The Brief
Crosfields is a co-ed day school in Reading which educates students from nursery through to senior school. They came to Small Films with a brief to create a video that would enable them to increase their brand awareness in the Berkshire/Buckinghamshire area.
Looking for a video that would help them to reestablish their identity in the nearby counties, Crosfields also wanted a promotional school video that would help to showcase the link between the junior and senior school. Not a one size fits all school, the video would also need to showcase that it’s a special person who matches the demands of a Crosfields education.
The video needed to appeal to a target audience of aspiring families that see the value in private education, transient families looking for a strong private school in the local area and traditional families looking to send their children to the right school.
They wanted a video that would show them as modern, innovative and inspiring – with a theme that was already identified as ‘We are Crosfields’.
Our Creative Solution
The Small Films team visited Crosfields and met with the key stakeholders to fully get a sense of the school and their values. We identified that in their brand ethos they had several sets of words which epitomised the school – and it was these that the film would be based on.
To keep it in line with the modern and dynamic brief, we opted for a video with no voice over. Just shots with dynamic text that would give it a fun and fast paced style. This allowed people to watch wherever they were without the need to have the sound on.
We shot film of a series of children, from the very youngest to the very eldest, helping to show the breadth of the school’s education and also captured drone footage of the school. The team wrote a script starting with the impactful phrase – We are Crosfields. But what does that mean?’. This was followed by key statements such as ‘We are kind’ ‘We are diverse’, ‘We are committed’.
The Result
The result was a fantastic film with lots of energy. We created an interesting and dynamic way of displaying the text, where it floats within the space of film or appears on top of the picture. We played around with the fonts and with the movement, making the text the integral part of the style of the film. Then we finished the film with a variety of hero shots of individuals looking straight at the camera, before displaying them as a giant collage over the final frame – creating a powerful ending to the film.
Crosfields loved the film and use it across their school website to help showcase their school to prospective parents/students.
