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Any Recommendations on How to Make a Marketing Video
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I apologize for having sparked such a debate. I was given this project by my boss and have no idea how to go about it. A friend of mine who is in the business suggested that I post a general message on this site to get ideas on where to begin. It appears he was mistaken on the purpose of these forums or perhaps he had a different idea on what I should have said in my request. Apologies if I have offended anyone. It was unintended.
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I’ve seen many people get thrown neck deep into projects by bosses with unfair and unrealistic expectations. It’s unfortunate people blamed you when just asked about where to go to learn this stuff.
This might be worth looking at.
https://www.videouniversity.com/shop/marketing-with-digital-video
or this, although it’s about “home” business, it’s focused specifically on corporate video.
https://www.videouniversity.com/shop/professional-video-producer-how-to-start-a-successful-home-based-business-producing-corporate-videos -
Don’t worry about it. It is not because Scott and Tom want to protect their business, that you may not ask questions.
In my opinion, the only thing that matters is that you don’t make boring video’s. Have respect for your audience. I have seen boring video’s from very experienced people, I have seen even more boring video’s from first year students. But the other way is also true: I have seen amazing video’s from 16 year old kids and I have seen amazing video’s from very old bastards.
The thing is, if it is interesting for yourself, chances are great that it is interesting for your audience. And how do you keep it interesting ? Look at your footage over and over again. Try to spot what is different with the ones from others that you like. Redo it and repeat. That is the only way to learn it. Do it, do it do it. Also, try to find people who are not afraid to say that they don’t like the video. Ask them why they don’t like it – and fix it.
If there is one thing that both the 16 year old wizard and the genious old bastard have in common, is that they are very passionate, dedicated and committed to settle only for the best result.
And to the ones that are afraid to loose business by giving away some “secret sauce”: you shouldn’t be afraid. If someone got “it”, you can’t stop them. If someone doesn’t have “it”, he/she will never be a thread to your business, since you can perform always better, thanks to your experience.
And if the boss doesn’t want to pay for your experience, you don’t loose any business here – because he wasn’t going to give you the order in the first place.
I have been a long time reader (not contributor) to this forum, and I often spot this weird fear for youngsters – you know, the kid making great video’s with the handycam. You know what ? Today it is not even the handycam anymore, it is the smartphone. Times change – tools change – requirements change – and even more: the expectation of the audience is changing. But what doesn’t change is the the need for dedication and talent.
Let’s keep it interesting, and just create good stuff – novice and experienced. Shall we?
(uhm, it seems that I got a little bit carried away)
sam
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I think you have misunderstood my post mark. I’m not going to comment any more, other then say-I have clearly stated that I have offered other young video pro’s tips on their career in the past and I applaud others for doing so too. This was a totally different request. I have pointed out that the problem rests on companies asking beginners in their employ to take on video work rather than paying for it, not advising fellow professionals. I know my quality sells my work. But as our job is shown to be easier, video producers make less money.
You surely can’t be missing the point that this was a request from someone on how to make a video that x years ago YOU would have been pricing up?
I ain’t doomed pal, I just like sticking up for my fellow pro’s.
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[Andrea Woogerd] “I apologize for having sparked such a debate. I was given this project by my boss and have no idea how to go about it. A friend of mine who is in the business suggested that I post a general message on this site to get ideas on where to begin. It appears he was mistaken on the purpose of these forums or perhaps he had a different idea on what I should have said in my request. Apologies if I have offended anyone. It was unintended.”
No apologies are needed. Your posts simply brought up a common occurrence that generate a spirited discussion. In a ‘room’ full of creative people, that is going to happen.
Also don’t forget that a lot of us are sitting at our desks working while we are doing this, so there is a tendency to get straight to the point, which can seem abrupt. Don’t take it personal. It’s not.We have spent some time talking about if/why we should help the nouveau-cinema folks, but lets talk about your situation for a minute and get back OT.
As far as your project, I would use caution. What we do isn’t brain surgery, but yet there are a lot of things you learn over the years. Video/film projects of any length have hundreds of failure points. The less experience you have, the more of these that will jump out and bite you. If enough of those happen it will create a cascade failure and the entire project falls apart.
Even those of us that have done this a lot have things happen occasionally. So avoiding problems, and how you deal with them before they get out of control is part of the job. No book can possibly detail every problem you might encounter, this is where experience comes in to play.
In your case you first posted asking for advice on buying a camera. Your main criteria was that it should be relatively cheap, and easy enough for a beginning student to operate. So you don’t really have any producing experience, and no knowledge about cameras either. The plan is to hire someone to shoot your footage that doesn’t have any directing/lighting/shooting experience, and use a camera that is new to everyone involved. This scenario is creating lots of unnecessary failure points, because there is no experience in the project at any level.
Someone mentioned that everyone has to start somewhere, which is true. But this sounds like two student pilots teaching each other how to fly, and far from an ideal situation.
