Why hire a professional videographer?
I’m often asked by potential clients if they can produce their video themselves. My first answer is yes you can. You can also fix your car, cut your own hair and do lots of other things yourself. But without training, the proper equipment and experience, the results may not be what you’d like. My next answer is actually, there are some things you can do on your own to reduce your costs.
Reduce video production costs
The two things you can do on your own are pre-production activities such as writing the first draft of your script, and post production work such as editing your final video. However, you should really have a professional videographer shoot your footage, because if that’s not up to par, nothing else matters. Let’s go back to the things you can do.
Audience
The script starts with thinking about who your audience is. The purpose of your video is to communicate with people who you believe will buy your product or use your service. And the script must speak directly to them. So first, you need to think about who your audience is and what you want them to do after seeing your video. Next, prepare an outline of your ideas of what you would like to see in your video. These ideas should center around the three main strengths of your company, product or service. The outline is the skeleton or framework of your video. Then you need to arrange it in a logical order.
Tell a story
Next, you need to put flesh on the bones by creating a narrative. Your final first draft will have the audio (what people will hear) on one side of the page and what people will see on the other, broken into separate shots. Here’s how it might look:
| Shot # | Visual | Audio |
| 1 | Medium shot of John, the owner of the business, speaking to the camera with people working out in the background | Hi. I’m John Smith, owner of Big City Gyms. We offer a different type of exercise experience a Big City. |
| 2 | Medium shot of a few people wearing weighted vests doing some circuit training. | For instance, even though we do group exercises, each person wears a custom weighted vest for this training. |
| 3 | Medium shot of a few people working with thick ropes. | Working out with thick ropes is another unique approach we use. |
Once you have your script finalized, you need to prepare a shooting script where you group the shots according to location, rather than sequentially as they will appear in your final video. For instance, shots 6, 10, 19 and 23 might be filmed outside in a parking lot. To save time, money and hassle, it would be best to shoot them all at once.
Hire a professional videographer
I’d recommend paying to have a professional video company to review your script and give you suggestions on how it may be improved. The experience and skill of a professional videographer is needed to make sure that what you shoot and edit will make sense for your purposes. And it’s vital that you get your script right, because if it isn’t, nothing else matters. The production will fall short of achieving your goals.
You can also organize other pre-production activies aside from the script. You can screen and hire actors or other talent you may need for your production, arrange for client testimonials, identify locations, obtain props and other items you may need as well as other important things that need to get done before production begins. Next, comes the production phase of your video.
