How do you film software?

You can't, not really. Software is a guy staring at a screen

A Japanese machine tool maker had a new digital system for sheet metal shops, everything from the 3D design to the quote to the bend to the finished part living in one place, and they wanted it explained to their home market

In Japanese, for Japanese shop owners, who have seen every factory video ever made

What do you show people who have seen it all? something they can't see standing in their own shop, the inside of the process

I produced and directed it, seven minutes

Show the part, not the program

So the hero of the film isn't the software, it's one sheet metal part

It floats in 3D, folds, gets checked, gets a big green PASSED stamp, then you watch it go through the machines and come out real at the end

Tunnels of data stream past between the steps, the press brake bends shown one at a time, because what the software actually does is invisible and the viewer still needs to see it happen

Real people in the middle

Animation alone feels like a video game, so we cut back to live action, engineers on the phone, at their workstations, an operator on the shop floor with a tablet in his hand

That's the moment a shop owner thinks, ok, my guys could do that

Here is the deal, nobody buys a system they can't picture their own crew using

The animation sells the idea, the people sell the trust. You need both, or it's either a cartoon or a boring office video, pick your poison

Subtitles and a foreign market

The whole film runs with Japanese subtitles, which changes how you cut it. People read, so shots stay up longer, text never fights the picture, and the bottom of the frame stays clean for the words

I've worked in more than 80 cities, and a film made for another country has to be made for that country, not translated at the end

Producer behind the lens

When the producer frames the shot there's no lost translation, literally. I see a screen flare or an awkward hand on the tablet through the viewfinder and it's fixed before the next take

More factory work is in the Industry Videos gallery, and the way I light hard products in the Products Advertising gallery

One part, from screen to steel

Length: 7 min 2 s · Producer & director: David Victory, VRSET video production, Los Angeles & Orange County

Key moments

  • 0:00 3D sheet-metal part animation
  • 0:52 Factory and office exterior
  • 1:27 Data tunnel animation
  • 2:02 Press brake bending animation
  • 2:38 Engineering 3D model
  • 3:48 Engineer at the workstation
  • 4:23 Assembly software screen
  • 4:58 Digital data sequence
  • 6:08 Tablet on the shop floor

See the matching photography in the Industry Videos gallery.

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Planning a video or a fashion shoot? Contact David Victory or call (310) 988-6575 in Los Angeles, (949) 873-4551 in Orange County. Free consultation and quote for first-time clients.