Journal

Vintage Cash Cow had a clear creative brief in mind when this project came to us. Their new web series on YouTube was aimed at a specific demographic of potential customers to foster engagement with the brand through an entertaining format. At the heart of the videos were the children’s reactions to an exciting collection of vintage items, paired with the informative guidance of the ‘Grandma’ character, which brought an intergenerational theme to the client’s vision.

Watch the video

Pre-Production

We wanted authentic reactions from the children, so casting was crucial. We auditioned children to assemble a diverse group with strong personalities that worked well together on screen.

To bring the creative vision to life, we designed and built the entire set in-house to mimic a curated yet cluttered antique shop filled with vintage treasures. The aim was to create an inviting, nostalgic atmosphere combining a sense of wonder and familiarity. This was a true team effort, from the woodworkers who built the flats to the stylist who carefully curated the props and dressed the set. Every detail was chosen to enhance the storytelling and authenticity.

Production

Filming took place in our studio, giving us complete control over lighting, sound, and set blocking. Working with children presented its challenges and rewards. Their natural energy and spontaneity brought undeniable magic to the production but also required flexibility and patience. We worked in short, engaging bursts to keep the children focused and comfortable, ensuring their reactions remained authentic and unscripted.

The structure of the episode closely followed the creative brief. We began with an opening hook, capturing the children’s curiosity before seeing the vintage object. From there, we filmed their initial reactions, introduced the ‘Grandma’ character to contextualise the item, and concluded with a moment of reflection as the children explored the history and significance of what they had seen.

Post-Production

In editing, the focus was on pacing and storytelling. The client’s brief emphasised the importance of creating an emotional arc, so we carefully selected moments that showcased the children’s wonder, humour, and thoughtful observations. Music played a key role in setting the tone, alternating between playful and nostalgic to reflect the transitions in the narrative—a tone that felt quintessentially British. Our graphic designer, Charlotte, created unique graphics that complemented the theme of the videos.

We also crafted shorter cut-downs for social media, optimising them to capture attention within the first few seconds. These edits retained the heart of the episode while catering to a fast-paced online audience.

Final Thoughts

Filming in-house allowed us to keep the process collaborative and efficient while ensuring that every detail aligned with the client’s vision. The children’s authentic reactions and the timeless charm of the vintage items combined to create a series that resonates across generations. Watch out for Episode 2—coming soon!

Manto is a video production agency based in Leeds. We make boundless videos for bold brands. If you have a video project, get in touch. We’d love to help.

You’ve rung in the New Year, it’s back to work, and you don’t want your business lost in the digital noise. With content everywhere – on social media, in ads, and across blogs – it’s easy to feel like you’re just one more voice in the crowd. But here’s the good news: video marketing is your ticket to cutting through the clutter and genuinely connecting with your audience. If you’re in Leeds, partnering with a local video agency can give your business the edge to stand out.

At Manto, we build on the foundations of strong relationships and boundless creativity to produce work which connects with audiences and tells important stories.

The Power of Video Marketing

Let’s talk about why video works so well. First off, it grabs attention. People can’t resist a good video. Whether it’s a behind-the-scenes look at your business, a product demo, or a heartfelt customer testimonial, video is a super engaging way to make your brand more memorable. It’s personal and fun and helps your audience connect with your business on a deeper level.

But that’s not all; search engines love video too. If you’re looking to boost your website’s visibility, adding video to your site is one of the best ways. Not only will it increase engagement, but it can also improve your search rankings, drive more traffic, and lead to more conversions. It’s a win-win for your business.

Why Choose a Video Agency in Leeds?

Okay, now that we’ve covered how powerful video can be, let’s talk about why working with Manto – a local video agency in Leeds, is such a smart move. Trust us, there are some brilliant benefits to keeping things local.

Local Expertise: When you work with Manto, you’re teaming up with a crew that knows Leeds (and Yorkshire) like the back of our hand. We get the people, the culture, and the unique challenges businesses face in the region. This deep local knowledge lets us create videos that truly resonate with your audience. We’ve had the privilege of working with top regional brands like Yorkshire Tea, Bettys and Leeds City Council, so we know exactly what it takes to make a meaningful connection with Yorkshire audiences.

