Three ways to make a good video great - and the pug in the diaper
- Sat, July 30 2011
- Filed under: Video
After I posted a terrific 100,000 Homes campaign video earlier this week, several of you wonderful readers sent me your own videos.
Woody Bartley of A Chance for Bliss shared this video about his wonderful pet sanctuary. He asked for advice – and kindly agreed to my posting his video and the advice here. I also invited two super smart people to weigh in on the video – Mark Rovner and Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies. Here’s the video – and our advice.
Advice:
1. Cut the introduction from the video. This is a case of telling not showing – telling us how to feel, telling us what we’re about to see and telling us why it matters. It’s abstract and intangible. Woody, you’re much better off diving into the real story right away, beginning with breakfast for the pups. You had us at the pug in the diaper, so let that darling creature lead things off. This reminds of another piece of advice we often give – throw out the first paragraph of your appeal. It’s natural to warm up to a topic when you’re telling a story. That’s fine for drafts. But for prime time, you should delete the warm-up and get to the heart of things.
2. Cut the overall video length, unless this is a longer video meant to be shown at a gala. For online, you want two minutes maximum. Shorter is better – and more powerful.
3. Punch up the call to action. The video gets rather bleak at the end with all the language around limited resources. Turn it to a positive with a stronger call to action at the end – Give us $X and we will do $x with a link. People feel moved, so hit them with a specific ask.
Woody, thanks for sharing your work. We wish you great success in fundraising, because the images of those animals will be with us for a long time to come!
Comments
Great video, and super advice.
One question, why are they a .com rather than a .org? Maybe I’m too cynical, but it was a red flag to me…
This video has a good story and wonderful shots of people and animals both. Fantastic!
A few suggestions:
I think that the information at the end about the couple’s own economic struggles is very important, actually. Otherwise, this looks like a millionaire couple who have just opened their home to a lot of animals. Not much of a need demonstrated in that case. On that note, I think the moment we see that lovely kitchen we need the narrator to tell us, “This looks like a really nice home for a family. Can you believe it’s a family of over two dozen needy animals?” I spent vital time wondering, “Am I watching an episode of Animal Hoarders?” (no offense meant). In other words, orient the viewer to where we are, right when we get there. Otherwise the viewer is distracted from important information and feelings.
A good video editor can get this down to under 4 mins. without cutting any of the story lines in total. Yes, the intro can go.
Just a small thing, but at some point the narrator says, “Old and sick, the couple ...” That’s a misplaced modifier. You meant to modify the animals, but the sentence is spoken as if the couple were old and sick.