Recycling, reusing, repurposing, aren’t we doing it all the time in our daily lives. Whether for adjusting towards bigger issues like the pandemic or economic meltdowns, or for the betterment of public and personal growth, it is absolutely necessary to re-develop the old, and find newer, better versions out of it.
And video production is no different. Any company with a serious digital presence needs videos for product marketing, training, trade shows, case studies or testimonials – you name it. But just because you can’t afford to bring together a team to set up cameras, lights and microphones each time doesn’t mean you can’t produce a new video. Editing and re-editing videos creatively will help solve a need or two, at all times. You just have to get more creative and resourceful.
So, then, how do we start?
First revisit your original goals.
- What’s your overall message and goal?
- Who’s the audience?
- What should viewers think, feel or do after watching the video?
- How will you use the video – in what digital placements and physical settings?
For those times when you can’t shoot more video – or you simply don’t have the budget for an extensive production shoot, repurposing assets is actually a wise and well-established METHOD.
Strategy 1
If you’re fortunate (like me!) to work for a company that has invested in capturing quality video and photography over the years, your task becomes pretty much easier to execute. Go check all records and you will find raw files, half done videos, or leftover photos, I bet you will discover way more assets than you think.
- There’s a very good chance your product marketing managers and your colleagues in Communications have done photo shoots of products – which originally were used to create printed sales brochures.
- Or your Communications team shot previous video of the headquarters, manufacturing plants, service teams and employees to create a vision & values video for the company.
You’ll begin to see opportunities where this existing footage and images fit perfectly. Let’s look at an example: Say you need to create a 90-second high-energy product video to loop on a screen at a tradeshow. Or maybe it will be placed on a product landing page next to a call-to-action button.
Let’s look over how you can use the present stuff to give it a new look and feel.
- You’ve found great photography of the product or service from sales brochures or the website.
- You got images or video from the manufacturing plant to fill in the part of your script where you talk about quality and employee pride.
- You may also have images from company headquarters to talk about the mission and values embedded in every product.
- Maybe an exciting journey of an old logo developing into the present company logo to represent the solid reputation you’re promoting.
- Did you dig some testimonials as well? If you do not have video testimonials, you could have testimonials in print. You can use those in your video with creative text treatment on screen.
Next steps: After you refine the storyboard and script, hire a professional narrator. Et voila! you just created a beautiful re-edited video.
Keep in mind, a narrator for a healthcare video will sound very different from a narrator talking about outdoor power tools. Choose the voiceover talent who has the “quality and tone” that aligns with your audience and your brand. The same thought applies to selecting licensed production music.
Strategy 2
If you don’t have enough old material from earlier videos and stills, this is where Stock footage and stock images can come into play.
Stock image videos are commonly used for aspirational and highly conceptual videos.
- For example, the script or storyboard focuses on outcomes derived from using your product or service, rather than the actual features & benefits themselves.
- Think of happy, healthy people – living their lives better because of your product or service.
By the way, if you’re not familiar with stock footage and images, just do a Google search on that term and plan on spending a few hours going down a rabbit hole.
Choose (and buy as required) a stock of pictures that depict your key goals, your mission and would be able to reach out to your target audience, hand it over to your video production partner. In case you can’t figure it out on your own, still hand it all over to your video production partner.
Video production teams or video re-edit teams are very good at identifying quality images – since they also SHOOT them for a living.
Brainstorm with them about the kinds of images that fit your script or storyboard. Explain to them about your goals and audience and standards you want to set. Allow them to be creative, but keep reminding them the core objectives. Done well, these stock image videos can be highly effective in setting the tone for your company’s product or service and image.
Strategy 3
COMBINING Stock footage videos WITH customized and branded graphics & animation. Are you not already feeling your creative juices running in speed?
Imagine this scenario:
- You WERE able to find a few good video assets hunting through your company’s archive as we described in strategy #1
- Then, you supplemented those assets by searching and downloading several very well-chosen stock images as in option #2 to visualize the outcomes of your products & services.
Now we use our creativity to customize to make this look like your company’s original deal. You add graphics animation to further tell your story – and do it in a way that follows the tone and look of your brand. When you mix in graphics with existing assets and stock imagery, it customizes the video and enhances the pacing and energy of the video.
There is a few ideas to explore:
Why not use an animated overlay with text on screen to highlight the process?
Or let the storyboard describe the inner workings of your product.
Why not SHOW your customers an animated exploded view or cutaway?
If we go back to our example of a video for a tradeshow or a product landing page on the company’s website, this strategy 3 is highly effective.
Strategy 4
Fully animated video – If you’re doing a product video, you can show the features & benefits with call-out copy, then it can morph into showing the application of the product at the customer’s site. I particularly love animated “explainer” videos on product landing pages. There’s something about animation that captures people’s attention. Your creative team can make it icon-based, or use text on screen, or insert Symbols or highly-conceptual movements that suggest processes and outcome.
Besides the creative mix of animation with your images, you can further invest in choosing a narrator and a music bed for the video. That way your animated video can take on a “feel” or a “tone” and completely showcase your unique style.
We hope these 4 production strategies we talked about get your creative juice flowing and help you make the most of your production dollars. You may have to do a little hunting to find assets though. From now on, we suggest to make re-edit videos as a task in your to-do list every quarter or every two months.
