Creating a Video Part 2 - The Story

Once a brief has been produced, that leads on to the process of developing an idea, concept and a story. Without an idea or a story, there isn’t much. We firmly believe that the idea or the story is the most important element in video production.

A great story can evoke an emotional response and in a video, that’s powerful. To grab your audiences attention and engage them a video is an excellent vehicle, but it needs a story. That can be something really simple, it can be short and punchy (in fact that is to be encouraged in a video), it might be complex, whatever your message or story think about communicating your passion, experience, be human or be funny and your audience is so much more likely to be engaged.

 In fact - on Facebook’s top 10 brand pages, videos drive considerably more engagement than other posts. Videos are 12x more likely to be shared than links and text posts alone. In February 2012 over 700 You Tube videos were shared every minute on Twitter. So with that kind of volume of traffic for video, it’s worth telling a good story.

Of course we can assist with stories, ideas and creative development but you may already have your own ideas and stories to bring to us to produce. We’re also used to working collaboratively with our clients on all of this; you may prefer to jointly bounce ideas around.

Creating a Video Part 1 - The Brief

Over the next few weeks we’ll be providing a handy guide to the process of creating a video. What to look for, things to think about and ways of helping to make your video production the best it can be.

1. The Brief

Everything has to start with a brief. We’re used to helping clients develop ideas and campaigns, but there has to be a brief first. What is the subject? What are you hoping to communicate and how do you plan to do that? How long do you think the video should be? What elements do you envisage being used? (video, music, motion graphics etc.), what is your budget, timescale and deadline? Where will the production be used and who is your target audience?

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Not the ideal brief

We’ve produced a template that we often share with our clients to help them formulate a brief, as here at Snowline, often our clients are not necessarily familiar with everything that goes into the creation of a video. We hope you find this useful. 

A brief will save a lot of time, effort and headaches later on. Even if the project is small, low budget and needs a quick-turnaround, create a brief, it will only make the production better.

Each year, four international science institutions compile temperature data from thousands of stations around the world and make independent judgments about whether the year was warmer or cooler than average. “The official records vary slightly because of subtle differences in the way we analyze the data,” said Reto Ruedy, climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “But they also agree extraordinarily well.” All four records show peaks and valleys in sync with each other. All show rapid warming in the past few decades. All show the last decade has been the warmest on record.
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Each year, four international science institutions compile temperature data from thousands of stations around the world and make independent judgments about whether the year was warmer or cooler than average. “The official records vary slightly because of subtle differences in the way we analyze the data,” said Reto Ruedy, climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “But they also agree extraordinarily well.”

All four records show peaks and valleys in sync with each other. All show rapid warming in the past few decades. All show the last decade has been the warmest on record.

What is an ‘Explainer Video’?

There are many different types of ‘videos’ and what forms a video is changing constantly.

The rise of the ‘Explainer Video’ is a fast growing secret weapon in many businesses marketing tactics. Essentially they are short (usually around 1 minute) videos that tell a company’s story or ‘explain what you do’.

They can be created using any number of creative elements: typography, images, illustrations or animations. They provide an excellent way to simply explain and communicate what it is that your business does.

File sharing company ‘Dropbox’ has recently taken advantage of limiting their homepage to a single video. This video was viewed 750,000 times in one month and increased conversion rates over 10%.

Why Explainer Videos work

  • They engage visitors and add value to a visit
  • They increase conversion rates
  • They are a visual and verbal learning method
  • They communicate messages quickly and simply
  • Entertain, impress and more likely to be shared