This is the first in our ‘video basics’ series where we will be examining the foundations of putting a video together from planning, to tech, to recordings and then post-production.
It’s only natural then, to start with thinking about five key things that should be considered at the very beginning of your planning. Watch the video to find out more.
This first video asks five questions to consider before we even start looking at cameras, what other equipment to use and all that sort of stuff. It’s really important that you first decide why exactly you’re making a video and what you’re gonna use it for because that’s gonna inform every decision you make about what you use to record it, where you record it, and pretty much everything else. So let’s have a look at these five questions.
1 – The message
What is the message what are you trying to convey with this video that you’re going to make? Is it simply an online service? Where you’re replicating perhaps what you’d give on a sunday morning – that kind of engagement, or is it for a particular purpose? Is it advertising or promoting something that’s happening in your church? Or perhaps is it trying to feed people into contacting you via email or by the phone? These are important thoughts to consider as they will inform how you put the video together.
2 – The audience
Once you’ve figured out what exactly the message of the video is going to be you’ve got to think who is this message going to? Is it going to be your congregation or is it people out there in your local community who perhaps you’ve not contacted before? Knowing the audience of your video is one of the key things that is going to set the tone of your language and also the general feel of the video.
3 – The subject
What is the subject is it going to be? One or two people just like this video – a talking head in front of a camera? Or is it going to be involving a bigger team, perhaps in an auditorium, maybe with a worship band? Or is it going to be more of an interview style with people sharing a testimony? Knowing a subject is going to massively influence what cameras you decide to use, how many to use, what lighting you decide to go with and how to mic everything up as well, so it’s really important to be really sure of what your subject is going to be before ploughing into investing in equipment or deciding technical specifications for the film you’re about to record.
4 – The narrative
This is quite similar to the message in some ways, but think about it like this. If your message is to advertise an event that’s happening at your church and you want your viewers, your audience, to go down there, how are you going to convey this message through the narrative of your video? Is it going to be purely informative – one person (like me now) telling you how to do something or what to do, or is it going to be told through people who perhaps have already been to previous events and they’ve experienced how good they are? Is it going to be them telling bits of their story which is in turn going to encourage the audience watching your video to go along and experience it for themselves? Narrative has a big part to play in how effective a video can be at communicating its message.
5 – The end output
Finally number five, what is the endoutput of this video going to be? Is it going to be live streamed via various channels on the internet such as YouTube or Facebook Live? Or is it going to be shown on a big screen in your church building itself? Or is it meant to be viewed perhaps just on a mobile phone in a facebook or other social media scrolling feed? These sorts of things can also really affect the narrative and the style of video that you make, so it’s another key thing to consider before even starting to try and put together a plan to make your video.
So there we have five really important things for you to think about beforemaking your video that are gonna really influence a lot of decisions you make after that in the planning stages.
