Edutainment is key.

It’s a tale as old as time: We needed a new way to tell an old story. Security leaders Verizon and Checkpoint software wanted to bring awareness to the ways hackers operate, giving their customers the know-how on what to look for and how to help employees work safer. Traditionally, videos like this use voiceover and stock, or clichéd tropes that cause audiences to tune out. So, our take had to be fun and engaging on top of being informative.

To capture the conscience of the king.

Sometimes the strictest requirements make for the most creative productions. To work with our budget and do something unique at the same time, we thought about the video production like a play—where the sets and viewpoint take a backseat to dialogue and implied environment.

What is visible are the things that truly matter: the actors, their props, and limited set pieces that imply where they are in the world. We strategically presented realism without using a green screen, or other workarounds that can make a video feel kitschy. To offload the cost of talent, the story is told from the perspective of a single actor who walks you through the world—one filled with non-speaking roles, where actions and images on the screens they’re working on tell the story.

Tie it in a bow.

With the help of an experienced crew and careful planning of the script and shotlist, the production was done in a single day (talk about efficiency). For a quick and fast post-production, everything was shot in camera. To add a realistic layer to the video, we assembled pre-production work on the screens that represented the real world of hackers and their targets. The added authenticity of showing what things really look like and how they really work paid off in the end-product—especially since this is a world that’s often represented in disingenuous ways.

A video that keeps on giving.

Our long-form piece was multi-purposed—eventually cut down into bite-sized chapters, which each focus on one method hackers use to target employees and gain access to organizational information.