Too much to say? Too little time to say it? How your video editor can help.
TL:DW
(too long, didn’t watch)
Do you love to talk about your business? Do you sometimes feel frustrated trying to succinctly describe what you do and how you help your clients? Because there’s just so much to say?
That’s a challenge a lot of people face. It can be especially daunting when planning content for your company’s “About Us” video. The recommended length for an About Us video is two minutes. Three minutes, tops. How can you possibly say everything you need to in that short amount of time?
Carefully scripting each word and memorizing it to get your timing right is one option. Memorized talks, though, don’t always have the same sense of authenticity as spontaneous answers do. That is, unless you’re a trained speaker or actor.
The good news
When you hire a professional videographer, you don’t have to plan what you’re going to say word for word. And you definitely don’t have to get it right on the first take.
Taking what you say in an on-camera interview and making it concise, impactful, and the right length is your video editor’s job. As an editor, one of my superpowers is the ability to take a long interview and distill it down to the most essential sound bites that connect a business to its target market. In fact, it’s one of my favorite things to do.
Condensing 40 years of history into 2 minutes, 53 seconds
My most memorable example of “distilling it down” is a video we did a few years ago, for the 40th Anniversary of Women Business Owners of Seattle.
Doing this project was like making a mini-documentary, complete with interviews, historic photos, b-roll, and a voiceover. Not only did we have 40 years of history to cover, we also interviewed five different women. The interviews alone gave us a total of almost 30 minutes of content. And we needed to get it all down to under 3 minutes for the video.
Obviously we couldn’t say everything there is to say about this fantastic organization in that amount of time. Nonetheless, in the end we believe we captured the essence of WBO – where they came from, who they are, and where they’re
Reduce stress, connect with clients
Whether your organization has been around for four months or four decades, a good video editor can help you connect with your ideal clients while taking the stress off of you to write and memorize a script.
