Questions I Get Asked About Video, AI, and Working With Me
These are the questions that come up most often from brands, commissioning editors, and in-house teams thinking about video in 2026. Some are strategic. Some are practical. Some are specifically about AI, which has become impossible to ignore in any honest conversation about video production.
I am Nigel Camp, a London-based filmmaker, the author of The Video Effect, and the founder of DevilBoy Productions. I write regularly about filmmaking, AI in video, and brand storytelling. These answers reflect how I actually think about this work, not a sales pitch.
If you are looking to commission a production, DevilBoy Productions is the right starting point. If you want to talk through strategy, a brief, or a creative problem before going anywhere near a crew, get in touch directly.
Who are you, and why should I trust your take on this?
I have been making video professionally for more than fifteen years, working with organisations including Cambridge University Press, Kew Gardens, Royal Holloway, Freshworks, VSO, and ICE. I am the author of The Video Effect, a practical guide to making stronger video for business, and the founder of DevilBoy Productions, a London video production company. I have also spent more than ten years teaching filmmaking, including at General Assembly and Cambridge University Press, where I trained the original presenter group and a subsequent cohort for the Learn English with Cambridge YouTube channel. I speak at industry events on filmmaking, AI in video, and the changing role of human creativity in production.
These answers are grounded in that combination: someone who has made the work commercially, taught it formally, written about it at length, and spoken about it publicly. More background is on the About page.
What should a brand actually think about before commissioning video in 2026?
The most useful question is not "what kind of video do we need?" It is "where does this video actually live, and what does the audience expect when they find it there?" Platform behaviour, format, duration, and context all shape whether a piece of video lands or disappears. A well-made film delivered in the wrong format or to the wrong surface is still wasted budget.
The other thing worth thinking about early is the relationship between human-made and AI-assisted content in the brief. That distinction now affects audience trust, internal sign-off, and in some contexts legal compliance. It is worth having that conversation before production starts rather than during post.
I wrote about where video actually reaches audiences today in Where Video Lives Now, which covers the platform shifts that have changed commissioning decisions most significantly.
How is AI changing what is worth making in-house versus commissioning externally?
AI tools are genuinely useful for certain tasks: research, scripting drafts, rough cut assembly, subtitling, some visual effects work. They are much weaker on anything that requires judgement, trust, or the kind of presence that comes from a real person in a real location doing something real.
The practical implication is that in-house teams can now handle more of the lower-stakes content themselves, which makes external commissions more defensible when they are reserved for work that genuinely needs craft and credibility. The worst outcome is using AI tools to produce everything and then wondering why the content feels hollow.
I wrote about the specific question of whether AI will replace human filmmakers in Will AI Kill the Filmmaking Star. The short answer is: not the parts that matter most.
What makes the difference between brand video that gets watched and brand video that does not?
Specificity. The brand videos that hold attention are almost always about something particular: a specific person, a specific place, a specific moment or decision. The ones that fail are usually about everything at once, or about nothing except the brand's own self-image.
The sensory dimension also matters more than most briefs acknowledge. Sound design, pacing, and the physical texture of how something is filmed all affect whether a viewer stays or leaves. These are not post-production refinements. They are decisions made in pre-production and on the day.
I went into this in depth in Brand Video Storytelling: The Sensory Craft Toolkit, which covers the production decisions that most consistently separate video that gets watched from video that does not.
How should brands approach AI consent and likeness use in their video work?
Carefully, and with documentation. The legal frameworks around AI-generated likenesses and synthetic voices are still being established, but the reputational exposure is already real. A brand that uses a synthetic version of a real person without clear consent, even for internal content, is taking a risk that is not proportionate to the time it saves.
The practical standard worth applying is this: could you show the contributor exactly how their likeness or voice has been used, and would they be comfortable with it? If the answer is uncertain, the process needs more rigour before the content goes anywhere.
I covered the specifics in The Real Blackout in AI Video is Trust, which deals with consent, disclosure, and the trust gap that AI-generated content creates with audiences.
Is AI-generated video ready for serious brand use?
For some applications, yes. For others, not yet, and for some it may never be the right tool regardless of how capable the technology becomes.
AI-generated content works reasonably well for internal communications, rapid social formats, and explainer content where the audience does not need to feel a human connection. It works poorly for anything where authenticity, presence, or genuine human involvement is part of what the brand is trying to communicate. Using a synthetic spokesperson for a campaign built around human trust is a strategic contradiction, not just a technical choice.
The fuller argument is in Human vs Synthetic: The Battle for the Soul of AI Filmmaking, which I would recommend reading before any brief that involves generative AI as a serious production option.
What role does sound play in making brand video feel professional?
A larger role than most people realise until they watch a well-made piece with the sound off and then with it on. Sound design, music choice, and the acoustic quality of recorded dialogue all affect how credible and considered a piece feels. Poor audio undermines strong visuals. Good audio can make modest visuals feel composed and intentional.
For brands specifically, sound is also a consistency signal. The way a piece sounds is part of how audiences recognise and trust a brand across multiple pieces of content. That applies to music choices, tone of voice, and even the ambient sound captured on location.
I wrote about this in the context of brand identity in Auditory Branding Strategies for Businesses.
How does editing shape how an audience feels about what they are watching?
Editing is where the emotional contract between the film and the viewer gets made or broken. The pace of cuts, the length of held shots, the choice of what to show and what to leave out: all of these create a felt experience that the audience cannot always articulate but responds to immediately.
This is why editing is not a finishing stage. It is a creative stage that determines what the film actually says, as distinct from what was scripted or shot. Footage that looks sufficient in the camera monitor can feel completely different in the cut, and the reason is almost always an editing decision rather than a production failure.
I went into the mechanics of this in The Psychology of Film Editing: How Cuts Influence Our Emotions.
What is actually happening with deepfakes and digital doubles in commercial production?
More than most brands realise, and faster than the legal frameworks are moving. Digital doubles, synthetic voices, and AI-reconstructed performances are already in use in commercial production, not just in Hollywood. The technology is accessible enough that mid-sized production companies are offering it as a service.
The issues this raises are practical as much as ethical. Who owns a digital double? What happens to it after the project ends? What does the contributor's contract actually say about synthetic use? These are questions that most standard production agreements were not written to answer.
I covered where this is heading in Video Deepfakes and Hollywood's Future, which looks at how the commercial production industry is responding to these questions.
Yes. This is the kind of work I do directly as a consultant rather than through DevilBoy Productions. It includes helping shape a brief, developing a script or treatment, reviewing a creative approach before it goes to a production company, or working through a strategy question about how video fits into a wider communications plan.
If you need a full production crew for a shoot, DevilBoy Productions is the right route. If you want to think through the creative and strategic layer before that happens, get in touch directly and we can have a straightforward conversation about what would actually be useful.