5 Tips for Producing a Better Video Story

While there are several things that help produce a better video story, here are 5 tips to help you be more successful. All stories start from an idea. Once you have that, you need to pick a story angle. Picking a good story angle is the start of a better video story or any story for that matter. A story angle is a smaller piece or detail of the bigger picture. Instead of telling the story of soccer let’s say, you will tell the story about a particular player or maybe how the sport got it’s start. How about telling the story about a club’s mascot? These stories will be a lot shorter than the time it would take to tell a story about everything there is about soccer or futbol as it’s called around the world.

Get Organized

Next is developing a creative brief. This is a good way to organize your story and write out every detail. Think of the purpose for telling the story, the people in the story, questions you will ask, extra footage you need to film, and what you want the audience to do once they watch your story. This will help you visualize the story even before you hit the record button to start filming. The creative brief gives your production structure but still allows for spontaneity or things to happen naturally. Make sure to include dates and times as well. With so many things to remember while producing a video story it’s nice to have something to remind you what they are. If your production includes interviews, then asking the right questions is super important. Starting with 5 questions is a good place to start. By listening to the responses of the subject it will make it easier to respond with subsequent questions to carry on the conversation. Remember an interview is a conversation not an interrogation, so be a good listener. This means listening intently to what your subject says and not thinking about what you want to ask next.

Paying Attention

After the interview you’ll need to listen to your subject’s responses to plan and film extra video footage, it’s called b-roll. You may also need to gather other content like photos or graphics to illustrate what is being said. This helps emphasize a point and increase the chances your audience will remember your story. It’s kind of like show and tell. You show what someone is talking about. Since it’s a mix of showing them on screen and showing what they are talking about, pick the important things to show. Lastly, pick the right content to put it all together. A video story is the combination of audio, video, graphics, photos, and music.

Keeping Your Audience’s Attention

Having everything work together to keep your audience’s attention is the goal. Paying attention to ALL of the details helps separate your story from the next and increase engagement with your audience… and increases the chance they will pass it along. Keep sharing the human experience and encourage others to share it as well.