No, I’m not talking about social media, as much as that might be new to some here… I’m talking about the skills required to make decent videos and to make them look good.
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I wouldn’t object to this being a volunteer post ot 2 to create this kind of content…
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I’ve seen enough things via social media where sqns have filmed things and put them out there for their own advertising. OK having something made professionally is nice, but it costs money and that is always going to be HQAC’s go to as they look to do everything on the cheap. How many people could you employ to do it if we lost one or two Gp Capts?
I suppose how many cadets the ACF get as a result of it is key as that defrays the cost and effort.
…by people who a- are interested in, and b- have a clue about how to do it.
Neither of which our current comms team have, because it’s not in their remit.
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Not really they press the “button” on their phone twice and send. You need to make, maintain and retain a presence, which seems to be something the ACF are doing, like many sqns do,
Ah yes, because proper marketing/content creation/videography/editing is merely “pushing a button”.
Never mind composition, lighting, b-roll, scripting, audio production, editing, compiling…
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It really boggles the mind how often you don’t know what you’re talking about yet can’t help but persist in sharing your irrelevance.
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and you see HQAC with their lack lustre history on promoting and marketing spending the sort of money needed for that?
They’ll try and do it on the cheap, which will look cheap and get the sort of success their previous efforts have, which is the sqrt of less than nothing.
I remember the Diane Louise Jordan film which as I recall had supposedly funny out takes and then one a few years back with the Red Arrows pilot and someone involved with Virgin Galactic, both of which dated really fast.
To do it properly it needs to be constantly updated as nostalgia doesn’t work for the product we’re trying to sell.
Hope those posts end up in a new thread.
Maybe if you’d asked nicely.
Badge compliance isn’t specifically linked to marketing/recruitment/PR, so it doesn’t belong here. There were reminders and they were ignored.
@ccw34 did you get your answer or do you need the responses restored to a new thread?
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I got the answers, but if it’s not too much effort it might be useful for them to go in a new thread anyway. Questions about crests & badges do come up periodically 
How about 3? 
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Really?
All materials a Sqn produces should have their badge on it… that’s PR 101.
And if the badge is gopping or wrong, get it fixed. That’s also marketing and advertising 101.
Nevermind.
New threads got it covered.
*the creation and production of marketing and PR content.
Depends if this is indeed something that CFAV are going to be involved in. A skilled hobbyist can do a lot with free or cheap software and a modern phone - you don’t need 12K Black Magic cameras and a full rig of rails, booms, and lights.
We only need to hit somewhere in the middle for video quality, up the still image standard, and add some creativity to be able to produce suitable materials.
Mostly yes, but partly no. I get you on the nostalgia part and it’s a benefit to have regular, changing content, but for what we actually do it wouldn’t be that hard to achieve evergreen or almost evergreen content.
Get it right and we could cover off our current offering over a period of time and then add or deprecate as things change. If it’s good and relevant you can recycle - but you’d need enough to not be rotating between only a few. Regularly include moment-relevant events, highlights/spotlights/showcases/whatever to introduce fresh, more temporary content to keep that up-to-date feel and there’s your balance.
You are absolutely right. It’s down to the planning, creativity and having a workable and repeatable workflow.
The biggest obstacle with smartphone video is most handsets don’t have enough storage.
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That’s an interesting point. Never considered that.
Couldnt hosting via the cloud and having a video set to streaming only and not download fix that? Asking as not my area of expertise.
Possible, certainly in urban areas with 5G.
But at least on iPhone you need 128GB and ideally 256GB to capture any sensible amount of video. Otherwise it’s uploading clips to the cloud. Fine for a pre arranged filming op but useless for events coverage.
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What is needed here is for the cadet forces to recognise that for good quality PR you need creators on the ground, doing it as their primary role. Hiring someone to sit in an office to run your media content won’t do anything as they will have no content to publish. I’m slowly pushing this in my own ACF county as my primary role is recruiting/marketing, and on training weekends I spend at least 50% of my time behind the camera. The Army/RAF/RN have successful social media because they have photographers/videographers on the ground doing the job.
In most cases, getting (usually overworked) CFAVs to grab the odd photo or video while delivering training at the same time is not going to get the media output you really want.
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Totally. And regardless of skill sets it is virtually impossible to do whilst acting as activity director or instructor.
Also video is a whole step up from stills photos.
It isn’t really a step up, just something different. Stills photos still require plenty of work after the event if you want decent output.
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