Do you need a 90-second brand story for your website?
A series of snappy how-to videos for LinkedIn?
A full-blown case study to convince new clients you’re the real deal?

The problem is, most business owners know they need video…
But they don’t always know what format will move the needle.
So they either overthink it, or worse, they waste budget on the wrong thing.

First, not all video is created equal

Video isn’t one-size-fits-all. Just like you wouldn’t wear a tux to clean the garage, you shouldn’t use a cinematic brand film to answer FAQs on LinkedIn.

Each type of video has a purpose, a place, and a power.
Your job (or ours, really) is to match the right format to the right problem.

Here are 6 of the most effective video formats for B2B businesses:

1. Brand Story Film

Where to use: Homepage, About page, sales meetings, events
Purpose: Build trust, explain who you are, show what makes you different
Typical length: 1–3 mins
Best for: Website traffic, long-term brand building

These are the hero pieces. The ones with slow-motion shots, carefully chosen music, team interviews and story-driven structure. If you're trying to win hearts, this is the video you want.

Think: “This is who we are. This is why we exist. And here’s why you should care.”

2. Customer Testimonials / Case Studies

Where to use: Sales proposals, email follow-ups, website
Purpose: Build credibility and reduce buyer anxiety
Typical length: 60–120 seconds per video
Best for: Bottom-of-funnel conversions

These aren’t just “nice reviews”, they’re proof.
A good testimonial doesn’t just say “They were great!”
It tells a before-and-after story, with real metrics and real emotion.

Think: “Here’s what our customer struggled with, here’s what we did and here’s how it changed their business.”

3. Authority Content / Thought Leadership

Where to use: LinkedIn, YouTube, blog posts, newsletters
Purpose: Build trust, demonstrate expertise, educate
Typical length: 30–90 seconds (or broken down from a longer shoot)
Best for: Increasing engagement and brand recall

These are short videos where you, or someone on your team, shares genuinely useful insights. No sales pitch, just value.

We shoot a lot of these in batches using our Authority Video system: one morning in the studio, 20–30 useful clips, done.

Think: “Here’s how to solve this common problem in your industry.”

4. Explainers / FAQ Videos

Where to use: Website, onboarding emails, sales demos
Purpose: Save time, reduce confusion, support customer success
Typical length: 1–2 mins per topic
Best for: Support teams, sales enablement, customer onboarding

Instead of repeating yourself 20 times a week, let a video do it for you.
We’ve had clients create whole libraries of these to shorten sales cycles and improve customer experience.

Think: “Here’s what to expect before your first order. Here’s how our process works. Here’s what happens next.”

5. Short-Form Social Clips

Where to use: TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
Purpose: Awareness, reach, lead generation
Typical length: 15–45 seconds
Best for: Staying visible, being shareable, boosting traffic

Fast, punchy, scroll-stopping.
This is where personality wins. The goal here isn’t to educate deeply, it’s to make people notice you and want to know more.

Think: “That’s smart.” “That’s funny.” “That’s relatable.”

6. Recruitment Video

Where to use: Careers page, job ads, social media
Purpose: Attract and retain the right talent
Typical length: 1–3 mins
Best for: Hiring for culture-fit, showcasing your team

The best people aren’t applying based on salary alone.
They want to know who they’ll work with, what it’s really like and why your company is worth their energy.

Video brings this to life in a way no PDF job spec ever could.

Think: “This is our culture. Here’s what it’s like to be part of it.”

So, which one do you need?

Ask yourself:

• Do we need to explain who we are? → Brand Story
• Do we need to build credibility and proof? → Testimonial
• Do we want to stay top of mind? → Short-form content
• Do we need to support sales or customer onboarding? → Explainers / FAQs
• Do we need to attract better people? → Recruitment video

You might need more than one, but you don’t need them all at once.
Start with the one that solves the biggest problem right now and build from there.

Real example: What this looks like in practice

A client came to us wanting “a brand video.”

After chatting, we realised they actually needed:

• A testimonial video to help their sales team close more deals
• A short FAQ video to reduce back-and-forth with new clients
• A series of Authority videos to help their marketing manager keep LinkedIn active

So instead of spending everything on one cinematic brand piece, we built a content kit that saved them time, boosted leads, and gave them real ROI.

That’s what happens when you match the right format to the right goal.

Need help figuring it out?

If you’re still not sure what format is best for your business, that’s okay.
That’s exactly what we help with at Two Krakens.

We won’t just throw cameras at the problem.
We’ll sit down, map out your goals and recommend the right kind of content for your strategy, audience, and budget.