And what about editing and finishing what you shoot? Who will do that, and on what equipment? This may all seem very easy when looking in from the outside, but if you spend a few minutes looking at various other forums on the Cows you will see people pulling their hair out because they are trying to edit footage that was either improperly shot, the format doesn’t work with their editor, or maybe both.
So there are lots of places this can go wrong and make you look bad, and cause the company to spend a lot more time and money than necessary. It is also possible it will all work out OK, but sometimes even that is not as it seems.
I don’t know what to call it, except ‘expectation disappointment’. Lets say you get this all done without any major problems, and show it to your boss and his reaction is lukewarm. How does this happen?
Cogswell Cogs puts out a great demo and marketing video on their website, and runs it in their booth at every trade show. It’s the buzz at every event they show it at. Cogswell spent 50,000 dollars on it. They hired an experienced producer, an experienced crew from LA to light and shoot it with top quality gear. Post production editing, graphics, sound and color correction are all also handled by experienced professionals, all hired by the experienced producer who knew the quality, and type of work they all did.
Cogswell’s competitor, Spacely Sprockets sees this video and asks his factory manager George Jetson to make a similar marketing video. Mr. Spacely knows anyone can make a video and put it on Youtube, so it must be pretty easy. He gives George a budget of 5,000 dollars, which should be more than enough considering you can buy a HD Flipcam for a couple of hundred bucks, and get Final Cut X for $300. With that budget, George buys a pro-sumer camera, and hires a first year film student to run it. They don’t do any lighting, and there is no sound-person. George also buys a computer to run Final Cut, and teaches himself how to edit. The only post production work that is done, is what George can do himself. With only a few minor problems, all goes well. The video is done, and it is exactly what the boss asked for, and came in a little under budget. George thinks he has a winner, and shows it to Mr. Spacely, who is underwhelmed. There is no glaring problem he can point to, and it is exactly what he asked for. But Cogswell’s video is just better. George cannot help but feel the disappointment of his boss, but doesn’t understand where he went wrong. Mr. Spacely doesn’t have a specific criticism, he just keeps showing George the Cogswell video, and asks why his video “doesn’t look like that”. George defends himself by saying it came in under budget, and is exactly what the boss asked for. In the end George’s boss agrees it is what he asked for, and decides to just accept it for what it is.
The boss won’t say it to his face but it is a mission failure, reputation damaged.
George knows it, and Mr. Spacely knows it. It’s just no one has the experience to know why or how it happened.
In the end it is quite simple.
The experienced producer knew what to budget in order to get what the client wanted, and was able to justify the cost. The the experienced producer hires other professionals that not only used high quality equipment, but added all the nuances of their craft they have learned over the years to make the video stand out from the pack. George knew none of this. If he had, he could have pointed out the budget gap to his boss at the outset, and avoided the disappointment and unrealistic expectations.
This scenario is an all too common occurrence, and one that is best avoided if at all possible.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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[Sam Cornelis] “Don’t worry about it. It is not because Scott and Tom want to protect their business”
You have got that all wrong. I’m not trying to protect my business, I’m trying to protect your business by not reaching across the globe from another market via the internet helping your competitor get work. The “your” being the working professionals that have major investments in time and equipment. And the competitor being the guy with no overhead, and no experience that is bringing everyone’s rates down.
As I said, if you want to take the time writing an A to Z guide to video production for every newbie that comes along, that’s your business. Tom and I were trying to point out that you may be hurting fellow colleagues in your effort to help the newbies. And you may not be helping them at all, because some will get in over their heads based on your initial help.
I think these are all valid considerations, and worth discussing. And it doesn’t make us evil because some of us will draw the line on how much free help we are willing to hand out, and to whom. You will see plenty of posts where we have helped out colleagues that are our direct competition.[Sam Cornelis] “And if the boss doesn’t want to pay for your experience, you don’t loose any business here – because he wasn’t going to give you the order in the first place.”
That is not always true. Sometimes people just are unaware of the costs, and how it is done. Armed with that information, people like Andrea can often go back to their boss with the facts and get the budget to do it right and hire professionals And often in doing that they will gain valuable experience, with much less career risk.
Everyone on this forum has at least one story of doing repair jobs for clients that tried to go the DIY route, and in the end it cost them a lot more than if they would have hired experience over low cost in the first place.There’s a sign in the service waiting room at my car dealer, which says:
Service Rates
$50 per hour
$100 per hour if you watch
$200 per hour if you help
$500 per hour if you started the job yourself, and need us to fix it.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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You are correct Tom; I didn’t join until reading your post. I’m a long time lurker and I never thought I had anything to say that people could benefit from. That said, this has been a quite interesting thread…
The reason I sided with Andrea is because I have taken the steps to become a professional but haven’t been fortunate enough to make it in the business. I’ve graduated from college, worked an internship in video production, and I’m now begrudgingly working in print design and working video production on the side.
Do I know how to slap together a marketing video as Andrea requests…sure, but I’m hopeful that someone will give her a sliver of info that I hadn’t thought of that just might give me the edge on my next project. God forbid we ever revisit the basics.
