Motivational Videos in 5 Easy Steps
Unless you've produced several videos, you might be asking what's required to produce an outstanding motivational video. In other words, what time is required on the front end to plan a video? How much footage is required? Who are the key players to make everything happen? What kind of a return can I expect from a video?
Often the first question I get is, "How much is a video going to cost?" That's like saying, "I'd like to build a house. How much will it cost?" Think of the variety of your three best friends homes: they differ in the number of rooms, materials, landscaping and the size of the lot. In the same way, there are several differences in producing a video, and it's difficult to provide a 'ballpark number'.
However, there are some basics to producing an outstanding corporate video; I have broken it down into five steps: 1) Define what you want the audience to do as a result of the video 2) visualize the script, graphics, images and music 3) acquire the footage 4) edit and add effects 5) sweeten with audio.
I generally ask a few questions when getting started. First, what is your audience believing about their current circumstances? What do you want them to believe? How do you want them to respond as a result of the video? How do we get them from where they are -- to where we want them to be? And how do we measure success? These answers are the starting point for the video...it tells me how we need to go about 'telling the story', and what success looks like!
Step 1: Define the response you're looking for. You most likely have a very good idea of the response you need to get, whether it's generating excitement or setting the tone for an important announcement, belief in a new service or strategy or creating a vision for the company.
The vision drives the creative. From this discussion, my creative mind goes to work to assemble the message in video, then I'll write a short description of the creative with a few visual concepts. You might consider this the proverbial 'knapkin drawing' for the overall project.
Step 2: Concept: this is a more detailed write up that summarizes the intent of the video, the measure of success, and suggests images, graphics, and music. It might also include a detailed script listing visuals and voiceover. It's similar to the blueprint for a new house.
Step 3: Acquire the Footage, either through stock footage or shooting it from scratch.
If we were to shoot the footage, the production team consists of a few key players: Producer (responsible for finances, key leaders and timelines), Creative Director/Writer, Director (works with the concept, talent and crews), and the crew which can include the videographer, lighting, and audio tech. We won't forget the talent (actors).
I've got a pop-quiz: How many hours of footage does it take to create a 90-second video? Here's the math. Let's say that an image stays on screen for 2 seconds; then we'll need about 45 images, which this takes into account layering multiple images on the same screen simultaneously. A candid project we created recently began with 6 hours of raw footage, probably 750 raw shots. The final video was 6 minutes with about 120 images.
Step 4: Edit. There's a saying among production people that we can 'fix it in post' (meaning we can make radical changes to the lighting or composition of the footage in the edit suite). And they're right. However, just like baking something extraordinary, if you start with fresh ingredients, you're going to have a better product.
In production, it's so much easier to lay out the plan, and then execute the plan. In other words, we decide ahead of time what footage will help tell the story, then we acquire it or shoot it. There's no guesswork. Of course, I leave room for serendipity on site - things that happen that make the production exciting. But the lack of planning is stupid! The goal is always to acquire the best footage, exactly what we need, which saves time and allows us to focus on subtle story telling rather than fixing things that were poorly acquired.
Step 5: The final step is audio sweetening. We add filters for the voice, mix the voiceover with the sound bed,time everything so it's seamless, and add zing to graphics and special effects. Then we lay it back to the video.
These basic 5 steps are standard, and yet there will always be variations to accomodate for the scope of the project, various locations and talent.
Would you like assistance in planning, scripting, visualizing a video that will motivate or help people to take action? Please contact me for a complimentary creative session.