The Chinese company «New-Wisetech» LLC is the guarantee service center of the Aliexpress Internet platform.
The company provides information and service support to customers in the field of warranty service of devices acquired in Aliexpress stores.
In April 2019, in the Russian office of «New-Wisetech» LLC, a marketing department was organized. One of the goals of this department was to create media channels to attract and retain new audiences in the Russian segment.
When I was hired as an artist in the direction of creating video content, my Chinese colleagues had only one idea — making short videos about lifehacks on mobile devices. As the lead (person in the frame), they intended to employ one of the company’s engineers. The shooting was supposed to take place at the engineer’s workplace.
Chinese colleagues thought that on the Russian Internet, the audience would respond better to the Russian-speaking host.
The start level of video content for promotion in the Russian media is presented in «Видео 1».
Several lengthy meetings were held, during which I proposed the following points:
From discussions with Chinese colleagues, it became clear that potential audiences were teenagers interested in acquiring low-cost Chinese gadgets.
The Chinese tech expert who was in China just yesterday is today telling cool lifehacks for young people.
All this takes place in a bright and stylish studio decorated as a workshop.
It is necessary to combine the attributes of the working environment of the engineer and the staged brightness and contrast of the film studio.The expert must talking on his native Chinese language, because first of all it’s add authenticity and truthfulness to what is happening — the Chinese man talks about Chinese technology. The second to stand out in the media from a mass of similar videos. And third, to simplify the task of the actor, because the language barrier would be very difficult.
Russian translation is superimposed with audio track.
An actor should only say greetings and farewell in Russian. There’s a calculation in that, too — it’ll look cute and attractive.
The naming is not accidental and contains a number of references:
I’ve done intro in the Adobe After Effects.
It’s short intro, just 5 seconds, because the videos short too, about 30 seconds or 1 minute.
At the company storehouse, I managed to create a film set.
After that the storehouse was fully dedicated to the video studio.
The table was decorated in the form of an engineer’s workplace, and a rack with machinery was placed in the back.
All the equipment was found in the trash cans because it was meant for disposal.
In order to save budget and create an unusual environment, the wall was covered with a wrapper (it was in large quantities).
As an unusual decorative object, I hung a cart from which I made a lamp.
Initially, the light and sound for the filming were rented, and later, at the company’s request, I compiled a list of the necessary equipment that was purchased.
Videos were posted on Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Like, so it was necessary to editing three formats: 16:9, 1:1, 9:16.
Since the presenters were unprofessional (many takes had to be made), and the filming was long, there was no time for separate filming in three formats. It was decided to shoot in 4K 16:9 with subsequent adaptation.
This approach complemented the Instagram and Tiktok versions with an interesting layout (for teenagers) and preview headers that should attract attention (see the video examples above).