Because at the end of the day, video isn’t just about pixels, it’s about trust.

• "We’ll shoot this in Log for more dynamic range."
• "We’ll grade the RAW footage in post."
• "We’ll export everything in Rec.709."

And if you’re sitting there nodding politely but thinking, “I have no idea what that means…” you’re not alone.

The world of video production is packed with technical jargon. But here’s the thing: you don’t need to be a filmmaker to understand the fundamentals. And once you do, it’ll help you ask the right questions, make better decisions and get more value out of your video investment.

So let’s break down three common terms you’ll hear in video production: RAW, Log and Rec.709.

Why this matters to your business

Before we go deep, let’s be clear on one thing:

These terms affect how your video looks, how flexible it is in post-production and how long it takes (or costs) to get it looking its best.

So even though they might sound technical, they impact real-world things like:

• Your brand colours looking correct
• Whether skin tones look natural (especially if you are on camera)
• The time and budget needed to edit the video
• Whether the video feels cinematic or a bit flat
• The quality of your content across different platforms

What is RAW video?

Let’s start with the highest-quality, most flexible format: RAW.

The technical bit:

RAW is uncompressed and unprocessed data from the camera sensor. Think of it as a digital negative, similar to how old film cameras worked.

• No baked-in contrast or colour
• Preserves maximum detail in highlights and shadows
• Files are huge, sometimes 5–10x bigger than standard video files
• Requires powerful computers and specialised software to edit
• Allows full control over white balance, exposure and colour correction after filming

What this means for business owners:

RAW is the closest thing you’ll get to having total creative freedom in post-production. It’s the format most used in cinema or high-end ads. But with great power comes great responsibility (and bigger file sizes).

If your brand is investing in a flagship ad campaign, a cinematic documentary, or evergreen content that needs to look flawless for years to come, RAW is a great option.

But for most day-to-day marketing content (podcasts, social clips, explainer videos), RAW is probably overkill.

What is Log video?

Next up is Log short for logarithmic.

The technical bit:

Log footage is compressed but in a clever way. It captures a wide dynamic range by flattening the image meaning shadows and highlights are preserved, but it looks washed out before editing.

Common Log formats include:

• Sony S-Log
• Canon C-Log
• Panasonic V-Log

Log footage requires colour grading, but not as much as RAW. It’s a good middle ground: smaller file sizes, faster workflows and still a lot of creative flexibility.

What this means for business owners:

Most of the content we shoot at Two Krakens especially interviews, brand videos and testimonials is filmed in Log.

Why?

Because it gives us the ability to:

• Match your brand colours perfectly
• Fix lighting issues
• Get consistent results across multiple cameras

You still get that polished, cinematic feel but without the time and resource demands of a full RAW workflow. It’s the smart choice for professional marketing content that needs to look great and be delivered on time.

What is Rec.709?

Finally, we’ve got the one most people are familiar with even if they don’t realise it.

The technical bit:

Rec.709 (short for ITU-R Recommendation BT.709) is the colour standard used for HDTV. Basically, it’s how your TV, phone and YouTube videos display colour.

• Images look colourful, high-contrast, and “done”
• Easy to edit or use straight out of camera
• Minimal flexibility what you shoot is mostly what you get
• Standard for web and social media content

What this means for business owners:

If you want quick-turnaround content that looks clean and vibrant straight out of the camera Rec.709 is perfect.

This is ideal for:

• Event coverage
• Short-form social videos
• Internal comms videos
• Behind-the-scenes or day-in-the-life content

The trade-off? You lose some flexibility. If your lighting was off or someone’s face is too bright or dark, there’s only so much that can be done in post.

Still confused? Think of it like this…

Let’s compare it to baking:

Which format is right for your content?

It depends on your goals, turnaround time and how polished the final result needs to be.

Here’s a quick decision guide:

Visual example (before & after)

Imagine this:

• RAW: looks flat and grey in preview, but can be colour graded to look like a movie
• Log: looks washed out at first, but is easily shaped into a polished final image
• Rec.709: looks good straight away, but you can’t change much if it’s wrong

Why this really matters: Trust.

Yes, this sounds like techy stuff.

But in the world of branding and trust, how your video looks matters more than you think.

• Poor colour = lack of professionalism
• Bad lighting = distracting from your message
• Inconsistent visuals = broken brand trust

Choosing the right format isn’t just a production decision. It’s a strategic one.

