The camera crew are booked… Are you ready?

Published in a quote by Anh Do in his book “The happiest Refugee”. “There are only two times, now and too late”. If video is important to your business and you have been putting it on the back burner, do it now, or it’s too late. I feel like the decision makers in a business, have this hate – hate relationship with video. They see it as expensive or it doesn’t yield instant results and they just simply don’t have the time to dedicate to getting production going. In contrast, they also know that they need video, and they need it soon!

I have heard every excuse under the sun. “Wait until end of month. Our packaging is being redone.The sales team are all out of town. We need the front of the building repainted.” These are all valid points but you just have to push on, if video is important to you. Here are some key tools to help you prepare. 

Ask around for who in the business would actually like to be in the video.

Finding the right person to represent your video is the key. If they would love to be on video and they will push the project forward. There is no point forcing the GM or the Owner to be in the video if they don’t actually want to be on camera. If you do, the excuses will flow like Niagara Falls and the project will never get going.

Tidy up.

When preparing for video, don’t do a full remodel and move the whole place around. Clean up desks. De clutter. I bet the place could use a bit of a spruce up.

New Polo’s and hair cuts. I’ve personally seen many CEO’s and owners of businesses say that when all their family and friends have seen them in video, they get given grief that they didn’t shave or get a haircut. It seems basic, but just book the on camera subject in for a haircut. Pull out a fresh polo with branding for the video. If you don’t have any extras, order asap. The production might be filming footage in the workshop, and the team might do some dirty work, but they don’t need to look like dirty mechanics, so get fresh hi-vis for the production team. 

Think about overlays (extra footage)

Overlays are bits of b-roll footage to show when the interview subject is talking. To make a video engaging, it’s good to show different vision as a “pattern interruption” to keep the viewer engaged. It’s amazing how often you need to show something, because officially a pattern interruption should be shown every 8 seconds. So what does this mean? This means you have to think about what to film around your location to accompany your interview. Production. Products. The team at work. The scenery around your location. More thought needs to go into where to get good footage of the business rather than just the spot where the interview will take place.

To get ready to film a sensational video about your business, there is a bit more below the surface that needs to be organised before you push record. Click below to receive my Getting ready to film check list.