Today I revisited my past when I attended a seminar on Successful Video Marketing, run by the talented Bitpod team.

It reminded me of my days working in ‘corporate’ video, first as a production assistant then a producer. At the same time I sort of fell into scriptwriting, which I seemed to have a flair for.

I filmed across the country, on location, in studios, abroad. It was mighty fun! The industry then was awash with money – a budget of £25K for a corporate wasn’t seen as high, and the largest budget I personally managed was over £60K. So seeing Bitpod’s estimation of a starting price of £400 was a revelation.

Mind you, we had full crews, broadcast cameras, TV presenters and actors, and complicated editing needs- it wasn’t digital, of course. If you got it wrong in the edit or you’d have to go back to the beginning and start again.

I worked in video right through the innovation of digital editing and the freedom it brought. Oh, the thrill of creating instant graphics where once we would have to wait overnight for them to render before we’d find out if they were right.

Eventually, the corporate production industry changed beyond recognition; crews got smaller, cameras became tiny, budgets shrunk. I stuck with scriptwriting as I enjoyed it so much, and just as well, as it led to me branching out into copywriting and then PR and social media.

The last major series of scripts I wrote was for Leeds University who were producing programmes to help students understand the need for maths in computing. My maths is pretty basic so finding ways to put across complex ideas like artificial intelligence and chance and uncertainty was a challenge (http://lutube.leeds.ac.uk/avsmas/videos/906).

However, the skills I learnt as a scriptwriter have stood me in good stead for my work in copywriting, PR and social media. At the heart of it all is content, and knowing how to tell a good story well.