Video Production: How to Craft the Perfect Video
Video marketing is gaining traction as an integral part of a successful digital marketing strategy. Statistics reported by HubSpot indicate that 43% of all people engaging with a digital marketing strategy want to see more video marketing content from companies. This is because up to four times as many people would rather watch a video than reading long-form text.
This, unfortunately, does not really bode well for blog posts, although their role in the digital marketer’s toolkit should not be underestimated. February 2024 stats quoted by optinmonster.com report that WordPress users publish about 70 million blog posts per month. Secondly, circa 409 million people read more than 20 million blog posts. Finally, bloggers who write more than 2 000 words per blog post are more likely to increase their readership numbers than bloggers who publish content that is only 500 words.
However, as this blog post is about creating the perfect video, let’s return to the topic at hand.
There are multiple ways to create a promotional, corporate, or brand video. The good news is that they all follow the same steps. Therefore, by way of looking at how to create the perfect video as per Spiel, a video production company, let’s consider the video-creation process from start to finish.
1. Script your video out
This point is the essential starting point. What is your marketing message? Why are you creating this video? What do you want the video’s target audience to know? Succinctly answering these questions will help you craft the video’s “catch phrase.”
Once you have your video’s message, the next part of this step is to develop a theme that will get your message across. Are you going to use a holiday theme? Or are you interested in addressing a pain point that your target audience regularly faces?
The final part of this video is to write out a video script, focusing on keywords and key concepts related to the message and theme. Keep your script short. Videos, especially promo videos, can be as long as 90 seconds, but thirty seconds and under is the perfect length to attract your audience’s attention without losing them at any point during the video.
2. Create a storyboard
Wikipedia describes a storyboard as follows:
“A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic, or interactive media sequence.”
The Rusty Cage a video production company in Sydney explains that it is essential to plan your video in advance with a storyboard. Ergo, just as all good writers start with an outline, a good video production team begins with a storyboard. The length of the video is not relevant. For instance, storyboards are used as part of the full-length animation video creation process. John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar, calls storyboards “a comic book version of the story.”
What about business videos?
The brief answer to this question is that even though the business video’s storyboard does not have to be as detailed as a full-length animation video, they are still essential. A storyboard helps you plot out the video in detail from start to finish. It also answers questions like how will the story flow? What lighting is required? Do you need voiceovers or live-action dialogue? And how do you want to portray the video’s key message so that viewers engage with the video?
The production phase of the video creation process costs the most. Therefore, it makes sound financial sense to spend the minimum possible time filming the video and the maximum amount of time designing the storyboard to ensure that every role player understands what is required and plays their part professionally and efficiently.
Additionally, most business videos require additional visual aids like graphics or title cards. Thus, it is crucial to make these visual aids ahead of time as part of the storyboard process. In summary, the more work you put in at this point, the easier it will be when you start the actual filming process.
3. Produce the video
This is the most exciting part of creating a video. Once all of the planning has been complete, you are ready to film your video. Depending on your goal, the best way to produce this video is to shoot on location, either in your office, storefront, or the event location if you are creating a promotional video.
In other words, this phase is where all the raw material for the final product is captured. It is important to understand video production best practices to film the best quality scenes as well as sufficient B-roll. For within reason, it is a good idea to capture each scene and actor more than once to ensure that you have enough material to work with when you move to the editing or post-production phase. As described above, this is also the most costly phase of the whole video creation process; therefore, it is necessary to make sure that you record sufficient raw footage to work with. Returning to this phase is not ideal because it takes up time and costs money.
Note: It is essential to secure any necessary permission to film in external locations before you start filming. It is not a good idea to arrive at a private venue and expect a positive reception.
4. Edit the video
Once the filming on location has been completed, the next step is to put everything together. Interestingly, this step is also known as the post-production phase and has specific steps that must be followed to create a professional video, including editing all the visuals to create a rough-cut, locking all the pictures in their final order, adding the soundtrack, and adding the visual effects like animation. You can easily edit a video using an online editing tool like Visme without any experience in a couple of clicks.
5. Promote your video
Once the video has been completed, the last step is to upload your video to your brand’s social channels and promote it. The goal is to get the word out to your target audience to watch your video. Consumers must engage with your video because it will drive customer conversions and increase sales figures.
