Even the shortest TV spot needs a structure to keep the viewer engaged. Longer form programmes need clear signposts for the audience to keep them interested and entertained. A series of edits cut to one piece of music just won’t cut it.
You want your audience to spend their valuable time with your programme… so ask yourself, would you?
Your programme should flow, starting with a bang, settling the audience and making them want to watch, then ordering the messages you want to deliver into clearly defined sections.
Use music stings to introduce new topics and ideas. Change the mood and vary the tempo of the music. If there’s a lot of information help the audience with clear chapter headings, in the same way that you would add paragraph breaks, headings or even a contents list to a long document, you should punctuate your programme.
Music does more than punctuate a programme it will dictate the tone, mood and overall impact of it.
Music comes in two keys – a minor and major key. Music in a minor key will sound mournful, introspective, music in a major key will feel joyful and uplifting. How you want your audience to feel should dictate the key of the soundtrack to your video.
When you’ve covered the basics, you can start to use music to paint a picture, add excitement, build anticipation and create an emotional response to your video. Think past the obvious and your audience won’t have the obvious response.
Here is a clip from a video we produced to launch a sales travel incentive to the Caribbean. The obvious thing here was to build with a morcheba style chillout music track, then use a Caribbean flavoured piece, like this:
The second clip is much more impactful. Same shots, same script, same length.
It can take a lot of research to find the right music track but when you find that peice of music that really lifts the film, its well worth the effort. In this instance, the client was inundated with requests from their audience for the name of the composer, so they could keep listening.
You might have the perfect song in mind, a great pop song with just the right message. Keep in mind copyright and synchonisation costs. If you produce anything with audio ‘synched’ with video, you will need to pay a license fee, or royalty to the record company and the artist. This can take weeks or sometimes months to negotiate, and in some instances, the artist may say they dont want their music used in an advert or promotional film.
Don’t let that put you off though, there are real benefits in using a pop music track. And when the vocal matches the mood of the programme perfectly, the results take your programme to another level. Here’s an example:
And here’s the last post in our back to basics guide - it’s all about the look.
Finally, once the programme content is all approved, colour grade it. Give the images a ‘look’ to reinforce the tone and subject matter. Grungy industrial greys, vibrant summer days, sunset city skies.
In the same way that your photographer would use Photoshop to colour correct, paint and polish an image ready to publish, treat every shot to bring out the contrast and saturation and give a programme a look.
An update from the world of online TV and video from Cathy Bentley and Andi Jepson, Directors at iceni®
Made to Measure –
At the Chartered Institute of marketing CIMCOM event in January, we spoke about how measurable digital content is, and how this is a relatively new thing for TV and video. TV and video delivered to the audience through traditional media channels is a linear experience.
Distributed online, TV and video can be indexed and linked to other relevant content, searched and ranked by the audience, and interacted with by viewers. Each and every interaction is measurable.
The exciting result of this is the ability to track and measure return on investment for viral, online tv and video campaigns. PPC (pay per click) campaigns are becoming CPA (cost per action) campaigns as audiences engage with video content.
Right now, audiences have a pivotal role in spreading your message. The challenge for Marketeers is to produce online advertising that is spreadable. But done well, a quality execution of a creative campaign can bring your brand the kind of attention that only the really big spenders in traditional advertising once enjoyed.
Google on TV –
Announced earlier this year, Google search may be coming to a TV near you. It’s very unusual for Google to shout so much about a product so long before it is due to launch, but the idea is that a Google box delivers online search and video content to your TV.
The publicity from Google says that the search feature will list all of your channels, recorded shows, YouTube and other websites. It’s not a big leap to imagine Google’s TV search results preferring video content, and if this is the future, then brands need search friendly video and plenty of it.
At the January CIMCOM event, we introduced video sitemaps and how to submit your video content to Google so it shows up in the search results. Even though there is a massive amount of video content being uploaded every day, there is still a lot more text than video, and Google search results wants video. So getting your video content indexed and ranked by Google is a quick way to appear in a good position in natural search results.
Who knows, getting your branded TV show online today may put you at the top of the list when Google takes over TV.