At Two Krakens, we don’t just show up with a camera. We plan, shoot, edit, colour and deliver content that feels right, sounds right and earns trust with your audience every time.

Need help choosing?

If you're not sure whether your content should be shot in RAW, Log or Rec.709, don't worry. That’s our job.

But if you do want to understand it better, we’ll walk you through the choices, show you side-by-side footage, and help you get exactly what you need without overcomplicating anything.

Want us to handle it all?

We’re Two Krakens, a trust-focused video and content studio helping businesses in the West Midlands and beyond create standout content that builds credibility, sparks action and actually gets watched.

Whether you need a one-off shoot or a long-term video partner, we’ll make the process easy, creative and worth every penny.

Got a video idea in mind?
Let’s talk. We'll help you figure out if it needs RAW power, Log flexibility, or good old Rec.709 speed.

Say the word "video" in a business context and a very specific image appears in your head. A corporate, stiff, almost emotionless video with lift music playing as the soundtrack. Someone sat in front of a pull-up banner, reading bullet points off a screen in a slightly too-loud meeting room. There's a logo spinning at the end for no reason. We've all seen it a thousand times and if you're honest you probably have a view in your archives that rarely see the light of day.

That's what the word "video" has come to represent. And if you're serious about how your business is perceived, it's not something you want any part of.

Say the word "film" and something completely different happens. You think of story. You think of emotion. You think of craft, intention and something that makes you feel something before you've even worked out why.

That's the gap we've built Two Krakens to close. Not just in how we talk about what we do, but in how we actually do it. As a business film production company in the West Midlands, we've seen firsthand what the difference looks like for the businesses we work with.

Brand Film vs Corporate Video: What's Actually Different?

This is a question worth sitting with, because the answer explains everything about why so much business content fails to do anything useful and drive limited outcomes.

Corporate video is built around information. Here's what we do. Here's how long we've been doing it. Here's our team standing in a line in front of a building. It ticks a box, sits on a website and usually answers questions nobody was asking.

Brand film is built around story and emotion. It starts with a different question entirely. Not what do we need to explain, but what do we want the outcome to be and how can we use emotion to drive that outcome? Where does the viewer start emotionally and where do we want them to end up? What truth about this business, these people, this work, is worth telling?

When you look at it that way, brand film vs corporate video isn't really a debate about production quality or budget. It's a debate about intent. One is made to exist. The other is made to do something.

We sat down at some point and genuinely tried to work out what makes something a film rather than just footage. We landed on three things: story, emotion and the way it's made. We genuinely believe that none of those three things require a Hollywood budget.

Story is where everything starts. Before we do anything else, the most important question is what this is actually about. Not what product or service it's promoting. What it's really about. What journey does the viewer go on? What truth are we trying to tell?

Without a story, you don't have a film. You have footage. And footage, no matter how beautifully shot, doesn't do anything to anyone.

Emotion is the reason the story needs to exist. People don't make decisions based on information. They make decisions based on how they feel and then they justify those feelings with information afterwards. Every good film, whether it's a feature in a cinema or a three-minute brand film for a manufacturing company is built around making someone feel something specific.

The Element Nobody Talks About: Music

If I had to pick the single most overlooked element in business filmmaking, it would be the music.

I've watched genuinely great pieces of content fall completely flat because someone rushed the music choice at the end of a long edit. You've spent days filming, days editing, the story is right, the pacing feels good and then with half an hour left before the deadline someone jumps onto a free library and picks the first thing that roughly matches the length of the film. It sounds like hold music. It sounds like the background track on a bank's explainer video from 2014, or the on hold music we all hate. And just like that, everything you built emotionally collapses.

Music doesn't accompany a film. It tells people how to feel before their brain has caught up with what they're watching. Think about the last time a piece of music made the hairs stand up on the back of your neck during a film. It wasn't an accident. Someone chose that piece deliberately and placed it at exactly that moment for exactly that reason.

We think about music early, not at the end. We ask what the film should feel like before we ask what it should look like. That order matters more than most people in this industry are willing to admit.

Every Decision on Set Is Guiding Someone Toward a Feeling

We make decisions, one after another, all day and every single one of those decisions either adds to the emotional experience of the finished film or takes something away from it.

Camera and angles

The camera we choose matters. We shoot on cinema cameras for a reason. The image feels different. It looks like something worth watching, not something someone pointed at a subject in a conference room. Different cameras render light differently, handle skin tones differently and produce a texture in the image that your brain responds to even if you've never consciously thought about it.

