Brand film and advertising production in Ireland

Start with where people will see it. A brand film tells your story and lives on your website, in pitches and at the top of your social channels. It can run one to three minutes. An advert sells one thing, usually in 15 to 60 seconds, and runs as paid media on TV, YouTube or social. A social ad is shorter again, vertical, and has to work in the first two seconds with the sound off.

Most brands need a mix, and one shoot can cover it. Plan the brand film first, then the adverts and social versions come from the same footage. Stonechat Jewellers got a brand film, two teaser spots and vertical versions from about a day and a half of filming. If you’re not sure which you need, that’s what the first call is for.

• Corporate video vs brand video: what’s the difference?

Light it like an advert, not like a catalogue photo. We plan the hero shots before the day: the macro close-ups, the top-down layouts and the moments your product is in use. Texture and finish matter most, so we use controlled light and shallow focus to make a gold pendant, a journal cover or a charger port read clearly on a phone screen.

Then we put the product into real life. A journal on a Christmas table, a pendant on a sunrise swim, an athlete using a sensor in the gym. Those shots show what it’s like to own it, which a pack shot alone can’t. Send us samples before the day if you can, and tell us which details your customers care about most.

Both work, and the choice changes the film. Your own people bring authenticity: the maker at the bench, the founder explaining why, real customers. That’s how we filmed Stonechat’s owner and Alan Ardiff’s pieces in a real day. A scripted advert with a storyline, like the Bluebird Care Christmas film, needs cast actors who can hit the same moment take after take. For a voiceover we book professional voice talent.

When a film needs actors, we cast them through an agency or from our own pool of actors, and their fees are agreed in your quote before anyone is booked. If your own team is nervous, we keep the crew small and nothing is live, so a stumble is simply cut.

Plan the formats before the shoot, not after. If we know you need 16:9 for YouTube, 9:16 for Reels and TikTok, and square for feeds, we frame every shot with room for each crop, so nothing important falls off the edge. We also film short, punchy moments that can open a six-second ad.

From the same day you can get the main film, social cut-downs, resized versions of the main film and a set of stills. Captions come with every edit, because most social video plays with the sound off. Films arrive on Vimeo, where you can review and download every version; photos come in a shared Google Drive folder.

• Creating videos for different social media platforms: best practices

Yes. We film in shops, workshops, gyms, hotels and outdoors anywhere in Ireland, and travel from Dublin is built into your quote. Outdoor shoots get a weather plan from the start. For Stonechat’s sunrise swim at Killiney we watched the forecast with the client for weeks and moved the shoot twice, for rain and then a swimming ban, before getting the morning Ann called “amazing”.

If the forecast turns, moving the shoot is free as long as you tell us at least 24 hours before. Fees for actors or contractors already booked for the day may still need to be covered. Drone footage needs a site that’s legal and safe to fly, and we check that before we quote.