Neil Warner, Commercial Videographer — 1st Place in Video-Open Category, IPPVA Awards 2019

Neil Warner is a multi-award-winning corporate photographer and videographer based in Galway. He also served as president of the IPPVA for a number of years. Recently, we sat down with him to discuss his first-place award the Open Category of the IPPVA video awards in 2019, for a video he made with a biomedical technology company based in Spiddal, Galway.

Tell us a little bit about Warner Corporate Photography.

We are corporate photographers and video producers based in Galway and servicing our clients from our base in Galway. We have worked for clients on an international basis and have shot projects from St. Petersburg in Russia to San Diego in California and from Dubai in the UAE to Hanoi in Vietnam.

As corporate photographers and videographers our experience and skills within photography and image-making are vital, even more so is our experience in the industry and our understanding of the marketing process. We are specialised in creating images of visually boring products and processes and presenting them in a dramatic and interesting fashion.

We focus on technology, particularly in the medical and biomedical industry.

Would you share with us a little bit of background on the awarded work?

The video, which won the title Irish Commercial Videographer of the year was shot on a very tight budget for a small company in Spiddal on Ireland’s extreme West Coast.  We have worked with the company Aran biomedical and its parent company Proxy biomedical for a number of years. They specialise in generating products from implantable textiles. These products are used to combat difficulties in pelvic floor defects and in vascular support structures.

What makes the video successful is the simple nature of the presentation.  It includes importing graphics from the client’s marketing material which were tweaked for the production. It shows a simple outline of the production process and finishes with examples of the company’s products.

Since then we have produced countless videos in the medical and biomedical sphere.  These include videos shot in Germany, California, and Scotland on bionic arms, a number of videos on breast prosthetics, artificial knees and prosthetic hips, and recently a documentary on an Irish orthopaedic team working on hips and knees in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Somehow we have gained the experience that allows us to visit our clients and immediately grasp their technology and their marketing objectives.

We know a lot of our readers will love to hear more about gear, equipment and post-treatment/editing. Tell us more.

To enable us to maintain objectivity in our productions we engage an external editing company to edit our videos. We have worked with Earthbound films on most of our productions. 

Our production equipment is very simple.  As we generally shoot on the Canon 5D camera system and use the OSMO for moving sequences. We enhance our productions by including sliders and camera cranes and, on occasion, cable cams. For audio, we use Sennheiser radio microphones.  For lighting, we use redhead lights but more generally cold LED lighting from the Italian company Lupolight.

The selection of audio for a production is of vital importance and we use a library service Artlist.io for our productions. We have found that there is a vast selection that allows us to match the moods necessary for each production.

Have you had any other professions before becoming a videographer? Did you study videography or are you self-taught?

As an early school leaver, typical of dyslexic people, I set about gaining academic and professional experience and qualifications. Within marketing I achieved membership of the Marketing Institute of Ireland, I have studied marketing (at night) in NUI Galway and GMIT. Most recently, we studied Digital Marketing at the Western Business Centre.

In photography, I studied in Ireland, England and Germany and I set about achieving world-class qualifications. This has seen me receive three fellowships, from the British Institute of Professional Photography. The British Master Photographers Association and the Irish Professional Photographers Association.

I am one of the few photographers in Ireland to hold the Craftsman’s Award. In addition, I achieved a European Masters in architectural photography from the Federation of European photographers and was only the 13th photographer in history to achieve European Masters status.

The United Nations have honoured me with a leadership medal for my service to European photography. I served as president of the Federation of European Photographers, the Irish Professional Photographers Association, and was the founder of the World Photographic Cup.

Awards

I won the coveted title of Irish Professional Photographer of the Year on three occasions. I have won the award for British overseas advertising photographer of the year, and also won the award for British travel photographer of the year.  I’ve also won the award for European Commercial Photographer of the year.

As I am engaged day-to-day on marketing projects for corporate clients, it was inevitable that we would move into the world of videography.

Tell us why you think commercial video is the future of image-makers?

I’m a firm believer that more photographers and videographers should become involved in the production of commercial videos. Particularly those involved in high-end wedding photography and video. They have the skills and the eye that would enable them to convert directly into commercial video. 

Professional photographers are natural storytellers. These skills together with the empathy they most certainly have would be a useful skill set in the production of commercial videos. The world is becoming more visual, and this is exemplified by the fact that nearly everyone carries a camera in the pocket on their smartphone. To enable professional photographers to make a satisfactory living from the creation of imagery is essential that they would adjust to the “new market” and extend their skills to keep them ahead of the non-professional and part-time image makers.

By outsourcing their editing and using their midweek free time I believe it makes indisputable sense for them to maximise their income by widening the focus into commercial video.

Neil’s portrait is by Kelvin Gillmor.