Advent Media's Basic Production Values

The easiest cop-out for video producers is to put talent behind a desk to read a script. Sometimes they’ll put the talking head in a different environment, but it’s usually “yak, yak, yak” The talking head videos that work are of big-name speakers who have entertaining stories to tell, and these videos usually run 30 minutes or more. And that’s what makes talking heads work: time. The speaker, whom the audience wants to hear, has the talent to develops word pictures that engage the audience. In a typical corporate video, you don’t have time, (and the CEO doesn’t usually have the screen presence) to do that. Now that doesn’t mean you'll never see talking heads, but when I use them, they’re only on screen for a very short time, or what they say is illustrated by other imagery.

Illustrate, Illustrate, Illustrate

This is kind of like the old real estate mantra, “location, location, location.” Because we never had the luxury of talking heads with slide shows, we found the true power of illustrating every point in the script. Whether it’s a chart, graphic, or an illustrative shot of what’s being talked about, illustration meets the needs of audiences with different learning styles simultaneously.

Lasting Impressions

One of my axioms is “people forget details, but they remember impressions.” The impression is conveyed on an emotional level, so it’s almost MORE important to create the right mood than to get really detailed on the content. How do we want the audience to feel when the show is over? Happy? Concerned? Confident? Fired up? Ready for action? By carefully crafting music, show pacing, narration, voice actualities, and other elements, we can move your audience into retaining the lasting impression you need.

Bringing It Home

How do you get complicated processes communicated in a very efficient manner? By creating scenarios that people can relate to. We once compared Quality Assurance at a nuclear power plant to maintaining a toilet at home. It worked. By looking for ways to connect with your audience, even the most complicated subject matter can become easy to understand.

The Road Map

“Getting there is half the fun,” as they say. The most critical piece of pre-production is defining the “single most important impression you want your audience to understand.” That statement will become the “focus” of the entire work, governing the content and mood. Once that is defined, it’s critical to make sure the audience knows where they are every second in the presentation. The technique is to craft carefully-defined segments, and buffer them with transitional devices. The segment is a bite-sized piece of the content that could almost stand on its own, and at a length that meets the attention span needs of the audience. The transition leads the viewer logically from one segment to another. This way, instead of thinking “what are they talking about?” your audience will leave thinking, “I’m glad I thought of that.”

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