Almost every other candidate will record this on a laptop webcam, in a dim room, with hollow built-in audio. You own two cinema bodies, two lights and a Rode Wireless GO. The recording is itself a work sample, and it is the cheapest advantage you will ever get.
Make it look good, and then be completely normal in it. Their candidate pack asks for authenticity, not perfection.
Twenty minutes of setup buys you a recording that looks considered without looking staged. Do it once, leave it standing, record everything in one sitting.
Eyes on the upper third. A little headroom, more room on the side you are looking toward. Look at the lens, not at yourself on screen. That is the hardest habit and the one that reads as confidence.
Their pack says they look for “authenticity, not perfection, people who can stay genuine when things get challenging.” So: good light, clean sound, real room, normal human. No colour grade, no music, no titles, no second angle. If it looks like a produced film rather than a person talking, you have overshot and it will read as performance.
In 1988 two Australian university friends, Darrell Wade and Geoff “Manch” Manchester, drove a second-hand truck from London to Nairobi over nine months with twelve other people. They came back convinced there was a better way to travel than a coach and a hotel.
Their first trip, in 1989, was Thailand with five travellers and one tour leader: Geoff himself. It is now the largest adventure travel company in the world. Both founders are still on the board, Darrell as Chair.
A second-hand truck and five customers is a real starting line, and you have your own version of it. You started a studio from nothing in 2023. You do not need to labour the parallel, but it is honest, and it is a warmer answer to “why us” than admiring their size.
Almost every candidate will name one good thing Intrepid did. The stronger move is to name the pattern, because it shows you looked at more than one page.
Intrepid repeatedly gives up something valuable to do the right thing, before anyone makes them.
Giving up a marketing claim is harder than earning one. That is the sentence.
You facilitated Climate Fresk workshops for two years, walking groups through exactly the gap between offsetting and reducing. So you know how easy the other choice would have been. You have earned an opinion here rather than borrowed one, and that difference is audible.
A hundred new trips across fifty countries is an enormous amount of new footage arriving at once, from country offices all over the world, in every format and naming convention imaginable. That is precisely the problem this role exists to solve, and it is happening right now rather than hypothetically.
Saying that out loud shows you understand why they are hiring, which is a different thing from understanding the job description.
The job ad names iconik as the preferred DAM and lists AI-assisted tagging as a bonus. You were the sole architect of exactly that at Quad Lock. Requirement by requirement it maps almost one to one.
You shoot and edit. So you know how a post-production handover actually breaks, because you have been on both ends of it. Most people who can build the system have never had to use it at 11pm with a deadline. Say this. It is the single strongest thing you have.
This is a contract covering parental leave. If they ask about that, be relaxed rather than reassuring. Twelve months to build a system properly is a real piece of work and you would treat it as one.
Willo screens run four to eight questions. Charlotte named the three things they are looking for: your personality, your passion for travel and this role, and the impact you would make. That is effectively the question list.
Tell us about yourself and why this role.
Why Intrepid?
Do not open with the trips. Everyone will. Open with the October 2025 climate decision, because almost nobody else will have read it and you have standing to comment.
What impact would you make here?
They asked this in the invitation, so it is coming. Answer it as a system, not a wish.
Tell us about a time something went wrong, or a challenge you worked through.
Their pack says they look for people who “stay genuine when things get challenging.” So the point of this answer is your temperament, not the triumph. Pick something real, say what you actually did, say what you changed permanently.
Good candidate: the Aluvers shoot where the components delivery phase was missed entirely, you spotted mid-shoot that the film had a hole where the product introduction should sit, and you staged one shot the next morning to patch it. Small, real, and it shows you were editing in your head while still shooting.
Which of our values resonates most with you?
Real, Together, Ambitious, Impactful. Pick Real and mean it, because it is the one you can evidence: you name what you cannot do rather than overselling, and you have put honest gaps in writing on applications. Back it with one example, then stop.
Avoid picking all four. Picking one and defending it is the answer.
Charlotte named “your passion for travel” as one of three things they want to see. This is the part I cannot write for you, because I only know the outline. It needs one true story from you, and it will carry more weight than anything else in the assessment.
One specific trip. What you expected, what actually happened, and what you think about differently now. Sixty seconds, one story, no list of countries.
A list of places reads as a CV. One story about a person you met reads as someone who actually travels. Intrepid sells the second thing.
Avoid saying travel is your passion and then describing a beach. Avoid anything that sounds like their marketing copy read back to them. If the honest answer is that moving countries taught you more than any trip, say that, it is a better answer than a borrowed one.
Light it properly, then be a person. The production quality gets you taken seriously for a video role. The warmth gets you the interview.
Four days from Monday evening, so it is due by the end of the week. Do the setup and record on the same day rather than spreading it out, and leave a day spare in case something goes wrong with the upload.
If anything does go wrong, Charlotte said to tell them. Charlotte.Day@intrepidtravel.com