Video introductions

Corporate videos can take many forms – elaborate and expensive, or simple and…affordable.

One of the simplest and most effective is a personal video introduction for your website – a short, snappy piece to camera by the boss, or even a charismatic underling.

In just a minute or so, you can convey what you do and, just as important, what kind of a person you are – which is what I really want to know if I’m going to do business with you.

Add some simple graphics and illustrations and hey presto you’ve got a brilliant selling tool that will raise your Google ranking and personalise your proposition.

Here are three quick examples.

http://vimeo.com/41348591

http://vimeo.com/41363080

http://vimeo.com/41364891

It was fascinating stuff but what it didn’t do was address some really basic questions about how to do an on-camera interview.

In the course of a long career at the BBC and as an independent producer I’ve interviewed hundreds of people including a Prime Minister (Blair), a reformed terrorist (Martin McGuinness), children who’ve been blinded by rubber bullets, Chinese doctors, bereaved mothers, captains of industry and of submarines, and many more – and I’ve tried to stick to a set of basic rules.

1. Ask open questions. A closed question is one that can be answered Yes or No – not much use when you get to the cutting room. So Tell me about your holiday is better than Did you have a good holiday (especially to a 1950s Prime Minister).

2. Listen to the answer. It never fails to amaze me how many TV interviewers simply run down their list of pre-prepared questions and never pick up on the interviewees’ answers. So they lose the chance to ask a supplementary question – an absolutely crucial element of any interview. So the answer: The holiday was dreadful – a bear ate my wife shouldn’t be followed by And where will you go next year? Try something like What on earth happened? if you want to keep your job.

3. Don’t jump in. Unless you’re Paxman trying to stem a politician’s blather, it’s best to let the interviewee complete their answer even if it takes too long. Interrupting can throw them and make them feel insecure. And at the end of the answer, leave a pause before jumping in with the next question – sometimes the best part of an answer comes as an afterthought.

4. Look them in the eye. It’s crucial to develop a direct relationship with the interviewee. They’ll be distracted by the camera and crew and the best way to help them forget all that is to lock them into you by keeping direct eye contact all the time.

The truth is it’s really all common sense – and all part of being a good listener. So if you apply those rules the next time you’re chatting to the person next to you at a dinner party, you – and they -will have a more interesting time.

In an earlier blog I wrote about the unsung king of film-making crafts, the editing process.

Another Cinderella of this business is audio.

The Artist notwithstanding, audio is an absolutely crucial part of successful film making at any level.

So many consumer cameras boast of their ability to shoot fancy high definition pictures, but will still have some dreadful built-in microphone that picks up more traffic noise than dialogue and ruins the end result. Audio – whether it’s speech (dialogue or interview), music or sound effects - should be accorded the same care as pictures.

It’s worth making every effort to ensure that location sound is cleanly recorded and that real care is taken in the editing process to juxtapose audio and video as effectively as possible.

On location, specialist gun-mics or radio-mics must be used rather than any built in device. Even consumer cameras can have an external mic added on.

With music, the danger is over-use. Music should have a specific purpose in a film, not be plastered all over it like butterscotch sauce.

Take a look at this little film about the artist Charles Penny - http://www.perpfilms.com/charles-penny/

Corporate videos should follow that old adage, ‘form follows function’.*

Anyone considering commissioning a corporate video should ask themselves 3 questions:

What do I want to convey?
Who do I want to do that conveying for me?
And lastly - How do I want to convey it?

The What? must revolve around the perceived benefits of the company to the viewer/potential client. So a printer shouldn’t focus on the clever technology of his fancy new press, but on the better quality and cheaper prices it’ll bring to his customers.

The Who? is crucial. Video can make machines look good, but most of all it can convey what kind of people a company consists of. So interviews with the bosses or the workers are a powerful tool in a corporate video.

Even more powerful are testimonials. To have a satisfied customer wax lyrical about the company on video is worth a fortune. In one recent video for a builder a former client sang the builder’s praises and said she’d recommended him to friends. That’s worth thousands of pounds of advertising.

And finally, the How? In other words, what should the look and feel of the video be?

People get hung up on this. By “You-Tubey” they often mean a jerky, amateur look that they think is cool. That can work for certain brands but it’s become a cliche. And there’s an obsession amongst some with flashy graphics, endless zooms and very loud music.

This is where form follows function comes in.

Zooms and loud music can work, but not for undertakers…

A video must shot, lit and edited to fit the client.

Take a look at these two videos. Century Dental http://vimeo.com/35749203 is a short film about a dental practice. It’s deliberately lit in a clean, bright style to reflect a high tech practice. But most people assume that dentists’ surgeries will be clean. They are more interested in the dentist himself – so we also spent a lot of time making sure that the dentist’s interview conveyed his care for his patients and his love of dentistry. And there are no nasty drilling shots…

This one, Patrick Wyatt, http://www.perpfilms.com/clip5 about a bespoke jeweller, has a different look and feel. It’s been lit to bring out the intimacy of the jeweller’s office where he discusses with clients the design and detail of their commission. Again, we focussed on getting the jeweller to talk about his own feelings about jewellery and about the trust that he wants to develop between him and the client, as well as about the technicalities of his business.

And there’s some wonderful footage of Hatton Garden jewellery workshops that brings out the hand-made, bespoke nature of his work.

So if you’re thinking of a corporate video, focus on the “What” and let the production company come up with some ideas for the “Who” and the “How”.

(A note for pedants only: this famous phrase was not, as many people think, invented by Le Corbusier but by a more obscure architect, Louis Sullivan, and he actually came up with the rather less catchy “form ever follows function”.)