Future-proofing Video Production
When approaching a video production project, think past what you need in the first launch of it through the entire lifecycle of the product. And skip to the end to find out why your video needs to be awesome.
You need a video made.
It might be an investor video, a sales video, an explainer, or a video ad … if you’re reading this, it’s at least one of those at first. What I would recommend you do though is to approach the project like it’s going to be all of these, at least at some point.
Here’s an example: before a company was a company, it was an idea. And the founders needed to pitch this idea to investors. We created a video based on just the idea — no technology, no drawings, there was nothing physical to work with — it was just an idea.
So we created an investor pitch video. It was successful (boom!).
Now, they had funding and created 2 more pieces:
Website explainer video (1 minute)
In-person sales explainer (5 minutes)
And then for an email campaign, they needed something in shorter format:
Teaser video (<1min)
And as they expanded from organic content to paid advertising, they repurposed the video assets into Video ads (30, 15, 5 seconds).
That’s 7 different video assets that were created from one idea, one product.
Fortunately, we approached the project with this long shelf life of the video idea. When we were developing the story arc, story and rapid prototype, we were looking for the key scenes — what are the moments of the video that are going to absolutely knock the audience off their feet? And we created those visual concepts first.
Then, when we were scripting the shorter explainer, we highlighted what areas needed a double click and set those aside. At the same time, we are looking at the video assets through the lens of what is going to make a really impactful 15 and 30 second ad — it’s video physics, you simply cannot get any more than 5 pounds of stuff into a 5 pound bag, you can’t stuff 10 lbs in. Don’t even try.
Imagine that someday and probably soon, you are going to have this as a video ad on YouTube and Facebook/Instagram or TikTok. So, the first 5 seconds needs to be extremely engaging, so someone doesn’t scroll on by or skip ad. That’s the hook. Make sure you have a hook.
For production, here’s a short punch list of things to remember
Engaging hook at the beginning
Produce in 16:9; and plan for the visuals to also be produceable in 9:16 (vertical)
Make the safe area the 1:1 middle stuff
Have audio quality at Hulu ad standards
And here’s the kicker, imagine that someday, and someday soon, your video ads will have the equivalent of Google’s Quality Score affecting them. In search advertising, the higher your quality score (10/10), the less you pay for advertising compared to your competitors. If you have a quality score of 5/10, you are going to pay more than your competitors. This is absolutely going to be a thing in the connected/streaming TV world. So, make your videos awesome. Make sure they are beautiful, engaging and provide value for the audience. If your video is annoying, prepare to be ignored and pay more.
