Making commercials for an international client for the Olympics is a tall order for any production company. But doing it with a small team requires discipline and training—not unlike that of an Olympian.
Based in London, Stamp Productions works at the top of their game with a lean and agile staff of just six principals. And as a B Corp, using Frame.io as part of their Adobe-based ecosystem has helped them make a big impact while leaving a small carbon footprint. In this Made in Frame, we rode along with Stamp for their Bridgestone Tires Olympics ad campaign to learn more about how their intense preparation and careful selection of tools give them a winning combination of creativity, speed, and security with clients across sports, automotive, and fintech.
Stamp takes off
Fifteen years ago, Stamp Founder and Director Ben Uttley pivoted from acting to working behind the camera. As a former professional rugby player and fan of sports programming, he felt that the UK broadcasts were inferior to American sports journalism. “I was massively inspired by the NFL Series Hard Knocks at the time, and we tried to emulate that in the rugby world to make it more cinematic,” Ben says. “I shot a lot of documentaries myself using a Sony FS700 and cine lenses.”
Expanding from there into the corporate and commercial segments of the industry, Ben’s mission has always been to tell good stories, digging for them even if they might not be obvious. “There’s always something there,” he says. “Whenever there’s conflict, there’s always a good story.”
Whenever there’s conflict, there’s always a good story.
Along the way, Ben produced and directed four feature-length documentaries, including Silver Spitfire [co-produced by Red Bull Studios] in which a group of six flew around the world in an iconic interceptor aircraft that saw 51 battles during World War II. “It was incredibly dangerous, and everyone told us it was impossible, but it was an amazing trip. I did all the filming and stills myself. It’s quite hard work and when you’re doing it over the ice caps, or you’re in Asia in the deserts, I had to get some support,” Ben explains. “I was using Frame.io to send clips up so the guys could download and edit the social media.”
The team completed the edit during the pandemic lockdown, relying on Frame.io to deliver the assets they needed to the sponsors throughout post-production. They even earned a world record for the fastest circumnavigation by a single seat, single engine piston aircraft—122 days—from August 5, 2019, to December 5, 2019, in which they flew over 26 countries.
A force for good
Meanwhile, over the past 15 years Ben grew the Stamp family to include a select group of like-minded individuals who each seem to quite happily wear many hats to service clients ranging from Rolls-Royce to the English Football League and Bridgestone.
Their shared company ethos accounts for much of their willingness to work smaller. “Stamp is a B Corp, which is all about becoming a better business for people and the environment. We’re legally bound to try to have as little impact on the planet as possible, while trying to lead the pack in terms of social responsibility for our staff and for the communities we work in,” Ben states.
“Filming is, by nature, a heavy-impact industry on the environment. I think where we differentiate ourselves is by the quality of storytelling, but also the way we do it is important to us. We specifically create our shoots so that we’re telling great stories, but ultimately we realize that in 20 years’ time most of what we’re making won’t be remembered. But how we make that content will. And if we can save ten percent in terms of efficiency for our clients, that’s ten percent they can spend on creating more content or doing something else with that money.”
Initially achieving B Corp status is a rigorous process involving extensive evaluation and auditing, and requiring recertification every three years. From not allowing single-use plastic on their sets to choosing LED lights and carrying a portable solar array with them to offset the energy they’re using, Stamp has earned one of the highest scores among production companies worldwide.
An Olympic campaign
For their recent Bridgestone Olympics campaign, Stamp traveled to five European countries to produce 14 spots for agency WeAreFearless. Each centered on an Olympic competitor—the shoot we attended features paralympian canoer Rémy Boullé, whom they filmed in the south of France.
A team of three drove from London to France with their camera gear rather than flying, and hired local crew to keep the travel footprint small. “I still needed some of my team, producer Martyn Black and editor Fraser Harrop, to be able to see and engage with the content as if they’re there, however,” Ben says. “Frame.io Camera to Cloud allowed us to do that while reducing our emissions by more than 65 percent.”
Benefits for everyone
As the lead editor for Stamp, Fraser cites the multiple benefits of using Frame.io from camera capture through post. “From shoots, we’re able to upload proxies into the cloud and our editors can begin working straight away. Every editor has been in the position where you’re given a bunch of footage at the end of a big shoot and because you weren’t there to be able to give live feedback, there was a crucial shot or a crucial transition that wasn’t collected at the time,” he says.
“Now, with Frame.io, we can begin cutting the rushes as they’re coming in and we can spot really early if there’s an obvious gap in the sequence that would massively benefit the edit or help the final product—and we’re able to give that feedback live.” Although Fraser begins the edit with the proxies, once the shoot is over, he’ll ingest the original camera files and relink to them for the conform.
And there’s yet another advantage. Because Fraser can begin cutting right away, there’s no need to ship drives from the location to the office, or to the many people who also might need to access the dailies. “Some of the people we work with are in the office, some are international. And without a system like Frame.io, managing all of that media and all of those ongoing projects becomes convoluted and difficult,” he says. “Having a centralized platform that is accessible to everyone we’re working with at any given time makes the whole process far more efficient and means we save money, we save time, and we can deliver better projects at the end to our clients.”
