Advice
What is the difference between a documentary-style film and a corporate video for research?
Documentary-style films follow the people and places behind the research and let researchers explain it in their own words. Corporate-style videos present fixed, scripted messages. Choose documentary-style to make an audience care; choose corporate-style when exact wording matters most.
The two styles side by side
| Documentary-style | Corporate-style | |
|---|---|---|
| Who speaks | Researchers and the people involved, interviewed in their own words. | A presenter, voiceover or member of staff reading a script. |
| Where it is filmed | The real laboratory, field site, clinic or archive, as it is. | Settings arranged for the camera. |
| The script | The structure is agreed in advance, and the wording comes from the interviews. | The wording is written first and the filming follows it. |
| What the audience meets | A person and a place, then the idea. | A message, stated plainly. |
| Suits | Public engagement, funding applications, impact case studies, explaining findings to a wider audience. | Staff induction, procedures, product or service explainers, announcements. |
What each looks like in practice
- Documentary-style: a documentary and four-part podcast series on linguistics for the University of Cambridge, in which BBC Radio presenter Hannah Morrison sings nursery rhymes in a primary school and coxes a rowing eight.
- Documentary-style with a presenter: The Story of Cambridge Computing, half an hour with futurist Richard Watson, from Babbage and Turing to ARM and quantum.
- Documentary-style in a working environment: mini-documentaries for Newmarket Equine Hospital, showing veterinary science at work.
What the choice does to the budget
The style does not set the price. The number of filming days, the size of the crew, the number of contributors and the number of deliverables do. Our research films run from £2,500 to £10,000+ (excluding VAT), and a short research film sits at the lower end.
When a hard idea needs more than interviews
Where a concept is difficult to film, a visual metaphor or animation can carry it. We build these with the researcher before filming, so the explanation is accurate before anyone picks up a camera.
How to choose: if X, choose Y
- If your audience is the public, funders or other researchers, choose documentary-style.
- If the film supports an impact case study, choose documentary-style and film the people who changed their practice while the work is still live.
- If every word must match an approved statement, choose corporate-style.
- If the film is an induction, a procedure or a product explainer, choose corporate-style.
- If you need both, film documentary-style interviews and add a short scripted introduction.
Prices exclude VAT.
Cambridge TV makes research films, creative films and podcasts for universities, researchers and innovative organisations. We are based at the Bradfield Centre on the Cambridge Science Park. To talk about a film, see the contact page.