Tailored Strategies: The best part about working with a local video agency like us? Everything is tailored to your business. We take the time to get to know your goals, your brand, and who you’re trying to reach. Whether you’re a fresh startup or an established business, we’ll make sure your video marketing plan is spot-on and perfectly aligned with your objectives.

Personalised Service: At a local agency, you’re not just another client. You’re our partner. We get to know you and your business, and you’ll have a dedicated video expert team working alongside you every step of the way. Regular check-ins, brainstorming sessions, and ongoing collaboration are all part of the package. Plus, being local means communication is quick and easy. We’d love to see you for a cuppa at our HQ in Leeds.

Cost-Effective: Think working with a local agency like Manto is going to break the bank? Think again. We offer more cost-effective solutions than larger national firms, especially when you factor in travel and logistics. With us, you get high-quality, professional videos at a price that’s easier on your budget – and without any extra costs you’d get from bigger agencies.

What Services Does a Video Agency Offer?

A great video agency doesn’t just make videos – we offer a full suite of services to ensure your video marketing is successful. Here’s what you can expect:

Pre-Production

Before the camera starts rolling, a lot of preparation needs to take place. This is so we can establish precisely what it is you wish to achieve from the video and make sure we can deliver accordingly.

Production

When it comes to the day(s) of filming, we understand that it can be daunting, but we believe in making the shoot day as fun as possible for all. Ultimately everyone enjoying the shoot will result in a better video.

Post-Production

The post-production process is where the video comes to life. There are many different elements to this stage, including voice-over, music, editing style and grading that really give the project energy.

We’ve got you covered so you don’t have to juggle it all yourself.

Working with a video agency in Leeds is a smart move if you want to truly engage with your audience. With local expertise, tailored strategies, and a personal touch, Manto can help you make the most of your video marketing and try something new.

Ready to get started with video?

We harness the power of video to create compelling content for bold brands. Let’s chat! 

Online video content has always ridden the wave of ever-shifting trends, and 2025 is shaping up to be no different. Adapt or die is a cheery little mantra that rings as true in video town as anywhere in marketing land. But here’s the thing: this year isn’t just about chasing trends, it’s about making smarter, more intentional choices with your video content strategy.

The Long and Short of It

For me, this is the big headline: longer-form video content is making a comeback. Yep, despite all the noise around shrinking attention spans and dopamine-fueled scrolling marathons, longer videos are carving out a meaningful place in the content mix. Why? It’s simple: people crave depth. Platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, and even TikTok (yes, actual TikTok!) are seeing growing engagement on longer content because it delivers something short clips often don’t: substance.

This isn’t to say that short-form video is dead. Quite the opposite, it remains the undefeated champ for grabbing eyeballs. But here’s the kicker: when it comes to fostering true connection, longer videos hold the crown. They offer space to tell richer stories, dive into nuance, and build trust in a way that snackable content just can’t.

For brands, this means rethinking metrics. Chasing high view counts and viral moments is great for reach, but are those quick views translating into meaningful engagement? We need to recognise that sometimes there’s a lot more power in quality of engagement than in sheer quantity. Imagine this: instead of 100,000 passive views, you create a 10-minute video that drives a few thousand deep connections with people who actually care about your message.

Using All the Tools in your Shed

The key to using video well in 2025 isn’t about picking a lane; it’s about playing to each format’s strengths. Short-form videos remain your secret weapon for stopping the scroll and hooking your audience. But once you have their attention, what’s next? That’s where longer-form content comes into its own; allowing you to take them on a journey and deepen the connection.

The best campaigns we’re seeing—and love being a part of—use a mix of punchy, high-energy clips to draw audiences in and thoughtful, longer narratives to hold them there. It’s not about one or the other; it’s about creating a blend of content that works together.

Authenticity is the Buzzword (Still!)

