Overview

The firm wanted to celebrate 15 years since its founding by making a short film that would be shown at the celebration event. GITBB are a very successful law firm, but are very different from other firms of the same size and success and because of that I decided that the film I would make for them needed to be different as well.

Challenges & Approach

My approach began with making a list of questions for each interview. The sense I got from my initial communications was that employees and partners were very passionate about their work and the firm itself, but the culture and a sense of humour was important to them. For example, they hold an eating competition once a year that almost everyone takes part in. They are a tight-knit and progressive group of individuals and it was important to me to get that across.

Once the interview questions were ready I set up a dozen or so slots to chat briefly with volunteers and film two different camera angles with a single light and a reflector. The main challenge during this part was to keep everything on track because I knew there would be a lot of footage to go through and sync up later. It was important to make everyone feel at ease with the camera and lights and also have fun with their answers.

My contact at the firm and I went through the questions once the filming was finished and prioritized the ones that we deemed the most important for the project in order to meet the upcoming deadline, because unsurprisingly, everyone had a lot to say. We chose a mix of playful/serious and long/short answers to reflect the firm's playful side as well as its work ethic.

The most challenging part of the edit was at this point, where I had to locate everyone's answers to only those questions we chose and then sync the two angles, clean up the answers, and work on how it would all be laid out. Making use of DaVinci Resolve helped enormously here with it's transcription tools, auto alignment tools, which let me find and clip out the sections I needed.

From there, I had to decide how to weave the clips together cleverly to show everyone's personality as well as their genuine passion for the firm culture and also create humour and interest with well-timed cuts.

The result

The result was an accurate portrayal of the employees' gratitude towards the founders of the firm for their commitment to inspiring a strong work ethic and a fun and inclusive work culture. The film is true to the firm's brand in that sense, and was received very well at the event.