The angle we shoot from matters just as much. A low angle makes someone look powerful. Eye level makes them feel like a peer. The way we frame someone in a room tells the viewer something about who that person is before they've said a word.

Lighting, audio and colour

Hard light creates drama. Soft light creates warmth. The relationship between light and shadow in a frame has been used for centuries to guide how people feel about what they're seeing. A well-lit subject in a thoughtfully composed frame already has authority before the interview even begins.

Audio is the element people underestimate most, until they try to watch something with bad sound and can't sit through it. Good sound is invisible. Bad sound is all you hear.

The colour grade in the edit shapes the emotional register of everything you've filmed. It's the difference between something feeling real and alive and something feeling cold and clinical. It's the difference between a viewer leaning in and a viewer scrolling past.

None of these things are magic. They're intentional craft applied to the specific story you're trying to tell.

You're Not Tricking Anyone. You're Leading Them Somewhere.

I want to be clear about what this all adds up to, because it can sound manipulative when you describe it this way.

What we're doing when we build a film is creating a path. A guided emotional journey from where the viewer starts to where the story wants them to end up. We're not forcing anyone to feel anything. We're removing the friction between them and the feeling that's already available if the right story is told in the right way.

Think about the last time you watched something and felt genuinely moved by it. Someone made a thousand small decisions to make it possible for you to feel that thing and it worked.

That's what film does. And there is absolutely no reason that capability should be limited to entertainment.

How to Make a Business Film That Gets Results

This is the question that matters most, and it's the one that most production companies never actually answer.

The businesses we work with don't just want something that looks good. They want something that does something. Something that builds trust with people who've never met them. Something that makes the right kind of client think yes, that's who I want to work with. Something that earns its place in their marketing long after the shoot day is over.

So here's how to make a business film that gets results. It starts before the camera.

You need to know who you're making it for. Not your whole audience. The one specific person who needs to feel something specific at the end of it. What do they currently think about your business, and what do you want them to think after watching? That gap is the film.

You need a story worth telling. Not a list of services or a company timeline. A real story, with a real person at the centre of it, with something genuinely at stake. The best business films we've made are the ones where the client was willing to be honest about the journey, not just the destination.

You need a production team who understands that everything is a creative decision. The location, the framing, the questions asked in the interview, the music, the pacing of the edit. Every single element either serves the story or undermines it. There cannot be any neutral.

And you need to think about what happens after the film is made. A great film that sits unwatched on a website does nothing. A great film that's distributed properly, cut into multiple formats, shared strategically across the right channels, and supported by the right messaging, becomes one of the most powerful assets your business has.

That's the difference between a film that gets results and a video that ticks a box.

The Corporate World Deserves Better Than Boring

We are genuinely tired of it. Boring content that all looks the same, all sounds the same, all opens with a drone shot over an industrial estate and closes with a logo on a black screen and a phone number nobody is going to call.

These things exist because somewhere along the way, someone decided that a video was a box to tick. Nobody asked what it was supposed to make someone feel. Nobody asked what story it was telling. Nobody asked whether anyone watching it would feel anything at all.

This is exactly why the conversation about brand film vs corporate video matters. It's not a conversation about aesthetics. It's a conversation about whether the content your business puts into the world is actually working for you or just existing.

The businesses we work with are not boring. The people behind them are not boring. They have real stories, built through real struggle, real decisions, real years of showing up. Those stories are sitting right there, waiting to be told in a way that makes someone feel something genuine about the business behind them.

Finding that story and building something around it that actually does its job, is the work we're here to do.

Why This Matters for Your Business Right Now

A film that makes someone feel something does more than a video that explains something.

Explanation is easy. Anyone can explain what they do. Your website probably does it already. Information is everywhere. Trust is not.

What film does, when it's made properly, is build trust in a way that information never can. It shows who you are. The way you talk about your work. The way your team shows up. The way you handle the hard questions. All of that comes through in a well-made film in a way it never could in a brochure or a bullet point list.

If you're a business looking for business film production that actually makes a difference, this is the conversation we exist to have. Not about cameras or packages or day rates. About what your business is really worth and whether the world currently sees that clearly.

The businesses that understand the difference between film and video are the ones who stop thinking about content as a cost and start thinking about it as the thing that closes the gap between what they're really worth and what the world thinks they're worth.

That's the gap we exist to close.

And that is exactly why we'll always call it film.

Ready to Make Something Worth Watching?

If this resonates with you, we'd love to have a conversation. Not a sales call. Just a conversation about your business, your story and whether there's a film worth making.

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