Stephen Lloyd

Overview

Each year, Axon's Global Roadshow takes its ecosystem of products all around the world to demonstrate the current and future state of public safety technology. My first major global project with the company was to direct a video series in eight countries with cohesive branding and messaging to be used in current future roadshow promotions.

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Goal

Capture each of the eight roadshow stops with photo and video that would raise the bar for Axon's global branding and storytelling. Each interview was to be in the local language of that region and the imagery needed to be an equal marriage of Axon branding and the local culture like famous landmarks and insignias unique to that region like police and military uniforms, badges and patches. Above all, I needed to get it done on time, within budget, and to a high caliber of execution.

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My Role

My first task was determining the look and feel, or art direction, for how these photos and videos would come across. With a wide array of editorial documentaries from leading brands, I put together a moodboard and preproduction deck that clearly laid out my vision. 

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I then needed to find a production company who had the talent to make this vision come to life but do it within a reasonable time and budget. Two companies bid well into the high-six-figure range, but with a little bit of resourcefulness, I found one at a fraction of the cost using local vendors in each country who had worked on projects for the BBC, Black Mirror, and NatGeo.

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I set up a cadence with the production company and vendors, held weekly preproduction meetings as needed, and did post-mortem reviews after each stop to make sure I was fine-tuning my expectations with the vendors and with our roadshow crew on the road. I provided animated graphics that were cohesive for each stop, researched hundreds of soundtracks until I found eight of them that were different but all had the same vibe, and walked through step-by-step with the executive producer to make sure we were hitting our goals along the way.

 

Outcome

In the end, we captured the eight videos we sought out to get and comped together a highlight reel showcasing the entire roadshow all-up. We also had over 1,000 select photographs that were promoted on all of our owned social channels and picked up by local media.

 

Though the cost of the entire series was relatively low compared to the other bids, I was able to shave off a couple of items from the list like sourcing soundtracks myself and providing graphics so I actually came in $4,000 under budget. 

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The bar has now been set for how Axon tells its global roadshow story and we'll get back out there again this year to raise that bar once again.