Most businesses in 2020 need video content to remain relevant, to address the different learning styles of their audience, and to meet the attention spans of people today—who are constantly clicking/scrolling from one piece of information to another.
Few of those businesses (if any) have the space, the equipment, and the experience to pull a film out of the bag that could stand amongst other entries at the Cannes Film Festival.
Which is fine. Spielberg doesn’t need to feel threatened. No one would expect a corporate video to provide the same entertainment, escapism and information as one his creations.
Is that strictly correct, though? There are so many ‘corporate’ videos out there, how can you make yours stand out without a little creative genius?
The days are gone where you could simply talk into the camera for a few minutes about what it is you do.
For a video to really gain some traction in our 24/7, information-overloaded world, maybe you do have to come up with something a little more exciting than this. Luckily, a professional video today doesn’t need much. They’re easier than you think to create, and it’s much better for your business if you commit to forging good content that’s not a blurred, jumps-like-a-jumping-bean, audio-challenged piece of film that few people can comprehend, let alone enjoy.
Considering people are scrolling through their social media feeds more now than ever before—due to no commute and more downtime, due to being on furlough, because of a greater need to escape the situation around us—it’s an absolute missed opportunity to not be talking to the people you’d love to sell to at the moment. The demand for decent video content is sky-high.
As video marketing specialists, we often visit clients to film them working at their business premises, to record ‘talking head’-type snippets, and to capture live events as they unfold. During 2020, as you may imagine, we’ve not done much of this kind of work.
The good news is: today’s technology is much more advanced than it used to be. The cameras on up-to-the-minute smartphones are actually quite decent. The webcam on a good laptop today will likely be great, too. You can record your Zoom meetings at the push of a button. You could even create short ‘talking head’ clips from the comfort of your sofa.
Capturing well-shot, legible footage is not the issue. It’s what to do with it then. How can you turn your hour-long Zoom meeting, with the topic shifting every few minutes, people interrupting, connection issues and lagging visuals, into a masterpiece? How can you eliminate your ‘errs’ and little hiccups form your talking head piece? How can you address the ubiquitous bad angles from a video that’s been created in your 2m x 2m home office? How can you effectively cut out the waffle without losing the point you’re trying to make? These things are not quite as easy.
For an amateur, trying to meld your content together into an effective, coherent, entertaining piece of film can drain hour after hour of your time and create a few grey hairs.
Recording footage in the manner suggested above is fine. The difference between something that still resembles raw footage even when it’s been cut and chopped within an inch of its life and a great video is professional video editing, which, thankfully, can be carried out during a lockdown situation.
It’s editing that really makes a video look professional. Any one of us could put the same ingredients into a bowl, but a professional baker will always create a masterpiece compared to homemade versions. It’s a matter of skill, practice, and having the right equipment.
Professional video editing will do more than simply eliminate mistakes. The editor will appraise the content in full and will ascertain which clips/sections to keep and which to ditch; they may include the audio of one section as a voiceover to other shots; they can use their equipment to dial up the lighting and tone down any colour overkill, they can speed up the footage or slow it down…just like the baker, they take the raw ingredients and create a masterpiece.
For more information, contact 07983 575934 or complete the contact form on our website.
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