We all now know that as far as corporate websites are concerned – content is king. And the king of content is video. These days a corporate video is an essential part of any communication strategy, whether externally, talking to customers and stakeholders, or internally, talking to colleagues. And video is the must have sales and marketing tool.
But surely corporate video is expensive?
Well, not necessarily. If you’ve got a story to tell, with a little imagination – and a little training – you can make quality, short corporate videos in no time at all. And the basic bit of kit you need is already in hand – your smartphone.
So, what’s involved? Well let’s start with the kit.
Making a corporate video – The Kit
You need:
- Your smartphone
- A microphone for interviews and basic sound
- A mount or tripod
- Your laptop
- A basic editing package – iMovie for iPhones is excellent but there are others and they’re all free
Next, you’ll need to split your time into three sections:
- Pre-production
- Production
- Post production
Making a corporate video – Pre-production
This is where you map out the corporate video you want to make by mapping out a short story board. This story board should get you thinking about what you’re trying to say, what the focus points are and how you illustrate those points. The following questions are normally raised:
- What do I want to say?
- Who is my audience?
- Who do I need to film and more importantly, will they take part?
- Where do I need to film and do I need permission to be there?
Make sure your interviewees know well in advance that you are going to turn up to film them. They may need to be wearing relevant clothing or need to bring with them items which may be included in the subject of the film. Make sure you give them plenty of notice so they have time to prepare.
This pre-production phase is important as without putting the right permissions in for both people and places you really won’t get the raw materials for your film.
Making a corporate video – Production
This is the sound and vision gathering stage of the process where you will need to consider how the video is set up. This is also where you will need to think of all the background aspects of video such as:
- Framing a shot, when to pan, zoom in, pull out and what lighting to use
- Which questions and answers make the interview great
- Getting the sound right and cutting back on ambient noise
Once you have your script, your pictures and your interview you’ll need to put down your voice-over. You will need to record a quality, clear voice track which will bring energy to your video. Once you have all your raw materials you move on to post-production.
Making a corporate video – Post-production
This is essentially editing, the sound track, voice over, on-screen graphics and captions.
First you need to image file transfer all the material currently on your phone. That means transferring the files onto your laptop or iPad and letting the software convert it into files that it can use for editing. There is one simple rule when editing and that’s save, save, save! Even the most robust and reliable editing software crashes and you don’t want to lose all your creative efforts.
The post production process is:
- Image file transfer footage
- Launching editing software
- Cutting and fading images together
- Adding a music track
- Adding creative touches such as basic graphics and special effects
- Mastering
You master the final film into a variety of standard formats. This means that your video is finished and secured. A bit like sending the brochure you’ve been working on off to the printers.
Then it’s simply a question of putting it where your target audience can see it. YouTube for the masses, your intranet if you’ve made some sort of Team Talk video, your website if your trying to address customers or stakeholders.
Overall
Making a corporate video using a smartphone is easy, simple and effective. The quality is excellent. It really enhances corporate communication whether it’s just to stay in touch, if you have a serious point to make or if it’s to give your sales and marketing a competitive edge.
So there we are. How to make effective corporate videos on your phone. Now, how about learning how to do simple animations? Or using drones for aerial footage? Once you’ve got the video making bug you’ll want to get even more creative like we do!
A little about us…
Here at Broadcast Media Services we’ve been making corporate videos for nearly 20 years. We’re also a training company with many of our courses accredited for Continuing Professional Development or CPD. So we’ve put both sides of our corporate experience and expertise together to produce a one day course aimed at turning even the most technically averse person into a confident film maker using little more than your smartphone.
We go through technical dos and don’ts, production best practice and training tutorials with a little bit of old fashioned talk and plenty of hands on practice.
If you are interested in taking part in this course just get in touch via our contact form or call one of the team on 0115 955 3989