Every marketing trend list mentions authenticity; and for good reason. If you can convey a genuine impression of who you are and what you’re about, that will stand out in a world of filtered or manufactured reality. It’s about aligning your brand’s values with your storytelling. Viewers are smarter than ever, and they can spot a disingenuous sales pitch from a mile away.

Longer videos offer the perfect canvas for authenticity. Brand stories, behind-the-scenes content, customer success stories, or thought leadership pieces that show off your expertise without the hard sell. It seems like this approach might not just be a “nice to have” anymore, it could be the best way of making you stand out in a crowded digital landscape.

Why This Matters for You

For brands and creators, 2025 is a golden opportunity to rethink how video fits into your strategy. Balancing the mix of shorter and longer-form video isn’t just a fleeting trend, it’s an opportunity to harness a powerful tool to achieve tangible results. It’s a crowded space out there and it’s easy to get drowned out so let’s use the right tool for the job and make good stuff which people will care about.

P.s. If you have an upcoming video project, get in touch. We’d love to chat.

When the Richard Shephard Music Foundation (RSMF) invited us to collaborate, we saw an opportunity to create more than just another charity video—we wanted to craft a story. RSMF is on a mission to bring the experience and enjoyment of music to children and young people in Yorkshire and beyond. We know how important music is in transforming people’s lives.

We created ‘Music is a Key’ to launch their Big Give Christmas Challenge campaign (running 3-10 December), which aims to raise £15,000.

Watch the video.

The Vision

At the heart of the video is an original spoken word poem, Music is a Key. This piece explores music’s profound role in children’s lives—enhancing emotional, academic, and social development while unlocking creativity and self-expression. The poem serves as the video’s voiceover, setting the tone for a narrative designed to connect with viewers emotionally and link them directly to RSMF’s vital work.

Pre-Production

Our approach balanced vibrant energy with a focus on RSMF’s authority and mission. We carefully planned every shot:

• Children fully immersed in music
• Hands strumming, drumming, and creating melodies
• Playful smiles and intimate portraits

The footage is a big celebration, showcasing kids having fun in musical activities to highlight the charity’s tangible impact.

Production

We partnered with a Yorkshire primary school to film children playing their favourite instruments in a relaxed, mini-studio setup. The goal? To capture genuine joy and creativity. Minimal direction ensured the children’s natural enthusiasm shone through.

Post-Production

Editing transformed hours of footage into a cohesive, heartfelt story. Key highlights included:

• Individual and group moments showcasing the children’s connection to music
• Joyful expressions of creativity and fun
• A playful tone enhanced by colourful, doodle-style graphics, in line with RSMF’s branding

Through music, RSMF is transforming lives—and we’re honoured to help share that story.

We’d love to chat if you want to kick-start your video project. Get in touch.

We are happy to interview and share a recent ‘test project’ by one of video producers at Manto, Laura Clark. She has been working on this short doc since Spring 2023 and is over the moon to finally share it. Its had over 68k views on YouTube alone and we couldn’t be any more proud.

This film is a story of fifth-generation forester, Marcus Tribe, one of the UK’s last woodsmen. He lives in his wooden yurt on a six-acre woodland and has spent over 20 years preserving the land and living self-sufficiently. Now 65 years of age and in a time where the Earth is in a global climate crisis, he wishes to share his lifetime of knowledge in hope of inspiring younger generations to reconnect with the land.

Watch Wildfolk on YouTube

Can you tell us about your background in videography and when you started working for Manto?

I’ve always loved capturing video since I was a child, from filming summer holidays, photographing flowers to creating videos of my friends and I pretending to be newsreaders! I really began to be passionate about filmmaking at A-levels when I first watched Goodfellas and Gravity and then went on to study film and photography at university. I started working for Manto at the beginning of 2022 when I first joined on a 6 month contract with the Kickstarter Scheme. From there I’ve developed into a video producer, being involved in a huge variety of video projects… 11-year-old me would be pretty jealous!

What inspired you to create the film “Wild Folk,” and what message were you hoping to convey through it?

