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.
