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Any Recommendations on How to Make a Marketing Video
I am brand new to video production and I need to make a marketing video for high-end engineering tools. Does anyone have any suggestions on classes I could take or online tutorials to look at for the basics on how to do this project? Basic tips are also appreciated.
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35 Replies
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Get one of these books, stat:
the King:
https://www.amazon.com/Scriptwriting-High-Impact-Videos-Imaginative-Information/dp/0534150667
His book will tell you everything you need to know and more, a very good resource in the first or updated second edition. You can read it in a day, but you will profit from it for a lifetime. I did.
The Queen:
https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Scriptwriting-Book-Donna-Matrazzo/dp/B000PCA206
Matrazzo’s book is old, but it is still a fast-paced, fun, easy to read and follow guide to the process, which hasn’t changed all that much. Her book also gives good case study examples.
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Hi Andrea,
It’s a little like being asked to build a “car.” There are a LOT of sub-systems and parts to consider.
A simple car – like a soap box derby racer – can be built in a week or so – using kit parts – and anyone with general skills can expect to be reasonably successful on their first time out.
Building a modern automobile like they do in Detroit, however, requires vast resources, years of design skills and huge amounts of time, effort and money.
Obviously you’re not trying to create a hollywood blockbuster – so you aren’t going to be playing in the rarified relms of the pros – but if you want a quality result when doing anything inherently complex, you need a good plan that you can follow.
Morley’s fine book will start your thinking in excellent ways. But thinking isn’t the same as doing.
The critical components are A) an overall plan (sometimes called a “treatment” that outlines what you’re going to try to accomplish with your project. The treatment leads to a script. The script leads to a shooting plan (who and what you need to have in order to execute the script and where and when those assets need to be in place!) The script and shooting plan taken out on location or into the studio to do the actual shooting. The resulting field work is brought into Editing – where the parts are assembled into a whole. Then typically the last step is to output the finished project in a form that the client can use – e.g. files for broadcast, web assets, discs, whatever.
That’s the general workflow in it’s simplest form.
Most here who do this professionally, will tell you that the pre-production (everything before the camera records the first shot) is the most critical to a projects eventual success. And that time, effort and resources spent on developing a good script, acquiring competent talent, and making sure all the logistics are good to go before your first day of production – is the most critical part of getting quality results.
Hope that helps.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner
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Maybe you could tell me how to make your tools and then I can trade information with you, in a fair swapsy style.
Or you could pay someone who knows what they are doing.
Just a thought.
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I have a buyer’s guide, due a refresh but largely solid content, at https://www.grapevinecommunications.co.uk/buyersguide/
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Most important is to know or define a target market/demographic.
Think about what engages, entertains, informs them.
You’re not selling products but solutions. Show benefits.
Don’t confuse a marketing video with a training video.Once you can identify the above, then you can figure out the ways to tell your story.
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Best thing to do, hire someone locally that has experience to co-produce it and learn from them.
http://www.MediaCircus.TV
Media Production Services
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada -
Get a clue Tom. What do you think the purpose of communities like this is? People come to the Cow for advice. Some know everything there is to know about producing a video (like yourself) and others haven’t ever focused a camera or flipped open a FCP manual. Instead of taking offense to Andrea’s question on how to do this on her own, rather than pay a professional, why don’t you try contributing the forum with a real answer or go away.
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It’s not clear what expertise the OP has, she may be looking to do this herself, or she may be finding out ways of contacting and hiring a large production company to produce a quality product, so it may be a total waste of time to go through, on The Cow, detail by detail all the steps neccessary to answer the question fully.
So Tom’s reccomendation may actually the most appropriate one.
Maybe Andrea will come back and respond to all the suggestions and expand on her needs.(From my brief glance at it, I think she should go through Mike Smith’s guide very thoroughly.)
P.S. I would have said that as the product being sold is High End, the marketing video should also be High End.
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[Andrea Woogerd] “I am brand new to video production and I need to make a marketing video for high-end engineering tools. Does anyone have any suggestions on classes I could take or online tutorials to look at for the basics on how to do this project? Basic tips are also appreciated.”
I’m not clear on if it is your tools that you want to make a video for, or if you have been hired by someone to do this.
Either way, you are probably going to think I’m a jerk for saying this, but you need to hire a professional to do this.
I’m basing this opinion on this post, plus this post by you in the JVC camera forum.
“I am looking to purchase my first video camera. It will be used to market high-end engineering tools. I need something that is preferably on the cheaper side and that can be easily operated by a beginning student.”So if this is your product, and you want to have a professional looking presentation to match the quality of the product, you need to hire someone with experience. Not DIY, and not some unnamed student.
If you have been hired by someone, you are doing them a great disservice by attempting to take on a project with no experience, and then charging them money. Period, end of story.
Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
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[Marv Marvin] “What do you think the purpose of communities like this is?”
IMO, You are way off base. This is mostly a professional users forum for colleagues to exchange tips and idea’s.
It is not Intro to Production 101 at your local 2 year school’s MassComm program.
If you want to take the OP from the “I don’t own or know how to use a camera” stage to the “I need a finished video presentation” stage, feel free.
But I don’t think that is the purpose of this forum, or any of the others here.
Perhaps Ron might chime in with his thoughts.I completely agree with Tom. The OP is asking for a recommendation, and considering the circumstances, the best, and only recommendation is to hire someone with experience to do this. Especially if you want professional looking results.
Sometimes people are just looking for the ‘easy button’, and have completely unrealistic expectations. I think it is fair and proper to point this out, instead of leading them on some fantasy that they can learn several large skill-sets overnight from a couple of posts on a forum.
You can go down the thread and read my reply to the OP, if you like.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
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