Company portrait
A portrait is an inventory with a camera — its quality is decided by what you were allowed to film, not by how it was lit.
What this is about
The company portrait exists for people who need to understand an organisation quickly: a prospective partner, a bank, a buyer at a trade fair, a candidate before an interview. It walks through the concrete — production halls, laboratories, service teams, markets served — and keeps the argument factual. That is precisely where it parts from the brand film, which sells an attitude and may stage freely, and from the brand documentary, which follows one story over time. Shoots typically take one to two days per site, with a guided-tour logic: the camera moves the way a visitor would, and every department gets a defined window instead of an open invitation.
The format determines scope, crew and timeline — before the first location has been scouted.
What runs differently here
Where this differs from the general case:
- The film is structured as a route, so the shot list follows the value chain — raw material to finished delivery — rather than the org chart
- Numbers age faster than pictures: figures that change yearly belong in supers that can be replaced, not in spoken commentary
- Every hall has its own light situation and noise floor, and both are surveyed before the day plan fixes the order
- Machines, screens and whiteboards leak confidential detail, so a clearance walk with the site lead happens before shooting, not during
What the plan has to deliver
A production plan is useful to this role when it provides the following:
- A site walkthrough before the shoot, noting light, noise, safety zones and anything that must stay out of frame
- A department-by-department time window agreed with the people who run those areas
- A fact sheet signed off by management, so spoken claims and supers match what the company may publish
Common pitfalls
What most often goes wrong in practice:
- Filming every department equally because everyone asked, which produces a tour with no argument and no length discipline
- Shooting a hall at the wrong shift, so the flagship line stands still in the flagship shot
- Naming current turnover and headcount in voice-over, which forces a re-record the following year
With TillyGen
TillyGen builds the portrait as a route: department windows, site-specific light and noise notes and a fact-checked shot list end up in one day plan per location.
Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.
Frequently asked
How is a company portrait different from a brand film?
The portrait describes what exists — sites, products, people, markets. The brand film argues why it matters and may invent scenes to do it. Different jobs, different shot lists.
Does every department need to appear?
No. Departments appear when they carry the story of how value is created. An equal-time policy produces a longer film that convinces nobody in particular.
How long does it take to get started with TillyGen?
A first project takes under an hour to set up. There is no configuration phase in which templates and fields have to be defined before the tool produces anything.
Can the results be exported?
Yes — as PDF for the crew, CSV for downstream systems and through the API for anything automated. The plan stays the source; the exports are views of it.