Participation in corporate videos, which often requires staff members to engage in talking heads, can be a daunting process for the uninitiated. When your desired audience views your corporate video you will want the video’s message to resonate clearly with them. Obviously, the quality and content of the production will have a great impact on how it is received but what is likely to be most appealing is a video in which the staff come across as open, natural and confident.
Whilst achieving this may not be easy, a professional video production company, with experience in the field, will have acquired certain techniques to enable your staff members to engage in the process with confidence. The key to doing this is to make your members of staff feel at ease with the process and we set out below some of the methods that professional video production companies employ in pursuit of this goal.
- Preparation and Training
Spending as much time as possible with the members of the staff team who are to be interviewed not only makes them more relaxed with the interviewer but also allows the interviewer an invaluable insight into their backgrounds and personalities, which will give him or her a grasp of how best to work with them. It also provides opportunities to train them in interview techniques and carefully explain what is required of them so that they have a clear brief to follow.
- Emphasise that there are no time limits
If a person feels that their efforts are taking too long and are frustrating the production they are likely to become even more flustered. At the outset, staff members should be encouraged to feel that there are no time pressures upon them. To do the contrary –even if true- is likely to prove counterproductive.
- Phrasing the Questions
To elicit the answers that you require it is essential to ask the right questions and to phrase them correctly. This will involve the production company in ascertaining from you exactly what message you want the staff member to give and then framing the questions in such a manner that they are able to comfortably deliver it. It is seldom beneficial to ask repeated questions that involve only a “yes” or “no” answer. Instead, the interviewer should ask questions that require more expansive answers, which, coming directly from a member of staff, will resonate more with the audience.
- Autocue
It may be easier with certain members of staff, who find it difficult to memorise the subject matter, to provide the option of autocue. Experienced corporate video producers will be able to assess, through a short rehearsal, whether this is more (or less) likely to produce the type of polished, confident and natural interview that is required.
- Makeup and Lighting
Sensitive treatment of the issues of makeup and lighting are further examples of how professional video producers can put an interviewee at ease and enhance the probability that they will come across as confident members of a successful, thriving organisation.
There are many aids to the process of enabling the participants in a corporate video to produce the effect that is required. Achieving this aim is undoubtedly a process that will be assisted by the employment of a professional video production company.