Tag: video

As a freelance videographer, my bread and butter is filming corporate videos.  In the past blog I did speak about how to record a good interview.  Therefore, I am not going to go too deep into the details of an interview, although the interview is a big portion of a corporate video production.  Instead, I am going to talk about how to go from the initial preparation to the final edit of a good corporate video.

Corporate Video Production – the Preparation

Before you grab any camera equipment, make sure to have at least one meeting with your client.  As videographers, we tend to think of cinematography first.  We always want to frame interesting shots, make sure the lighting is spot on, and sound is as clean as possible.  However, being so focused on visual composition, a videographer may miss key aspects of what the clients want to include and exclude in the video, and in all honesty sometimes clients do not always express these clearly.  Sometimes the client assumes that certain things are given. For example, I worked on a corporate video production for a pharmaceutical company.  We worked with a few lab employees and spent the entire day filming great looking scenes.  We showed our beautiful footage to the client, and although the client was impressed with our video production, they said that employees did not wear the right protective gloves and therefore we were forced to reshoot everything from that day.

The Interview for Corporate Video Production

I will spend only one short paragraph on this topic because I have written an entire blog on this topic before.  For any corporate video production interview, you want to make sure you have two cameras.  Two cameras allow you to cut easily and avoid jump cuts.  Set up good 3 way lighting, although that is not always possible.  Hence, I recommend having a small portable light kit.  Any corporate videographer should have few LED 1 x 1 panels.  Make sure you have a good microphone, preferably a lavalier mic.  Lastly, make the interview conversational, so the speaker sounds natural and is not rushed. 

B-roll for Corporate Video Production

Getting interesting b-roll video footage on a corporate video production shoot can be challenging.  Let’s be honest, hardly anything exciting ever happens at your typical office.  There are only so many shots of someone walking in the cubicle aisle or typing on the computer.  One thing to avoid is slow motion.  Unless someone in the office is doing a backflip, there is nothing dramatic about someone shaking hands or opening a laptop for 15 seconds.  Many corporate videographers make this mistake.  The video often looks even more boring. 

One way to spice up the B roll is to ensure the corporate participants are engaging with one another.  I often get several people into a group and let them talk about the baseball game, make them tell jokes, or have them play games.  When people are having they often forget they are being on camera.  In one video we wanted to capture a 30 minute timelapse of a group brainstorming.  We had about 7 participants create a flowchart on the white board of a fictitious company.  The exercise turned out into a fun game where all participants took turns adding content to the white board and even continued on after we called CUT. 

Although corporate video can be boring, as a videographer it is your job to find something visually interesting.  You need to get creative and think visually beyond what typically happens at an office you are filming.  On a recent shoot, we noticed a conference room with a large window looking back into the hallway.  We wanted to visually show teammates collaborating.  We brought bunch sticky notes of different colors and had about eight participants have fun and start arranging them on the glass.  Once again, the participants turned the exercise into a game.  Some were listing their favorite restaurants and others listing famous athletes.  For our video the content of what they were writing on the notes did not matter.  What did matter, waa that they were having fun and truly did collaborate with emotions.  We filmed them from inside of the room and through the glass getting an energetic visualization of corporate collaboration. 

Lastly, for a good corporate video production broll you need many angles.  Do not spend too much time getting perfect lighting for someone typing on the computer.  If you are going to do that make sure you take that shot from several angles.  Do a wide, medium and close up of typing.  In post corporate video production you will need short snippets of the same action, this way you can cut quickly and move the story.

Corporate Video Post Production

As in any video production, I suggest to edit as soon as possible.  This way the footage is fresh in your mind.  In fact, when I film on location, in my mind I am already editing.  I know what shots will be the opening and closing shots, and what shots I need as I transition from one theme to another.  

If an interview is part of your corporate video production, I suggest cut a rough interview only, with no broll.  Explain to your client that you first want to narrow the story down, the content of what is being said.  In this rough interview cut, avoid cutting out “ Ah”, pauses, and general speech flaws, you can cut that out later once you add broll.  Just make sure the interview flows and is succinct.  Once the interview is approved, it is much easier to add broll.  At this point use broll to cover up any jump cuts resulting from more thorough edits (like cutting “ahs”).

Last step in good corporate video production is an audio mix.  This last step really separates the really professional videos from amauter work.  The viewer is much forgiving to flaws in color corrections or loss of sharpness.  However, bad sound is jarring to the viewer.  I have written an article on how to get good audio for your corporate video production and for a more thorough tutorial on mixing for video/filming go here.  

In Sum, corporate video production can be a very rewarding (and lucrative) experience.  Although an office setting can be dull, your job as videographer is to find creative ways to add enthusiasm to a corporate video production.  Think of this way, Mike Judge created a successful comedy by poking fun and filming simple office scenes most of us can relate to.