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Yeah … being creative, I like this discussion. I know it is getting off topic … but hey, it’s friday.
Thank you for protecting my business, Scott, but I don’t feel threatened by this question, not even after you made your point. If you read my thoughts about creating a marketing video, you’ll see that there are no big secrets hidden in it. Just like Mark writes: you won’t become a Cordon Bleu chef.
Will not giving tips and in stead trying to talk Andrea the assignment out or her head and switch over to a professional organization, save the business? I doubt if you can change their minds.
In this case, Andrea has gotten an assignment: “make me a video”. If you weren’t in your current position, but in Andrea’s, you’d love to get a question like that and start working on it, immediately. Just because -admit it – making video’s is big fun. So why pass it? It is a chance to start with something.
And of course, the result would be better with a professional crew, and as you point out in your long (very well thought) post: the result may be disappointing – or maybe just good enough. Lessons will be taken for the next project – and maybe they spend the 50.000 (I doubt it), or they keep on the same track. That’s up to them to decide.
You say that Andrea may be able to convince her boss to go professional if she has your information. I don’t see any incentive for her to do so, and if a boss has an idea …. very often they’ll stick to their ideas. Especially in this DIY age – “Go Create”, remember.
And yes, many professionals say that good work can only be produced by experienced people with expensive equipment. This is something I read in a lot of places in this forum.
In my opinion, this is not true. One reason is: it is not the equipment, that makes a video that people love to see. It is the idea and the creativity that is important. In your example about Cogswell vs. George: if George had a more creative and appealing idea, he’d win. Actually, you say it in your example: he did exactly what is boss asked, nothing more. That is the reason for his loss, he didn’t use his creativity.
Another reason why you should take small budget project seriously is, that the audience is very, very much used to watch the average youtube video. Whether you like it or not, standards are lowering. The big thing is here: how can you still make money out of it? Not by offending the people who work like that, but by embracing this new evolution and … you can guess it: use your creativity. Since you have a lot of experience, you also should have a lot of creativity. That is your biggest strength against a competitor – especially against a “cheap” one.
If you try to protect your business the way your are doing it right now, it will be a dead end. There is a wave of new competitors coming … think of all graphic designers, photographers, youngsters who have a perfect feeling of the new times etc. that now have access to the world of filmmaking – and often have a very good eye for design. You can’t stop them from changing their minds. If you try to do so, you are making the same mistake the music business did. And look where they are now.
On the other hand … there may be a new, big market for cheap, lower standard video’s, but there is also a big new market for high quality video’s. Think of infotainment systems, narrowcasting etc.. there are much more channels that need to be filled with content than there was ever before. And trust me, big chains with lots of stores will always relay on professionals.
All I want to say is: everyone deserves their space, even the kid with the camera – and they are no threat to anyone. In fact, they can sometimes produce very interesting and inspiring stuff.
(note: if my car dealer had I sign like that … I’d go for the 50$ option and never return. I don’t like it when people treat you as a morron – even when I am one.)
(for the record: I am somewhere in between the high-level video guy and the kid) -
Great post Sam. You are bang on. Creativity will always win, no arguments here. I’m a creative as are all of the people who visit this forum. I’m just interested to know what business model to use if we are supposed to admit that using cheap cameras, cheap production crews and cheap edit suites for videos makes as good results as using top quality gear and crews if we have a great idea? Once prices come to such a low point and videos are all high quality because we are working our arses off to be as creative as possible on small budgets, no-one will ever get those prices back up. Ever.
If a client gets a $50k result from $5k budget then you will never get them paying more than $5k.
Why should we sell our creativity, our skills and experience and our expensive equipment for less? Once hourly rates drop as low as $30 an hour across the board, a business will never ever earn more than $72k per year. Working every day per year 10 hours per day. Less equipment, rent, tax, expenses, software, utilities and staff you won’t have much less. But if you are ok with that, the company who employs you sure as hell will be!
I know that there is now a massive Market for small budget videos-we are making decent money in it, but we don’t offer big budget results for it, we show the client the difference in what they are paying for – cheaper camera, cheaper edit suite and no crew and they usually come up with some more money to make it superfunky.
We constantly compete with young video companies-some we lose, but the majority we win because we are good and we have experience. My old man always said-they pay for the job, my experience is free….
The only mistake you make is claiming that because we are not willing to help young beginners for free (I am happy to do it if they are a pro, not for a freebie for an intern in a company who should be spending with you) we could be in trouble. What about the hundreds of companies in the UK and USA who don’t bother reading or writing on cow forums or helping others? Are they doomed or are they too busy counting their cash and roll call of big clients? I know 5 video pro’s in the immediate area around me who turn over more than £150k per year and have never thought to read a cow forum, they are great at their job and know how to make money though!
Best of luck-I won’t stop trying to protect your and my budgets and creative integrity because I’m convinced that is the only way for us all to make a good living from the industry we all love. Have a good weekend!
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