Background:
Cathy and Andi are Directors at iceni®. iceni® create award-winning promo’s, adverts, TV and virals for ambitious brands. They have over 40 international awards for effective and creative content dished up to audiences in all sorts of interesting ways. www.iceni.tv
I just wanted to say a quick note on location noise. The rule is that background noise is okay if it’s a consistent level and you can see the source of the noise in the shot. So, for example, if you’re going to film a shot in a call centre and you will see people working in the call centre in the background, then call centre background noise is okay.
But if you can’t see the source of the noise, its really offputting and as a viewer you feel like you want to look around the corner of the screen to see where its coming from.
If the sound you’ve recorded is distorted, there’s really very little you can do about it so it’s vital that you are monitoring sound throughout your filming.
And sound is important in the edit too. If you have graphics or special effects, don’t forget to add sound effects.
As with all post production, this is time consuming but it makes a huge difference and brings your graphics to life. Here’s an example:
Well, ideally you can leave this to your video director and cameraman but you may be asked to find a filming location so here are a couple of pointers.
Never interview people up against a flat wall, even if it does have a poster on it.
There’s nothing more corporate than an interview in a meeting room with plain walls and a plant in the background.Avoid at all costs!
Even if it’s the CEO you’re filming, get them out into the call centre, outside, in the cafeteria, on the stairwell – anywhere other than a blank walled meeting room.
So what should you look for – well, the larger the filming location, the better.
The more depth behind a speaker, the more interest there will be in your shot.
If you’re on the shoot, look at the shot on the monitor.
If you see something in the background that looks messy or strange, move it. If you don’t, this is all you’ll ever see when you watch your video.
Your production team should be studying this and tweaking things and people as they go.
Whether you’re producing a presenter-led or interview based programme, you are going to need cutaways.
Cutaways are shots that you cut away to. If you need to remove a section of an interviewee’s answer, you need another shot to cover the edit point. Cutaways give you control over your message.
It’s rare that you’ll see a person talking on TV for long without a change of shot. Because we’re all used to this level of visual stimulation, it’s really hard to watch the same shot for more than a few seconds without starting to lose focus on what’s being said. It doesn’t matter how interested you are.
So if you want viewers to absorb your message, then you need to keep things moving. If your aim is to train or inform, it will really help the audience to see footage of the subject matter.
So as I’m sure you’ll agree, this is a very straightforward, conventional way of producing a programme.
There are a couple of points I want to make about cutaways though.
First of all, filming cutaways usually takes longer than it does to film the actual interview itself, so time needs to be allocated in the shooting schedule.
Secondly cutaways need to be planned.
If you only have a few hours with an interviewee, you’ll need to film quickly. This means that location permits, extras, stand ins and props all need to be organised beforehand.
Of course, you can’t plan shots to illustrate an interview unless you know what the interviewee will say. So, the director needs to speak to them prior to the shoot. This also helps to establish a rapport and gives the interviewee chance to voice any concerns they may have about the filming.
It may not always be possible to film shots of the subject matter. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t film cutaways. Here are some examples.
The Hong Kong Revealed project for HKTB, Cathay Pacific and Travel 2 wins the Silver Screen Award at the 2010 US International Film and Video Festival.
The campaign demonstrated a complete ‘Online Production’ to scoop the award, including a TV show, a competition website, a national search for 3 star presenters, videos on youtube, tweets from the shoot as it happened, blogging directly to the Travel Trade Gazzette, and a swanky launch at an exclusive West End cinema.
The 2010 US International Film and Video Festival attracted entries from 25 countries.
The client commented, ‘I would not hesitate to recommend this professional, organised and talented team to colleagues within the Travel Industry… the finished film is amazing!’
‘iceni were a pleasure to work with. The end result is spectacular.’
The U.S. International Film & Video Festival, which was founded in 1967, recognizes outstanding Corporate, Documentary, Educational, Entertainment and Student productions.
This is All Together Week. A DVD resource in 5 languages, produced for the National Deaf Children’s Society and supported by Big Lottery Fund.
Today is Friday, the last day of All Together Week, and we’re hand painting… this is going to get messy!
All Together Week is five days of fun activities from colouring in to ball games. It’s a series of films featuring interviews with grandparents, mums, dads, brothers and sisters talking about being in a family with a deaf son, daughter or sibling.
