How to keep your business videos on the rails—and on budget

Great photo by Yan Krukau.

We can’t count how many corporate videos we write here at Copel Communications. That’s because video is simply a killer medium, however you look at it: 

• It’s dense, combining visuals and narration faster and more succinctly than any other medium. 

 

• It’s low-hurdle consumption, since it’s way easier for your prospect to watch your video than, say, read your white paper. 

 

• Extra bonus: The hosting platforms out there really love it and favor it, aiding and abetting your SEO efforts. 

 
But video can be a killer in other ways, too. Like production budget. Turnaround time. And keeping the project on track as it goes. 
 
In this article, we’re going to explain a way to keep your next corporate video on-track, using a technique we’ve developed, honed, and proven over the years. 
 
Note that we say “corporate video.” The technique we’re about to describe doesn’t work for narrative films, home movies, or Hollywood blockbusters. But it’s great for videos you need to make quickly and cost-effectively—and which, more than anything, sell.
 
The old-school approach
 
A video script is formatted in two columns: one for audio, and one for video. Very straightforward. (And wholly different from, for example, the WGA format for screenplays, which is structured to support dialogue being delivered by actors within a given scene.)
 
But if you ever looked at a video script, you’ll know, without even reading it, that it’s hard to read. It’s like looking at the blueprint of a jetliner and trying to figure out what makes it fly. 
 
There’s stuff all over the place: Indications for on-screen titles, transitions, sound effects, music cues, suggestions for stock footage, directions for layering of motion graphics, et cetera, et cetera. 
 
It’s a very useful tool for a video editor. Or a voice-over artist. But for you (or for your client), it’s pretty indigestible. 
 
The old-school approach is straightforward: Start with that script.
 
And that’s the rule we’re about to break. 
 
Going rogue
 
There actually is somewhat of an analogy for the work-around we’re about to describe. And it’s based not in corporate video, but in feature films. 
 
In Hollywood, it’s known as the “treatment.” For our corporate purposes, we’ll call it “the spine.” 
 
It goes something like this: 
 
A Hollywood screenplay is typically just over 100 pages long (with the rule of thumb being one page for each minute of on-screen time). The treatment is a short narrative description of what happens in the finished movie. Like a synopsis. It could be a page; it could be five pages. Regardless, it’s quicker and easier to read than a 100-page screenplay. And it can be useful in getting people with limited time to wrap their heads around the movie-to-be. 
 
The treatment, as we’d noted, is a narrative, third-person account of the story and its characters. But a good creative treatment should be fun to read, and typically will include some choice snippets of dialogue, to help convey the mood and “sell” the piece. 
 
The ”spine,” for your corporate video, is similar. But it’s even simpler. The original name we’d given it was the “audio spine,” and that should tell you a ton. 
 
Think about it. Your corporate video doesn’t feature, say, two characters toughing it out in an argument or bar-room brawl. It shows stuff that you do, and a voice-over narrator is your guide. 
 
Ta-dah. That’s where the “audio spine” comes from. 
 
If you can write that announcer track, you’ve cleared a huge hurdle. 
 
Plus, you have something that, unlike a two-column video script, is incredibly easy to digest, regardless of the reader/audience. 
 
Hence, the “spine.” 
 
On your way
 
So the trick is to write that “spine” first. Iterate and improve it via review and revision. Then get sign-off on it.
 
From there, you can paste the approved “spine” into the “Audio” column of your to-be video script. At that point, it becomes straightforward—although of course, not simple—to populate the rest of the script with visuals, sound effects, and all the other elements we’d mentioned above. 
 
The nice thing about starting with a “spine” is that it’s fast and easy. It locks the most important element of your video script early. Which keeps all the subsequent steps on-track, and thus faster and better cost-contained. 
 
We use this approach a lot. So should you. 
 
Need help with video scripting? We’d love to come to your rescue. Contact us today to get started. 

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