I was keen to create a nature-led short doc for a while, being inspired by filmmakers such as Joya Berrow, Alex Lockwood and Alice Aedy. Then my boyfriend was working on a rewilding site in Devon where he met Marcus Tribe, the star of Wild Folk. When I first met Marcus, I was mesmerised by his innate knowledge of his local environment. He was a man full of wisdom about plants, mushrooms, animals and believed that humans have lost their connection to land. I had recently read Lucy Jones’ book ‘Losing Eden’ which delved into similar topics of nature disconnection and felt I wanted to inspire folks to reconnect with their local flora and fauna through Marcus’ inspiring and humble passion.

Can you walk us through the process of creating “Wild Folk,” from concept development to final production?

When I had first met Marcus about 6 months before production, I had captured a few shots of him giving us a tour of his woodland. His passion for inspiring younger folks to learn ‘woodland wisdom’ helped focus the content when I was planning the interview questions for the shoot. I created a detailed storyboard with a wish list of shots I wanted to capture. I knew I’d only have 1 day of shooting, so time was of the essence! It was also over 200 miles away in rural Devon so a precise kit list was pretty important too.

The film features stunning visuals and a powerful narrative. How did you approach the storytelling and visual design to evoke emotion and connect with the audience?

To evoke that emotion, you need to frame the interview questions around personal emotions. E.g. ‘how does it feel to wake up in the woodland’ and ‘how did the controversy around you initially owning the land make you feel’ and so on. There are a wealth of films out there about climate breakdown, so I really wanted to focus on Marcus’ contagious optimism. Coined by Joanna Macy, ‘active hope’ was a term I came across after shooting, and I think it really encapsulates Marcus’ non-preachy views, which engages a wider audience. The visuals were secondary to the story and filming solo was limiting, but it meant I had total creative control and consistency of what this looked like. The unintentional (!) wobbly camera shakes, nostalgic and ‘wild’ feel to the film came authentically and I just continued to lean into this when editing and colour-grading as I found it suited the tone of who Marcus is.

What were some of the technical challenges you faced during the production of “Wild Folk,” and how did you overcome them?

We only had a day of filming on a cloudy day in early April and I remember losing the light pretty quickly. I was really keen to get the drone up to show the contrast between Marcus’ woodland and the surrounding industrial agricultural land. This was my second time using the drone so I was a tad nervous considering the cloud was very low… the shots came out pretty grainy but I think they lean quite well into the rustic tone of the film.

Collaboration is often key in filmmaking. Can you tell us about your collaboration with Marcus Tribe, and how you worked together to bring the vision of “Wild Folk” to life?

I was sitting with Marcus, my boyfriend and a local rewilder in his yurt over warm vegetable soup and fresh lemon balm tea when I learnt that Marcus had always been keen to capture his knowledge in some form. He was initially planning a book but when I approached him with the visual idea of a film, that enticed him. I think having a good relationship with who you are interviewing before you put a camera in their face is really important to achieving authentic results. You don’t want to seem like you’re ‘extracting’ from them but rather the film is a collaboration between filmmaker and subject. Even after filming, I caught a few extra shots in woodlands in Yorkshire, checking in with Marcus that the wildlife I was capturing would be native to his woodland to further achieve that authenticity.

Wild Folk has received widespread acclaim and recognition (over 67k views to date). What has been the most rewarding aspect of creating this film for you personally?

Honestly, I was super nervous for Marcus to first see the film. But when his daughter told me they surprised him and the rest of their family with a screening of the film on Christmas Day, (and it was well received!) I knew I had peaked. Of course the recognition from the lovely rewilding community on YouTube has been amazing, but knowing his family have this film as a time capsule to look back on in the future, is the most precious thing.

What was it like behind the scenes?

Emotional! The interview lasted nearly 2 hours, we danced around an array of conversation topics and we all became quite emotional at points. Just listening to Marcus’ humour, knowledge and deep compassion so intensely was awe-inspiring. We all learnt a lot about woodland management when walking round the land, from mice species, to foraging tips, to what trees grow best on a wet woodland.

