THE BRIEF

As part of our wider campaign work for Home Energy Hub Norfolk, Treefrog was tasked with creating a series of educational videos that would help Norfolk residents better understand the different technologies available to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

One of the key technologies we needed to communicate was air source heat pumps.

While awareness of heat pumps has grown significantly, they can still be difficult to understand for homeowners who are accustomed to conventional gas or oil heating. Questions around how they work, where they can be installed, what changes might be required within a property and how they should be operated can all create uncertainty.

Our brief was to turn that potentially complicated subject into an accessible explainer video that could introduce the technology without oversimplifying the practical considerations involved.

Rather than relying on a single presenter or creating a purely technical animation, we developed the film using a combination of expert interviews and real homeowner experiences captured throughout the wider Home Energy Hub Norfolk video campaign.

The result needed to be informative, impartial and easy to understand, giving residents a realistic introduction to air source heat pumps and helping them make more informed decisions about whether the technology could be suitable for their home.

OUR APPROACH

The challenge with an explainer video like this is deciding how much information to include.

Air source heat pumps involve a range of technical considerations, but attempting to explain every aspect within one film would risk overwhelming the very audience the content was designed to help.

We therefore focused the video around the questions a homeowner is most likely to have when first considering the technology.

• What is an air source heat pump?

• How does it work?

• What equipment needs to be installed?

• What changes might be required within the home?

• What should someone consider before having one installed?

• And what is it actually like to live with one?

To answer those questions effectively, we wanted to combine two different perspectives.

The first came from professionals with detailed knowledge of home energy efficiency and retrofit programmes. Their interviews could provide clear, accurate explanations of the technology and the practical considerations homeowners needed to understand.

The second came from Norfolk residents who were already living with air source heat pumps.

By combining expert guidance with genuine homeowner experiences, we could create something more engaging than a traditional technical explainer while maintaining the credibility and educational value required for a public sector information platform.

THE PRODUCTION

Unlike our individual resident case study films, the air source heat pump explainer was created using footage gathered across several different productions and locations.

Our team filmed Phil Hunt, Environmental Strategy Manager at Norwich City Council, at Norwich City Hall, providing an expert perspective on how air source heat pumps work and helping make the underlying technology easier to understand.

We also filmed Chris Bailey, Warm Homes Programme Manager, at Broadland District Council and South Norfolk Council, where the interview focused on some of the practical considerations residents should understand before installation.

This included the requirement for an external heat pump unit, space for a hot water cylinder, potential changes to pipework and radiators, and the importance of considering how the new heating system will operate within an individual property.

As with the wider Home Energy Hub Norfolk project, our production team planned the interview content in advance, developing questions and discussion points that would encourage clear explanations without relying on heavily scripted responses.

Filming within council environments also required us to identify and establish suitable interview locations, considering lighting, sound, composition and the visual surroundings before conducting each interview.

However, expert interviews represented only one part of the finished film.

Across the wider Home Energy Hub Norfolk campaign, Treefrog had visited numerous properties throughout Norfolk to produce resident case studies. Several of those homeowners were already using air source heat pumps, providing us with a valuable library of additional interviews and supporting footage.

Rather than treating each shoot as an isolated piece of content, we had planned the wider production programme with reuse in mind.

This meant footage captured for individual resident stories could also contribute to broader educational content, significantly increasing the long-term value of each filming day.

BRINGING MULTIPLE SHOOTS TOGETHER

The air source heat pump film demonstrates the value of building a video content library rather than producing individual videos in isolation.

Our footage came from different locations, contributors and filming days, each originally captured within the context of the wider Home Energy Hub Norfolk campaign.

During post-production, we brought those different elements together to create one coherent story.

The expert interviews formed the educational backbone of the film, explaining what an air source heat pump is, how the technology operates and what homeowners should consider.

Resident footage then provided a human perspective.

Rather than viewers only hearing professionals explain how heat pumps should work, they could see the technology installed in real Norfolk homes and hear comments from residents who were already using it.

