Video Production For Websites – 3 Useful Tips

When you provide any kind of professional services, one of the hardest things you can do is perform those services for your own company. Lately we've been getting a lot of requests for video production for client websites. Companies are using video on their home pages as a way to stand out and make an immediate personal connection. The best way to do this is to have a video featuring conversations with real employees. After much procrastination, we have made a video for our own website. For the first time I found myself in front of the camera instead of behind it. Needless to say it was quite an eye opener.
Here are 3 steps that I used to help guide me through the process:

1. Prepare Thoughtfully

I started by asking myself the same question I always ask clients, “What’s the story?” But it couldn’t be just any story. It had to be one that potential clients cared about. When I talk with people about what I do, they are primarily interested in the process, the quality and what it can do for them. So I let that be my guide and came up with these messages for my video:

• Video production must be easy

• Videos should be inspirational

• Videos should motivate people to take action

So why are these things true? I spent a lot of time thinking about that and then talked about it with colleagues, friends and family. The beauty of verbalizing your thoughts is that you instantly know where you are confident and where you need to spend more time thinking.

2. Have A Genuine Conversation

During my preparation, I had scribbled a ton of notes on various sheets of paper, but I didn’t bring any of them to my interview. The goal was to have a real conversation. I was never going to be able to do that while looking at my notes. What I’ve discovered from interviewing clients is that the best answers are the ones that come from the heart and not from the head. So any time I caught myself over thinking or trying to be perfect, I stopped, took a deep breath and reset.

3. Focus On The Best Moments And Not The Details

I think we ended up with 15 minutes of interview footage. Our first edit brought that down to about 3:00 minutes. It felt long but given my outline I couldn’t see any way of shortening it. The more I watched it, the longer it felt. I was falling into the same trap that I see clients fall into. I was paying more attention on details than I was about picking the best moments. The solution ended up being cutting the entire third section of the video. The first two sections had more impact. After cutting this section, we found even more unnecessary content that was focused on details and not the true meaning of the video. The more we cut the better it got. In the end the details were really just distractions from the videos main purpose and were getting in the way of the true message. I used to think being under 2:00 minutes for a web delivered video is the goal. Now I think it’s more like 90 seconds. We almost got there with this one. I didn’t say it was easy.

I hope you find this helpful and as always feel free to email me questions.