during the same shoot, which leaves you with a library of short evergreen clips. They run as steady LinkedIn content between campaigns, and they work as sales answers: when an enquiry lands, you send the two-minute clip that covers their question instead of writing the same email for the hundredth time.
When video is the wrong spend
Sometimes it is, and it’s better to hear that from a video company.
If the company hasn’t settled its story, film is an expensive way to find out. A film made on an unsettled story dates the moment the positioning shifts, so fix the story and the website first; our deep tech website playbook covers that order of operations. If there’s nothing to show yet, no working prototype, no facility worth filming, wait. And if the budget only stretches to one thing, the website comes first, because every other asset needs somewhere to live.
What a shoot day actually looks like
A small crew comes to your facility: a director of photography, sound and lighting, plus the producer who runs the interviews. Your lab keeps working around them.
The founders don’t perform and there are no scripts. Our producer sits off camera and asks questions agreed in advance; you just answer them. If you stumble, we reset and go again, and nobody ever sees the outtakes. The people who tell us beforehand that they hate being on camera are usually the ones who come across best, because the format is a conversation, and they’ve explained their technology a thousand times.
Photography runs alongside the filming, so the same day also produces the stills library for your website, LinkedIn and press.
What drives the cost of B2B video production?
Four things, in roughly this order: shoot days, crew size, the number of edits you want from the material, and location. A single day at your own facility with one crew, cut into a hero film and three audience versions, is a very different project from a multi-site shoot. Ask for any quote broken down by days, crew and edits.
Structure matters as much as the number. Film is a project cost, not a subscription: you should pay a fixed price, own everything that gets made, and be free to use it for years. If a proposal involves ongoing fees to keep your own footage, walk away.
Where the films go to work
The hero film goes at the top of your website, and the cutdowns run on LinkedIn as ads and posts, each matched to its audience. The founder interview does its work in fundraising and press conversations, while the evergreen clips answer enquiries and keep the company visible between campaigns. The same footage then feeds pitch decks, event screens and hiring pages for a year or more, which is why we plan the shoot around all of these uses from the start. The Video & Photography page explains how that scoping works.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a video project take?
The shoot itself is usually a day or two at your facility. The overall project, from planning to final edits, is set as a fixed timeline before work starts, and the edit stage is where most of the time goes.
What if the founder hates being on camera?
Almost all of them do. The interview-led format means no scripts and no performing: you answer questions from a producer sitting off camera, and stumbles are reset and cut. It’s a conversation, and founders talk about their technology well.
Do we need a studio?
Usually the opposite. Your own facility looks like you, costs nothing to hire and puts the technology in the frame. A studio only makes sense when the facility genuinely can’t be filmed.
Can one film work for every audience?
One shoot can produce material for every audience, but each audience needs its own edit. An engineer and a finance director want different first minutes, so the material gets cut per buyer type rather than one film serving everyone.