how to create your own video marketing content

The Video Production Process

With Hayley

MWS Media

present

Checklist So you’re thinking about making a video? Great! Here’s our guide to try and help you consider, plan and allow time for your video. Coming up with an idea and creating a video is a creative process but you need to be organised and plan enough time and resources to help you make the video the best it can be. Here is a checklist of things you’re likely to need to carry out in order to help your video production process. 1)  Come up with an idea (Creative) 2)  Organise everything (Planning and Scheduling) 3)  Shoot the video (Production) 4)  Edit the video (Post Production) 5)  Distribute the video (Distribution)

So!

First, you need an amazing idea!

Purpose and Style What is the aim of your video? Is it to raise awareness, inform, entertain, to encourage your audience to buy? This will dictate the style of video, your content and tone. Target Audience Try to keep in mind your target audience. Who are you trying to appeal to? Do a little research to find out what they like, what might appeal to them, the styles of video, length, where they watch etc. It’s no good making a video that you think is amazing if your target audience disagrees! Budget and Deadline

Unfortunately your ideas are also limited to the amount of time and money you have to turn them into reality! You might have a brilliant idea but if there is not enough in the budget to hire the location you want, some props, actors or if there’s not enough time to organise, shoot and edit it all it might have to be scaled down, altered or even shelved for now.

Coming up with an idea

1.

Inspiration Try watching some videos on a similar topic, or in your market space. Do you think the videos work? Did they capture and keep your attention? Did you identify and take away their key messages? How did the video make you feel?

Script What’s the message? The wording of your video is again important and should be written with your target audience in mind. Remember if you are writing the content yourself to read it through out loud; the way we read and the way we speak aloud is different and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to get tongue tied or how different things sound out loud.

Big Picture Once you’ve decided on the style, tone and ideal length of your video and come up with a great idea for it, you’ll need to try and picture it from beginning to end. A lot of people trip up by not being able to convert a great idea into how its going to look shot by shot as a video.

1.

Coming up with an idea

Now you’ve got your idea you need to plan and schedule (the less creative side to video production!). Storyboard or Written Visuals If you have stakeholders or management that need to sign off on projects you might now need to write up some written visuals or create a storyboard (there are some templates if you need them in our Members Area). There are some websites and apps that can help you create simple storyboards but as long as you can get your idea across that’s all that matters! Resources You’ll next need to allocate equipment, time and people to shoot the video. Do you own your own kit or do you need to hire some? Do they have what you want available on that day? Who do you need on the shoot? Are they available? If it’s simple you might just need a presenter and someone to record the video and sound. If it’s complex you might need a producer, director, a camera man, a sound operator, a lighting operator, a floor manager, a make up artist, tea and coffee maker…

2. Organising idea into reality

Schedule The most important thing is to schedule time. If you want to reach that deadline you have to be realistic about how much time things take. It takes time to plan, time to schedule, time to shoot and time to edit. It also takes time to make changes! Have all your management or stakeholders seen the video and given their feedback? It’s not fun when you finally think the video is done and then someone else has more comments and changes!

2.

Organising idea into reality

Preparing for the shoot Have you got the right kit for the job. Have you packed and checked everything? (Batteries fully charged? Brought the charger too? Umbrella?) Have you tried to cover all possible problems and situations that might occur? (Asked permission to shoot in locations, brought extra’s release forms, got a plan B if the presenter doesn’t turn up?) On Location Now you are on location make sure you pick a spot to shoot that in not only visually interesting but is also good for sound, you aren't like to be disturbed and isn’t affected by changing light or weather. Keep an eye out for safety precautions too; no trailing wires waiting to be tripped over or lights left on to create burn or fire hazards. Shooting Try to get the best you can with what you have! Despite all the planning, scheduling and precautions there will always be things out of your control or problems that occur all of a sudden and you have to find a way around. The trick is to try to keep in mind what you are shooting, who for and why and try to think on your feet and be spontaneous with ideas to get around issues.

3. Production

The Fun Bit Now you have the job of taking what you’ve managed to shoot and turning it into a masterpiece! Once you have imported your footage you’ll need to organise it, match up the sound and video, find the best takes, and build a narrative. Now you have your narrative you can take advantage of using cutaways to cover issues or break up shots, use transitions and effects, add your logo, branding, a call to action and so on. After you’ve finished editing your video you’ll need to export it to the optimum settings for its use. This will depend on which medium or platform it is going on. For example DVD is Standard Definition whereas Blu-ray is High Definition. For web only you might only use 720p instead of full HD1080p. Look into the best settings for your intended use. (Keep an eye on the members area for an Exporting Guide soon).

4. Editing

Distributing Now your video is finished and exported you need to share it with the world! You’ll first need to choose a platform to upload it to. Which one gives you the metrics you need to measure it’s performance? Which one looks best embedded into your channels? Which one does your target audience use? You will then need to upload and optimise your video in order for your target market to find it. You’ll have to choose ‘keywords’ that you think your audience will be searching and then use these ‘keywords’ in the title, description and keywords areas of your platform. You can then let target demographic know its there. Email, social media, blogs, news feeds are a few of the ways to do this. What are the best ways to reach your target audience? You can also try to let ‘influencers’ who might be interested in your content know about your video and push it out to their followers, listeners, friends and fans.

5. Distributing

In Conclusion ✔ Come up with an idea (Creative) ✔ Organise everything (Planning and Scheduling) ✔ Shoot the video (Production) ✔ Edit the video (Post Production) ✔ Distribute the video (Distribution)

Now you have completed the checklist we hope that you have an idea of how to turn your idea into the best video it can be and for it to achieve what you want it to.

A lot of this will be trial and error and may change depending on the size and type of projects. There’s always a new mistake to make and a new lesson to learn from!

Check the Members Area for templates and videos to help with different aspects of the video production process.

As always just get in touch with us if you have any questions or need any help!

Page 16

MWS Media

Hayley is a Producer and Head of Marketing at MWS Media.

She enjoys watching films and eating doughnuts.

[email protected]

Page 17

We are MWS Media, a Video Production Company based in our Greenham Airfield Studio in Berkshire!

We enjoy helping businesses succeed with our jedi like film making skills!

www.mwsmedia.co.uk [email protected] 01635 44812