Occasionally in business, we all run in to the same problem: you've got a video that needs to be shot and released urgently but there's a roadblock - you can't get the video shot in time. Maybe your staff is all over the country, maybe your staff simply doesn't have the time, maybe your in-house video content producers are busy with another project. It's a real problem that does present quite often, but there are answers.
1. Make a selfie video. Everyone nowadays has a phone with a decent camera, so send out some guidelines for your staff and ask them to film their message to camera. While the production value might be lower, the added personal touch will compensate nicely. Transfer the footage via a cloud sharing platform like WeTransfer or Google Drive and get an editor to put it all together.
Here are some guidelines for your staff to get you started:
Have your face lit brighter than the background (stand in front of a window or a light).
Have an interesting but clean and uncluttered backdrop, ideally something that reinforces your message (eg. for a teacher a classroom, for a mechanic a car on the hydraulic lift etc).
Make sure there's no excessive background noise. If a noise happens, start the take again.
Watch the video back before you decide you're done, to ensure you got it right.
Place yourself on one side of the frame, rather than the center.
Speak loudly and clearly, and as with public speaking, a silence is always preferable to an umm or an ahh.
2. Make a compilation of existing footage and fill in the blanks with text. Depending on what existing footage you have of your company, get creative and figure out what you can string together to make an engaging edit, then if you need to add something you don't have footage of, use on-screen text to convey it.
3. Motion graphics. Is your video something that might work with infographics and animation? It's costlier than other methods but the results are often outstanding and it doesn't require anything more than a motion graphics editor and an edit suite. You can also get someone to do a voice-over, requiring only a microphone and a quiet space, rather than a full production.
A bonus solution is to film interesting and visually appealing things when they happen, so that when the time comes that you need extra footage, you've got a whole library to choose from.
Keep in mind that another great solution is to combine any and all of the above. It could be a video introduced by one person, that then cuts to motion graphics and text, then to existing footage of your company, and then finishes with selfie videos from your staff. The possibilities are endless.
If you need extra help to get yourself out of a jam, feel free to contact us and we'll see if we can help you out.
