FinListics Identity

“FinListics”

/fin-`lis-tiks/ – financial linguistics; finance as the language of business

Unlike some companies with which we’ve worked where video is almost nonexistent in their industry, the competitors of FinListics Solutions had already set a high bar when it came to production quality, and it was up to Optimum to meet and exceed that standard. Each business had chosen a different video style to portray their corporate identities, and so part of the challenge was to come up with a concept that hadn’t yet been used, and to make it distinct from the videos of FinListics’ competitors.

The mission of FinListics Solutions is to educate sales professionals in order to help them communicate more effectively by better understanding their clients. As their company name implies, their focus is on financial language as the “native tongue” of business, and they wanted to communicate that more efficiently to their audience. In addition, we wanted to put their own corporate signature and culture into the video in order to help them stand out from the competition.

The team at Optimum brainstormed several different concepts and rough script ideas, until the white board wall in the conference room looked like a mosaic – and then, bit by bit, the dots started to connect. Soon, multiple ideas which had originally seemed unrelated began linking together into a cohesive, vibrant theme: “Elevate the conversation.”

This new motif took flight in no time, and scripts quickly followed. Before long, a major logistical challenge of the production appeared: location, location, location. Where would we find a corporate elevator that would fit our needs for the shoot… and that wouldn’t get summoned away to another floor with half our actors in the middle of a take?

At first, it appeared that our only options were to either take over a business’ elevator somewhere and deal with the threat of unexpected interference from other floors; or to shoot in our studio with an entire elevator replica built from scratch or rented from an expensive prop shop. In the end, however, we had the idea to do a little bit of both. We found an office building with an elevator, lobby, and hallways that we liked… but then we broke out the woodworking tools and created the interior of our elevator in the Optimum Productions studio!

The result, as you can see, was a blast to create and it fulfilled our production needs to the letter. We spent our first shoot day filming the office building and the exterior of the elevator where our actors entered. Jordan even got to channel his inner Wes Anderson with some of his angle choices…

We spent our second day in the studio with our elevator interior. To get some of the “opening and closing” shots, we arranged for two crew-members to move black flags over certain studio lights to create the shadow effect of sliding elevator doors on the actors’ faces. That’s cinematic innovation for you!

The final story cuts seamlessly between the two sets without a hitch. The color-centric cinematography and motion graphics are also components that we’re very proud of as well. Both videos are now settled into the Finlistics website, educating prospects and guiding newcomers through the company’s services, and we couldn’t be happier. That elevator set was a fantastic way to kick off the new year, and our cast and crew had a great time working in it!

Want to see more? Take a look at some other behind-the-scenes stories from our clients, or check out Optimum Productions’ online portfolio!