Having a centralized platform that is accessible to everyone we’re working with at any given time makes the whole process far more efficient and means we save money, we save time, and we can deliver better projects at the end to our clients.
Then there’s the creative collaboration aspect. According to Fraser, by eliminating the need to dig through email threads, Frame.io makes the editing process far more efficient. “Clients are able to seamlessly make comments on edits and revisions, and making changes is really quick and easy for us and for them. We’re able to communicate clearly with them and make the whole process as smooth as possible for us and, more importantly, for our clients.”
The move to Enterprise
When your clients are some of the most recognizable brands in the world—Honda, Rolls- Royce, Red Bull—and they keep coming back, you have to figure you’re doing something right.
The ease with which Stamp keeps their production costs and environmental impact down, and the ability to streamline the editing process while delivering world-class content, proves they’re doing many things right. But beyond that, they’re also able to serve some of the most security-conscious clients by using Frame.io Enterprise.
British investment group Octopus is one such client that entrusts Stamp with their sensitive content. The two companies are not just aligned creatively, they share strong corporate values. As a B Corp themselves, Octopus’s stated mission is to “invest in the people, ideas, and industries that will change the world.”
Stamp opted to move to a Frame.io Enterprise account to access the enhanced security features that come with it in order to meet Octopus’s stringent standards, like Watermark ID and password protection of the videos they share. “We’re able to separate out clients and team members to make sure that only the people who are authorized can see some of the material we’re dealing with,” Ben says. “Some of it is financial results for companies that are two or three days out before they’re publicly released, so we need to make sure that we know exactly who has access. For Rolls-Royce, we’re filming highly sensitive equipment, machinery, and IP. I don’t think we would be able to have clients like that without Frame.io Enterprise.”
For Rolls-Royce, we’re filming highly sensitive equipment, machinery, and IP. I don’t think we would be able to have clients like that without Frame.io Enterprise.
Preparation plus tools equals success
There’s a reason why Stamp is trusted by some of the most technically accomplished businesses on the planet. “We’ve seen a lot of technology come and go, and sometimes something comes along that just changes the game,” Ben says. “We’re like a Formula 1 pit crew, trying to shave small fractions of seconds here and there, and in production that’s everything.”
“When I first saw Camera to Cloud it blew my mind. We get quick feedback efficiently and clearly so that we’re not wasting rounds of edits. We can send links to the edits securely. And we can make sure that our freelancers have access to only the relevant projects and everything is secure. The best tools disappear into the background and allow you to connect with your clients or an audience and just help you operate.”
Functionally, saving that kind of time was key to the WeAreFearless Bridgestone campaign. Called “Prepared to Perform,” the stories depict how Olympians rely on preparation, not luck, when competing, echoing Bridgestone’s own corporate commitment to best-in-class performance. Filming athletes is not like filming actors—you have a limited number of hours with them. Stamp went to great lengths to prepare for the shoots with the athletes, carefully storyboarding all the shots so they knew exactly what they had to capture.
“When we were working with Rémy, he’d already done ten kilometers on the water and then we’re doing some sprints with him,” Ben explains. “We’re not trying to go, ‘Hey, the client’s not here. Let’s shoot ten more options just in case.’ If we didn’t have the right systems where people who aren’t even physically there can see the shot and sign off, you could risk injuring him.”
“The quality has to be high in terms of storytelling, cinematography, pacing and accuracy, and it all has to be able to cut together. The technology is helping us to improve that. So if we need to spend more time on one particular take, we can. We can nail the shots and move on,” he adds.
According to Martyn Black, Stamp’s senior producer, using C2C is also a convenience for the clients. “They know that you’re filming at a certain time, but they can be going about their lives doing other things. And then they can look at [the footage] on their phones or on their iPads, which is a massive benefit.”
Stamp also appreciates how all the Adobe Creative Cloud tools work together to offer a complete end-to-end ecosystem. “We use Adobe Premiere, InDesign, and Adobe Stock. We’re using Audition and Audio Enhance, which has been really useful. Our contracts are done in Adobe Acrobat Reader,” Martyn says. “Adobe has a very broad suite of tools.”
For Stamp, it’s all part of staying ahead of the competition and keeping their creative edge. “We don’t keep doing the same thing because eventually our competitors will catch us. We’re using better and better tools and we’re getting better and better at what we do,” Ben says. “For the next stage, I’d like Stamp to become a content engine for big companies that are trying to influence the way the world operates in a positive way. I’d like them to rely on us to create more content for less money than we used to.”
“Sometimes people operate at a lower cost but have lesser tools. One of the things that sets us apart is that we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that we can deliver the best possible experience. At the end of the day, we’ve grown our business because we’ve invested in the right tools and equipment, which gives our clients confidence.”
At the end of the day, we’ve grown our business because we’ve invested in the right tools and equipment, which gives our clients confidence.
Whether you’re evaluating the success of a company or an athlete, actions always speak louder than words. Words alone won’t land a client or win an Olympic medal. Words won’t make a software tool change the way a customer works or the results they’ll achieve.
But when our customers enjoy using our tools, we think that’s a winning combination.