Internal messages that actually get watched

An internal message has one advantage over a marketing film: the audience already knows the company. It has one disadvantage: the audience has no reason to open it. Everything below is about the second problem.

An announcement to the staff

A new system, a move, a reorganisation, a date everybody needs. Internal announcements are the one place where being watched to the end genuinely matters, because a message that half the staff half read produces half the change. A short film says it once, in the same words, to everybody.

An invitation to a course

A course, a webinar or a breakfast meeting, where the thing that decides whether people come is whether the invitation was clear about who it is for. The last scene should carry the sign up address alone and stay on screen longest, because that is the one image people are meant to remember.

A job that nobody applies for

A small employer with no applicants, who already knows that a text advertisement does not get read. A film can show what the job involves in three short lines, which is exactly what Nine's template called Three points is built for, and introduces the people already doing it, so it sells the team rather than the vacancy.

The working bee

Covered in the club article beside this one, and it belongs here too: a voluntary organisation asking for a Saturday is really making an internal announcement, and the same rule applies. Say what the money is for and how far along you are.

The three things that make it work

• It is short enough to finish. Under half a minute, and often much less.
• It has one subject. A film with two subjects is a film with a subject and an appendix, and the appendix is what gets skipped.
• It says who it is for. An invitation that does not name its audience is an invitation nobody is sure about.

Making it in Nine

For an announcement, a script is usually right: the words are already decided, and the film says them once, in the same order, to everybody. A film of your own comes with a plan; the free part of Nine lets you look and try, and never makes a film. On a plan there are several ways in. Start from a template puts your own words into one of Nine's templates, a name and one line, a card that holds still, or three points, and adds nothing to them. A script takes the words you already have, in your order, and each paragraph becomes a scene. Just an idea needs only a sentence. A voice recording makes the film run as long as you talk, with your voice as its sound. On the Film plan a film is up to 30 seconds.

The film is drawn, so it needs no photograph. If it should show your own photographs, the plans with a library, Film + Transparent and above, make a film from your own pictures, placed as they are and never retouched. Music is added afterwards in the chamber, calm or with a beat, and goes into the video file when you save. Nine sends nothing to anybody: you get the video file, or a private review link, and you decide who sees it.