We created a montage of these homeowner experiences, selecting relevant moments from multiple case study interviews and combining them with B-roll showing external units, heating systems and other elements of the installations.

This allowed the finished video to move naturally between explanation and real-world experience, helping make an unfamiliar technology feel more tangible.

POST-PRODUCTION & STORYTELLING

With footage coming from several different shoots, the post-production process was particularly important.

Our editing team reviewed the available interviews and B-roll to identify the strongest explanations, resident contributions and visual examples before constructing the final narrative.

Rather than simply placing interviews one after another, we structured the video around the viewer's likely progression of questions.

The film begins by making the technology familiar, using the comparison between a heat pump and the refrigeration technology already found within our homes to introduce the basic principle in an approachable way.

From there, the content moves into the practical realities of installation, including external space, hot water storage, radiators, pipework and energy tariffs.

Resident contributions and footage are incorporated throughout to reinforce those explanations with real examples.

This approach allowed us to maintain technical accuracy while avoiding an overly instructional or corporate tone.

Branded titles, graphics and supporting visual elements were then applied in line with the wider Home Energy Hub Norfolk identity, ensuring the film felt consistent with the resident case studies, website and other educational content produced for the campaign.

As with the other films produced for the project, draft edits were shared with the relevant stakeholders for review. Feedback was incorporated through the agreed amendment stages before the final version was approved for publication.

THE OUTCOME

The completed air source heat pump explainer gave Home Energy Hub Norfolk a reusable educational asset that could sit directly alongside the detailed written information available through the website.

Rather than expecting residents to interpret technical guidance alone, the film provides an alternative way to understand the technology through clear explanations, visual examples and the experiences of other homeowners.

It also demonstrates how considered video production can make complex public information significantly more approachable.

By bringing together environmental professionals, programme specialists and residents, we were able to communicate the subject from several perspectives without turning the film into a sales piece for the technology.

For Treefrog, the project also demonstrates the value of planning video campaigns as an interconnected library of content.

Footage originally captured across multiple resident case studies could be repurposed alongside dedicated expert interviews to create an entirely new educational asset. This allowed the Home Energy Hub Norfolk project to gain considerably more value from the original filming programme while maintaining consistency across every piece of content.

The finished air source heat pump explainer became part of the wider collection of technology videos, resident stories and educational films produced by Treefrog for Home Energy Hub Norfolk, helping residents across Norfolk better understand the options available to improve the comfort and energy efficiency of their homes.

DELIVERABLES

• Air source heat pump explainer video

• Video content strategy and planning

• Pre-production research

• Interview question development

• Multi-location filming

• Norwich City Council stakeholder interview

• Warm Homes Programme stakeholder interview

• Multiple resident contributions

• Air source heat pump B-roll

• Residential property footage

• Multi-shoot footage management

• Professional video editing and post-production

• Branded titles and supporting graphics

• Stakeholder review and amendment stages

• Final video delivery

• YouTube publishing and website integration

THE VALUE OF EXPLAINER VIDEOS

When your organisation needs to communicate a complicated subject, simply providing more information isn't always the answer.

The challenge is making that information easier to understand.

Explainer videos allow technical knowledge, expert insight and real-world examples to be combined into a format that can make complex products, services and initiatives considerably more accessible to their intended audience.

For Home Energy Hub Norfolk, that meant taking a technology many residents may have heard about but not fully understood and turning it into a clear, approachable piece of educational content.

At Treefrog, we manage the complete explainer video production process, from understanding the subject and developing the content through to interview planning, filming, post-production and final delivery.

Where a wider campaign is involved, we also look beyond individual deliverables and consider how footage can work across multiple pieces of content, helping organisations get greater long-term value from their investment in video production.

Whether you're explaining a technical product, communicating a public sector initiative or helping your audience understand a complex service, we can turn specialist knowledge into professional video content that is clear, engaging and built around the people who need to understand it.

Contact Treefrog to discuss your next explainer video project.

Or explore our video production services to discover how we help organisations communicate complex ideas through professional video.