| by Terry Axelrod, Founder and CEO, Benevon
What Makes a Compelling Video
Part Five
Sometimes you don’t really know how great your organization
is until you see it on video, one of the most powerful and
magical mediums for storytelling. Creating a moving seven-minute
video that brings people to tears three times is another great
way of re-igniting the passion for the mission of your organization.
Whether used stand-alone or as part of a larger program—the
video has one main purpose: to evoke emotion. While you certainly
want the video to educate people about your work, it is far
more important that it inspire them and move them to tears.
Do not expect your seven-minute video to cover each of your
programs in detail. In fact, it may not cover each of them
even briefly.
The challenge of producing a great video is in synthesizing
your work down to its essence. That means boiling it down
to the impact your organization has on the lives of real people.
After all, real people will be watching your video. Real people
will be giving money to your organization. As individuals,
we are emotional donors looking for rational reasons to justify
our emotional decisions to give. If the guests at your events
are not moved and inspired by your work, they will not be
likely to give.
I strongly recommend you engage a professional video producer,
someone who has a track record of making this type of video.
Take the time to find the right person. Most nonprofit organizations
have someone associated with them who can help get a video
made. Perhaps it is a person in the training department of
a local corporation, a friend in the TV newsroom, or a student
at a local college. Finding people to donate their services
to produce a video may not be that difficult. The challenge
is to find someone who can make this particular type of video.
Production Costs
Think twice before you accept a generous offer for donated
video production by a volunteer, board member, or friend of
a friend. Those sorts of offers often come with strings attached;
once you have accepted their offer, it becomes difficult to
critique their work or request the number of edits that may
be necessary to get what you want. All too often, we find
groups who end up with a video that is only 75 percent of
what they wanted, because it was too difficult to deal straight-forwardly
with the pro bono video producer.
The cleanest way to get the video you want is to pay an expert
to produce it for you. Current costs, depending on where you
are located, start at a bare minimum of $7,000-$10,000. The
cost increases with each additional feature added to the production,
such as high definition, increased shoot days, expensive music,
etc.
Before you discard the notion of paying a professional to
do the job, consider the many sources of funding available
to you—a grant, donor, or funds from your budget.
What to include?
I recommend that the heart and soul of your video be your
mission. Have someone—ideally the visionary leader (executive
director or CEO) of your organization or one of the beneficiaries
of your service—say that mission out loud in the video.
Then relate each program to it.
Choose no more than three programs to showcase in your video.
Find a way to link them to your mission and to each other.
For each program, tell a few facts and have a testimonial
speaker share how his life has changed, thanks to that program.
Thread these together with a narrator or main voice (often
one of your own staff or board). Another way to accomplish
this is by having the narrator ask the same questions of each
testimonial speaker. Questions like: “What was your
life like before you learned about this organization?”
“How did you hear about it?” “What is your
life like now?” “What would you like others to
know about this organization?”
Consider the elements of your emotional hook as you prepare
the video. For example, if nostalgia is part of what moves
people about your organization, you might interview your testimonial
speakers about their favorite memories of camp, a former counselor
or teacher. Think of what hooks you! It may not be as complicated
as you’d expect.
Beyond the images and the voices, the music you choose can
make all the difference.
Test it Out
Finally, once you have refined the video to the point that
you are satisfied with it, show it to several people who will
tell you the truth. In most cases, it will need to be more
emotional. Or perhaps people will tell you that it needs more
factual content. While it may have moved them to tears, they
still may not understand what your organization does or how
some of the programs you offer fit together.
Two of my favorite videos were made very simply and on relatively
low budgets. The first, put together by an organ donor organization,
was a series of simple ten-second testimonials from organ
donor recipients: “My life began again on May 10, 1993,”
spoken by a woman holding her baby, or the man on the golf
course saying: “I got my new life on July 7, 1996.”
There were about twelve of these people who quickly each said
the date they got their new lease on life thanks to a new
organ that had been donated. The video also included a couple
of people who were obviously quite debilitated, saying that
every day they pray their phone will ring with the news that
someone donated the vital organ they need.
All the while, in the background, was simple, moving music.
The video was about five minutes long, interspersed with still
shots of facts: “X number of people received organ transplants
last year. X number died because there was no organ available.
You could make the difference. Sign up to be an organ donor
today.”
The last testimonial was a man holding his baby and saying,
“Every day of my life since March 22, 1997, has been
a gift. I thank the Organ Donor Program for the gift of my
life every single morning.”
Another outstanding video was produced by a school for children
with learning disabilities. It started with shots in the classroom
of teachers and students deeply engaged in learning, then
shifted to short clips of parents and children, who looked
straight into the camera one at a time and thanked the particular
teachers who changed their lives and the lives of their children.
Great music, clean footage, no huge budget, less than seven
minutes. A great investment.
Production Time
Many groups use the lengthy lead-time needed to produce a
video as an excuse for never making one. While more advance
time for planning is best, most of the final shooting and
editing can be done over a period of just a few days. We have
worked with some groups that produce their entire video, start
to finish, in less than two weeks’ time and others that
take up to six months to plan and produce their video.
Take the time to think through the video strategy that fits
for your organization. It will be part of the lasting legacy
you will be leaving.
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