Scripting a Multimedia Video Production for a Small Business
August 28, 2008 by paulgratton · Leave a Comment
Background
This week I’m working on a script for Nutri-Sport -Full Potential Training, a great personal training studio/nutrition/supplement store just off of Swanson and 100th Street in Clive, Iowa.
When I first chatted with Ryan Irwin, natural bodybuilder and owner of FPT, I was impressed by his perspective and real desire to help people look and feel their best.
The challenge
The only challenge with Ryan’s business is that not enough people know about the high level of quality, passion, and expertise Ryan has. It’s hard to stand out in a crowd, even when you’re packed with muscle and able to bench press 300 pounds…weighing in at a crisp 165lbs!
Our approach
That’s why I listened very carefully to Ryan as he described his business and goals. I picked out key words that kept coming up as Ryan talked about what excited him about his local, independent business.
In the script I chose to “amplify” the most vivid, descriptive, and appealing themes Ryan used to describe his own business. He used words like “full potential,” “achieve more,” “personalized nutrition,” and “accountability.”
The results
When you see the finished video in a few weeks (we’ll post it right here on the createWOWmedia blog) you’ll find these word and ideas reinforced by the visuals and text added. Watch as we emphasize Ryan’s core strengths, making his genuine and winning personality shine through.
It makes us happy. We think it’ll make Ryan happy…and more successful.
Call to action
If you appreciate our approach to amplifying a small business’s brand, maybe we’re a good fit for your firm?
If you’d like to have a first dance, click the Engage button at the top of the page.
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Rise of the “Everyperson” Voice over in Media
August 21, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Thanks Business Pundit for pointing to this piece in Politico about the changing face of voice overs in political ads. John McCain is using a “normal voiced” woman vs. the typical “Voice of God” type (think movie trailer guy Don LaFontaine or the guy who seems to do every one of those CSI type ‘who killed who’ shows.)
For much of our multimedia production, we leverage…well…me. I’m that fairly non-descript and somewhat nasally at times guy that sounds like a normal person. I guess I can take, “You don’t have that professional sounding voice Doug..it’s more ‘every guy’” comment as a compliment.
When I get my announcer guy voice on I can fake it. But let’s face it, most of what we all need are corporate pieces that show how real we are. Real people, real voice, real credibility.
If you really do need a pro to step in, consider www.voice123.com They offer myriad choices, prices, and styles. From all reports I’ve gathered, it’s a snap to deal with the participating voice talent, etc.
Take a listen and see if I have a shot at taking any of LaFontaine’s business.
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Bringing Out the Best
August 19, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
The real WOW behind createWOWmedia isn’t graphical wizardry or gimmickry;
it’s the experience and insight of our team that brings out the very best in your company and products.
Sure, we like good looking video and well-thought out blogs as much as the next person, but these tools won’t really WOW your potential customers unless they have a laser focus on what sets you apart from the competition.
Do you want your brand to stand out?
Are you able to quickly and convincingly communicate the mind-blowing products and services you offer?
Developing online branding opportunities that not only stand out, but clearly and directly convey the power, the passion and strength you and your company provide, is what we do.
We call it Brand Amplification. Want some?
A test multimedia project for your small to medium business (SMB)
August 19, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Here’s a quick idea that can give you a sense for what multimedia can do for your firm.
- Choose a short 30-60 second script to read. We suggest your company’s mission statement or guiding principles.
- Practice reading it with passion and proper emphasis.
- Find images that support your words using google image search. Just copy and paste those images into a PowerPoint presentation.
- Find some music on your computer or borrow some that support your reading and imagery.
- Now click play on the music, read the script, and click through the images one by one.
You’ll get a very rough cut idea of how it will feel when you put the pieces together. If you get goosebumps…nice work. If your results are less exciting, perhaps you can rework/revise/rethink and try again.
Total budget? ….about 1 hour of your time.
Convincing the CEO to wake up your marketing/promotion/presentations with multimedia…priceless.
Brand Amplification
August 19, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
We’ve had many great discussions on summarizing what it is that we provide for clients here at createWOWmedia. We’ve come up with a decidedly simple phrase:
Brand Amplification
Harvest and Repurpose: A Video Primer
August 19, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
So let’s say you go out and capture some video of yourself doing something amazing, fun, exciting, and powerful for your business. The video quality may be just fine but let’s say the audio is a bit sketchy and it’s about 3 minutes long. While the footage may be fine for internal use…you’re hesitant about making it publicly available. End of story right? Wrong.
