Promotional Video
From YWAMKnowledgeBase
Here is a very short article. There are some other resources now available including some pages on ywamcommunications.org. They are much more detailed but the page navigation is hard - I had to use the menu bar at the top to find the different pages! ~~----
Contents |
Making a professional promotional video
- Brief - what do we want to communicate, why, and who for?
- Budget - how much can we afford?
- Script - writing out what you want to say and how you will say it.
- pre-production (preparing for the shoot)
- production (shooting the video)
- post-production (editing and preparing the final touches)
- promotion
Don't start until you have figured out your promotion or you will never get anyone to see you masterpiece!
When you get good you will be able to produce this:
Doing it on the cheap
Basically, the most important skills are being able to write and plan!
Pre-production
- Plan out what you want to say first.
- Write the script
- Think of interesting ways to make your point: Background shots, setting the scene, interviews, music etc.
- Get a friend or two to help you
- Beg, borrow or steal a camera. Get a camera (almost any digital vcd thing)
- GET A TRIPOD! this will make it look more professional than anything - if your video does not jiggle around. Tripods are much cheaper than an expensive, but wobbly camera.
Production
- Take lots of footage. You will know what to shoot because you have a script!
- Make sure the light is good. Dark video is rubbish.
- Make sure you have good sound. Microphones built in to cameras can be poor and tend to pick up any sound. If the camera has a socket to accept an external mic then use it.
- If the sound is poor take a tape recorder and record at the same time or a laptop. Take care on this point - sound is very important to a video.
Post-production
- Software: Adobe Premier Elements 3.0 is cheap <50$, excellent but needs a modern PC. to run. It is dead easy though.
- At a pinch you can use the Mac and Windows video editing programs.
Distribution
- Making DVD or loading to youtube.com is easy.
Errrm that's about it. But the most important thing is planning.
Examples
- See what we did: http://www.ywambrussels.be
- I produced this video for the church plant I am helping with. I followed the instructions above. The sole cost was for a video tape! I borrowed a camera and tripod, we already had some video editing software. It could have been improved with better sound recording (noisy background) and better light (I had a strict deadline and the only time to shoot footage was early evening in winter).
