Test Projects – One of Our Creative Keys
Paul Broadie
As a team we are always looking for ways to improve the work that we’re doing; to deliver better experiences for our clients, to sharpen our technical skills and to try out new creative approaches to video. One of the key ways in which we do this is through what we refer to as ‘test projects’.
Over the past seven years, video test projects have become an increasingly important part of our work and our creative development. Every member of the team has the opportunity to come up with an idea for a video and pitch it and, if we think the idea works, as a team we’ll help them make it. It’s a chance to try out those new approaches and techniques. It’s a space for people to explore their own passions and interests, and it’s a safe way to experiment and not be afraid to fail. There are a number of test projects we’ve worked on which have never been released because they didn’t quite work, and those ones are just as valuable as the ‘successful’ ones because so often we learn more from our failures than our successes. Test project videos require taking time away from our paid work but we consider them to be a key part of our development. They help keep us creatively fresh and often end up inspiring the best of our client videos.
In putting together proposals for projects (both for new and existing clients) we share videos which we think can be drawn on for inspiration. We regularly use our test projects as part of this process, and they have often provided a vital starting point. It’s much easier for a client to buy into a new and different idea when they can see an example of how it could work.
But even if there were no direct business upside to doing test projects, we would still do them. At heart, we are a team of filmmakers. We love the process of coming up with an idea, working out how we would go about bringing it to life and then having the chance to do exactly that. Test projects give us the freedom to scratch this creative itch and they keep us original, and always moving forward.
Here are some examples of our test projects from the past couple of years:
Manto is a video production company in Leeds. If you’d like to chat with us about your video project, get in touch.