Why not do the following?
- Write a brief script that highlights what you see in the video and creates the mood and message you’re after.
- Record the script and mix with music that supports the mood you’re trying to convey.
- Use still images that support your audio script.
- Insert JUST the meat of the 3 minute clip into your new video at the peak moment of excitement in the script with the bad movie sound silenced while the good stuff rolls.
Now you’ve harvested a great piece of video and crafted a well produced commercial, marketing piece, promotional piece, etc. and your total film crew investment was $0.
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Don’t blow the multimedia budget on flaming fireballs
August 19, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
When you decide to bring some WOW! to your marketing and promotions be careful to tame the first instinct that flows like waves through your body when you find out what’s possible. “You mean…we can do THAT!” Yes you can. We call this taking the, “Less Flaming Fireball…More Business” approach.
If you keep your business goals in mind, many times the need for elaborate special effects and multiple camera angles can be reduced. (All of which save you ca$h and potentially valuable time to market).
Also, keep in mind that if your production is a video designed for the web that you may be able to capture completely acceptable footage on your own. Granted paying NO attention to lighting or audio quality (was that a dog barking in the background???) will yield the results you expect.
What separates the WOW! from the Yuck! are:
- Attention to lighting and audio quality of the raw footage.
- Use of music that compliments and brings out and supports your message.
- Post production editing that hones and polishes your message into a concise package.
We realize that while small…these steps require time, expertise, resources, and headaches that Small and Medium Businesses should typically NOT deal with. When it’s time to create WOW! in-source to a local partner that takes a ground up “business” approach to producing multimedia for your firm.
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To All SMB’s: Ready to Explode Your Business With Multimedia Marketing?
August 19, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Let’s say you are an SMB (small to medium business) in the Des Moines metro. You have a nice website that’s well put together and appealing. You’ve got a nice “about” page with little JPG’s of your employees and a quick bio about them. Not bad. But in the SMB space you CAN and SHOULD be able to STAND OUT and be heard from! But what to do?
Here’s a quick checklist we’ve been working through.
When I visit your site:
- Is there anything there conveying what it’s actually like to do business with you? Blog posts, videos, interviews, audio clips, testimonials, case studies?
- Does your site in any way indicate to me that you’re different than “everyone else that provides the same service or product as you do?”
- Do you make it easier to say “yes” than the competition?
- Do you offer multiple modes of contact to reach different demographics? In not too many years, those “kids” who text message all day may be running the office. Do you accommodate that mode of communication deemed critical by current and future generations?
- Do you offer RSS feeds for news releases and/or blog posts? Most likely if you are blogging the answer is yes. Blogging is NOT a requirement to provide RSS feeds of your news releases however so don’t count out one because of the other.
- Are you leveraging any social media platforms? Twitter is a prime example. The other day I put out a call for someone to create a logo…fast. I got 4 replies from Twitter from local designers and within 4 HOURS I had prototypes in my inbox. Maybe people won’t ask you questions about your accounting business in twitter that often today…but just give it a while. (HINT: That’s code for do something about it now).
We’ll add more to this list soon but hopefully there’s some food for thought in here. If you’d like to chat more about some of these things, give me a shout.
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Hello World…createWOWmedia is live
August 11, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
We have just launched this site with much fanfare including trumpets and dancing horses. Honestly, we just clicked a few buttons. However, we believe that you’ll be totally enthralled by our services.
createWOWmedia was born because small and medium businesses don’t have the time or desire to learn new software and buy equipment to take themselves “beyond PowerPoint.” Why should they? The big guys have “departments that handle that.” Must be nice. For the rest of us there needs to be a trusted partner that takes a vision, a presentation, or a concept and turns it into a well produced piece of WOW! on budget.
createWOW is bringing social media, video, blogging, custom music and voice over production, and a pretty big bag of special tricks to the table also.
You’ll see some of our work appear on this site soon. Until then, just remember that professional video is great for weddings and television commercials. For the rest of us…we just need to create WOW!
We’re located in Des Moines, Iowa so if you’re local we’ll let’s have coffee. If not, let’s have coffee and do a video chat using Skype.
