by Joe Monzo | Mar 30, 2021 | General
After all the days, weeks, hours, whatever amount of time you put into your video…Congrats! You are almost done! But there are still a few more items to attend to finalize the video and start using the video for your marketing.
- If you haven’t yet, make sure you get your color grade on point and finalize any last-minute sound fixes (even levels)
- When exporting your video you might need to export a few different versions with different codecs depending on where the video is going. Most likely it will be going on a few different platforms and some of these platforms have different codec requirements.
- Make sure you grab a couple of different thumbnail graphic (stills) options from the video. You can test them out to see which ones perform better.
- Wherever you are uploading them to the cloud make sure all the people who need access, have access to it, whether it’s dropbox or google drive or something else.
With the video all set it’s now time to start using the video for your marketing. We’ve come full circle since the initial pre-production process and most likely during that process, you had some initial ideas as to where the video is going to be used. This is where you finalize that plan and start implementing it. Consider these points:
- What are the best practices for uploading this video to the various platforms? Does each platform have different suggestions or requirements?
- Utilize captions for all of your platforms when possible. You can check out our other articles on social media video marketing to learn more about that and your options.
- Depending on your audience you may favor or focus on one platform over another. That’s okay!
- Figuring out how you are going to track the data on the video is important too. With organic options sometimes that’s a bit difficult. Using Facebook ads or other social media paid ads is a great way to not only expand your reach but get very clear numbers in how your video is performing.
You can learn more about specific video marketing tips on our blog. They range from where to put them on your website, email marketing, social media, and more! Remember video is not just a one-and-done thing. The best way to get the most out of your video for your business or organization is to have a multi-video strategy. You can check out our blog also types of videos to create for your business or organization.
Now go out there and tell your story!
Video Production Process Series
by Joe Monzo | Mar 17, 2021 | General
After all of the filming has been completed, it’s now time to get to the editing phase. This is where you take all of the footage shot, all of the interviews, and turn it into a compelling 1-3 minute video that tells the story of your organization. Sounds easy right? Well, not always. You mostly likely have hours of footage captured..how do you trim that all down to 1-3 mins?
The key is making sure you follow your story structure or script (and you can check out more on that on one of our previous blog posts). That will help you determine what is essential and what is not. The footage that doesn’t make the cut but is still good to have, you can repurpose that for something else.
Here are some other things to consider when in editing mode.
- Have an effective intro. This should be an eye-catching 2-5 seconds that will entice your audience to continue to watch. Most of the time organizations will start with their logo that just fades in… which is one of the biggest mistakes. A good intro should have fast cuts, unique shots, and the best shots in the overall video in the first few seconds.
- Having great music. Since audio is 50% of the video experience it’s important to make sure you have a good soundtrack. Luckily there are tons of websites that have royalty-free music that is cost-effective and will work with your projects. Artlist IO, Premiumbeat, sound stripe, are just a couple of great options. If you want to go above and beyond you could even get a composer to score your video.
- Strong Call to action- This is easy to accomplish but is often overlooked. Depending on where the video lands in your strategy depends on what your call to action is. It can be a number of things- direct call, email info, checking out the website, signing up for newsletters, scheduling an appointment, and so forth. Make sure you stick with no more than 2 CTA but one is even better. The reason being for that is because
- Ditch the crossfades- For the most part, we like to use straight cuts. It helps with the flow of the video and keeps it most face-paced and less cheesy.
- Beware of stock footage- Stock footage can be a great resource but you must be careful with how you use it. It’s great to have if you need a shot of Philadelphia or exteriors that doesn’t make sense to travel to for one shot. But when it comes to filming people, sometimes stock footage makes the video look less authentic and cheap. So be cautious when using stock footage if you need it. We almost never use them for our projects.
Editing can be a bit tedious but when done right, this is truly where the magic happens. Ideas and concepts come to life. When it comes to revisions, make sure you and your team try to get together and review to make the revision process go as smoothly and seamlessly as possible. You don’t wanna have 10 rounds of editing when a bunch of that could have been handled on the first go around.
by Joe Monzo | Mar 15, 2021 | General
Now that pre-production is done, it’s time to move on to filming. This is the stage where most of the fun happens (of course if you are doing a full-blown motion graphics/animation video then this step is irrelevant) and you start to film the pieces that will allow you to have the content in order to edit. Here are some of the steps that should expect to do when filming:
- Consolidate and organize the filming days- This is something that is touched on a bit in pre-production but the general concept is how do we stay efficient with our time that will keep the project moving. A best practice is to film your interviews and B-roll on separate days if possible, that way you don’t need to set up, break down, set up, break down and repeat that process as you’ll lose time doing that especially for interviews since they more often need more detailed setup.
- Shoot the interviews first- Filming the interviews first is an ideal scenario because then you get to see and hear what the subjects are actually saying. This is super important because you probably won’t have this scripted but the subject’s response will be based on interview questions that you provide. Hence their answers, while should carry the overall message you want, might add or remove elements that could be important. In the past, we have had a subject tell their story and then that soundbite could trigger some new ideas of B-roll to capture.
- Get a variety of angles during B-roll filming- Regardless of how the shoot is organized, you’ll want to make sure you have a variety of different b-roll shots and a variety of angles per scene. For example, if the subject is a classroom, you would want to get a variety of wide, medium, tight shots of the teacher, the classroom, the students, maybe their pencils writing down notes, smiles, etc for that whole scene. When it’s edited, you might only use a couple of seconds of it but you’ll have the wiggle room to choose what the best fit is for the scene.
- Always shoot more than you might need- The last sentence covers this a bit but it’s better to shoot more and trim down, than shoot less, realize you need more, then have the schedule another filming day. This is also good because if you are shooting for more than one video, you’ll have the footage you need to work on that video as well (even if it’s created and focused on at a later time). You’ll thank yourself when you start putting together the edit!
- Multiple takes- This is important because sometimes the first take doesn’t quite do it, whether that’s the way an interviewee described their experience, or an action happening in a b-roll shot. If you feel like it can be done better, do not hesitate to redo that shot or interview question.
I hope this gives you some insights as to what to expect during the filming process. It can be a lot of fun if prepared properly. Lastly, don’t forget that while you’ll have a gameplan, feel free to film new things that happen organically during the filming day. Sometimes those scenes end up being the best!
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