How To Commission a Video
Assuming you are sure about your message and your target audience then you have to decide if you’re going to do it in-house or use professionals. Here’s my very best tip – USE PROFESSIONALS!!! Now there’s a lot of “amateur” video out there, it’s the backbone of Youtube and many companies have used John’s brother in law with his handycam to produce a video (well he did a good job at Bob and Vera’a wedding didn’t he?) But my advice is this: Unless you have a really compelling reason for your video to look and sound appalling (in other words the shaky cam
era work, bad lighting and awful audio is somehow part of your message) then please don’t let Jim from accounts anywhere near it with his camcorder. Amateur video will damage your brand and make people think you couldn’t be bothered. It is usually worse than not having video at all.
era work, bad lighting and awful audio is somehow part of your message) then please don’t let Jim from accounts anywhere near it with his camcorder. Amateur video will damage your brand and make people think you couldn’t be bothered. It is usually worse than not having video at all.
Find the Right Production Company
There are loads of us out there just desperate to take your money and turn it into the next youtube megahit. A quick Google search will reveal just how many. But ask around your network, find out if anyone has been down this road before you, and once you have a few names, look at their websites and most importantly, watch examples of their work. If there is nothing on-line to watch then my advice is to surf away as quickly as possible. You want a company that understands web video, so if they haven’t bothered to put any video on-line then it’s a fair bet they don’t. Try and watch a real client video not a compilation show reel. Ask yourself the all important “So What?” question, bearing in mind you’re probably not the target audience. And be honest – does the video effectively communicate an idea or is it simply a sunset and cheesy music fest? This will give you a very good idea of the sort of outfit you are dealing with and whether they understand the importance of content and storytelling. Once you’ve made the film you then have to get it on to the web. With a good production company this should be easy as they will do it for you as part of the package. The video can and should be hosted by them, so you can easily embed it on your site and they deal with all the issues around streaming and storage. If they don’t do hosting then you may be stuck with Youtube or something similar which frankly is not good enough if you’ve just spent money on a professional production.
In the third and final part we’ll be looking at what sort of video you could make and how much it might cost.
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