Q is for Quality

My first word in video production is "understandability". Second word is actually a phrase, "relate to your target viewers". Quality in the video world, I think, tends to be more skewed towards some geek thinking that you need the latest and greatest 4k video camera or some other techie piece of gear. I think quality video needs to be steady and well lit, it does not need the latest and greatest tech to be good.

One reality of video is that all your high quality raw video, goes from this huge piece of video, all the way down to the size of a playing card, for viewing in a browser. The audio survives the downsizing better than the video. So I worry more about the audio, spending more time getting that recorded as cleanly as I can. This is usually complicated though by the tendency of the client to be nervous which is heard in their voice, and by the typical lack of preparation, such that the client requires several attempts before they have fluidly pieced together what they want to say. It is the audio that carries the "understandability". It is the words that the client chooses for the audio that "relates to their target viewers"

I think a good business video boils down to keeping things simple and easy to understand and speaking with the words that your hoped for customers are going to relate to.

P is for Pioneer Metal Finishing

Another one of my all time favorites. All about anodizing. This is nothing more than a tour of an industrial process. Great company. Great people. Good stuff.

O is for industrial business in Oregon, Wisconsin

Personally, this is my favorite kind of video. Most people only see industrial processes when they go by a delivery truck dropping off a finished product. A video like this takes the viewer inside the building and shows how powder coating happens. It explains the negatively charged object and the positively charged powder and the heat and melting.

It takes some of the mystery off and illustrates how the process is used on every day objects.

N is for Neu's Building Center

This guy was comfortable in his own skin. He had nothing planned in advance, at least that's what it looked like to me. We walked the store, he pointed out the objects most interesting to him and then we sat down for some audio. He rattled stuff off, got most of it right the first time and then we were done. No nerves. He know his store inside and out and what he wanted to feature and hoped to entice. A subject matter expert and well aware of the words he used and their impact. Nicely done overall I think. Once again simple and quickly understood by those viewing.

M is for Melt Your Snow

One of, if not the most unusual video I have done so far. Nothing fancy here. The owner talks, he did all of the voice bits onsite with work noise included. He was both in the shot while talking and his voice was added in to b-roll shots showing his equipment in action as he explained what it did.

Typically he works at night when there is little traffic. The hardest part was getting a client site scheduled after a snowfall and during daylight hours so we could film. It turned out to be a weekend, just to keep traffic issues at a minimum, but we had snow and the machine in real life working conditions. What a niche, and what a great way to explain something that is hard to explain. A picture is worth a thousand words!

L is for Landscaping Company

Another one of my favorites, but for different reasons. This time around, two things jump out at me. The first is the music. I think the music bed for this business video is one of the best fitting pieces for the style of the people and business. To my ears, the music is peppy and happy and fits the overall theme of the video really well.

The second piece that emerges is the understated humor. Their mascot simply walking through the scenes, for em was a hoot. No one had done that before or since. Understated. Just a funny looking character walking by or waving, never talking, until the end when the character delivers the closing.

Simple, full of information, good music and humor. All the things needed for a memorable piece of content to positively brand your company.

K is for Kula Yoga

Another one that goes in the "never heard of it, never seen it, what a big world this is"-category. Once I saw it though, I thought it was interesting. In cases like this where most new customers are likely to have never heard of such a thing, video performs a crucial job simply showing interested people what it is, how you do it, who the teacher is, and other curiosity-based questions. Neat stuff. Especially once I saw what it actually was.