Can you share any upcoming projects or future aspirations in your videography career?

I have actually just submitted Wild Folk to the streaming website WaterBear in hope of reaching a younger audience, so look out for its release on August 15th! I’m hoping to continue researching and planning a longer form documentary in the rewilding space focused more localling in Yorkshire in reconnecting children with nature… keep your eyes peeled!

Do you have any advice for aspiring videographers or animators who are looking to pursue a career in the industry?

It sounds cliche but make films about what you love. If you have a passion for a subject, person, time-period or how much you love peanut butter on toast, research the hell out of it and make a film about it. Seriously, that passion will come through the lens and achieve more authentic results. There is SO much noisy content out there but if you create something that comes from your genuine voice, just know that it’s never been done before.

Visit the Manto Collective channel on YouTube to see more test projects from the team.

Digital marketing is increasingly driven by video content and more and more marketing professionals are being called on to create regular video content themselves. There’s so much you can do with a phone and a laptop but it can be daunting if you’ve never had any training.

Whether you don’t know where to start and need some help to get going, or you’ve been making videos and just can’t get them to look as good as you want, we’re here to help!

Book Your Place

Date: Thursday 26 September
Times: 09:00  – 16:30
Location: The Village Hotel, Headingley, Leeds

Join us for a day of training, hosted by Paul Broadie (MD) and Matt Rolfe (CD) at Manto. We’re video experts with years of experience producing video content for some of the UK’s best known brands and we’ll teach you the basics of creating social content using your phone. We’ll talk you through how to get started with ideas and the kinds of content that can work for you. We’ll take you through pre-production; getting yourself ready. We’ll talk you through some kit that might help you and give you advice for production, and we’ll give you an intro to editing showing you some simple techniques which can produce fantastic results.

This is a hands-on course, so please come with the following:

A phone – with plenty of storage on!
A laptop – along with a way of transferring files from your phone to a laptop
Capcut – Please download and install the desktop version on your system before the training day
A power bank – just in case you run out of battery, you can keep filming on the move
Places are limited to ensure that we can engage with every person attending so book soon to make sure you don’t miss out!

Schedule for the day:

Presentation of pre-production, production and post-production aspect
Task 1
Lunch
Task 2
Lunch included! Please let us know any dietary requirements ahead of the event.

Every year we ask Steve, Head of Post Production, to create Manto’s showreel. Steve is a truly exceptional editor and motion graphics animator and always rises to the challenge.

Watch Manto’s Showreel

“I can’t lie – I love being given the task of putting together our annual showreels! I’m always blown away by the amazing stuff the team have produced over the last year and it’s a proper editor’s joy having a buffet of fresh, hot new content to work with. This is the fifth reel I’ve made with Manto and it’s been ace to see how much we’ve grown as a group of creative folk.

I’m typically given a lot of freedom in the edit, so from a personal perspective I like to use this opportunity to try new ideas and push things a little further. We had a shiny new brand refresh last year and I love how much it lends to the creative tone of voice we are going for.  With how much we’ve all stepped up I wanted this reel to do the same. My aim was to make us look bold, confident and unafraid to take risks – something I think this edit does well in comparison to previous versions. I’d love to think that viewers, and potential clients, are left feeling galvanised by the end and are ready to bring their exciting new projects our way!

Each year, the biggest challenge I face is deciding what to leave out rather than include. I like to keep the showreel long enough to get a taste of who we are but not so long it starts to feel repetitive. The choice of music is normally a massive early task of high priority too – as this will dictate the energy and mood we are hoping to achieve. The confidence and swagger of this year’s track, emphasised by the lyrics “We gon’ get it done”, reflects how we are feeling about our work right now for sure.

This sounds like one big pat on the back, and that’s because it is! Sometimes it’s necessary though, and my hope is the showreel illustrates how much passion we have for what we do and the pride we put into our work. Thanks for watching.”

Find out more about the Manto team here.