Perhaps the biggest challenge video marketers and video production companies face every year is how to stand out. How do you make your message stick when you’re showing it to an audience that spends a third of their online time watching at least five different videos? There’s no replacing well-drawn storyboards, excellent scripts, or superb acting, but that doesn’t mean placing all your resources into that sole area of video production.
THE VIDEO FORMULA
A video is meant to educate, engage, and entertain. A successful video is one that can strike a balance between all three. Too much entertainment, and the message is lost. Too much education, and you run the risk of early opt-outs. Too much engagement, and the viewers are intimidated.
While getting the formula right is, admittedly, a trial-and-error process most of the time (marketing, like many things, is at the mercy of trends), there are a number of things video producers and marketers can do to increase their chances; market research, trend awareness, target audience examination, marketing strategies, and so on.
Of course, having out-of-this-world visuals can help a ton.
PLAYING WITH TIME
As it turns out, flashy effects, 3D graphics, and professional-grade green screening aren’t the only recipes for a stunning show. Simple but clever concepts executed beautifully by the best video editing services can make for gorgeous audio-visual displays that are completely unforgettable. Here are the top three:
STOP MOTION
Stop-motion videos are great examples of still images stitched together to form something mesmerizing and highly entertaining. Inspired by the concept of Claymation, stop-motion videos are basically hundreds of pictures running, one after the other, to create a seamless film reel without the need for too many program-added special effects.
The name comes from the procedure itself; the subject’s motions need to be chunked down into individual segments, each featuring the action at different stages. A shorter version of this would be an animated GIF.
Stop-motion video, like Target’s Every Colour You Can Dream Of advertisement in Australia, is a great way to introduce new products or – like the example – new product lines.
PHOTO SLIDESHOW
It may be hard to imagine a photo slideshow as entertaining, given that it’s literally just a compilation of pictures shown, one after the other. Fortunately, the beauty of this concept lies in its execution and its simplicity. You don’t need a lot of technical know-how or experience to put together a bunch of pictures and set them to music.
A great way to pull off a photo slideshow is to pick one focal point – say, the subject – and keep it as a constant. Meanwhile, the background or setting could change dramatically. Take Buzzfeed’s What Does The World Eat For Breakfast? video. The focus is the same white plate and mug, but what changes – without any transition whatsoever – is the background color and the food.
Perfect for showing off photoshoots or physical landmarks, slideshows are a great way to really make your subject pop.
TIMELAPSE
If you still feel that photo slideshows lack a certain dynamic quality, timelapse videos can achieve the same mesmerizing quality while still staying in motion. Timelapse video production services basically capture people, procedures, or scenery over a pretty long period of time. The resulting film is then sped up, and you’re left with a video that is almost hypnotic and extremely satisfying to watch.
Dove’s Evolution video is as mesmerizing as it is powerful. By speeding up the makeup, photoshoot, and photoshopping process, you’re able to see just how drastic the model’s face has been changed, given that her original face is still fresh in your mind. Timelapse videos are extremely useful for showing the viewer a somewhat lengthy process or procedure without losing the viewer’s interest.
