WHAT VIDEO DO I USE?
Your assignment is to produce a five-minute video on colon cancer.
How do you visualize THAT?
You can’t shoot anything GROSS.
Sound impossible?
It’s really quite easy.
PERSONALIZE THE STORYPeople want to watch video stories about other people. Dry facts do not translate well onto video. So your first task is to think about people you can bring into your story.
First, start with an expert interview. No matter what kind of story you are doing, it should probably start with an expert interview. Experts give your story facts and credibility. Experts do something else…they lead you to people who can help you personalize the story.
If you’re doing a colon cancer story, ask the doctor you’re interviewing for the name of a patient. Arrange to take video of that person doing whatever they normally do in their life. Joe is a businessman, Joe is a firefighter, Joe is retired and likes gardening, whatever Joe does becomes your video.
Videotape Joe digging daffodils or battling blazes, whatever the case may be. Then write your script to make it sound like video of Joe fighting fires is the only video in the world that makes sense.
I suggest something less corny than:
“Battling raging fires isn’t the only fight Joe Patient has dealt with lately. He survived colon cancer. Like most cancer patients, Joe never thought it would happen to him. Hes a brave guy, the kind who runs into burning buildings when everybody else is running out. But Joe says defeating colon cancer was harder than fighting the scariest 4-alarm blaze.”
After you establish why the viewer is watching Joe fighting a fire, you can carry on using the completely irrelevant video and talk about colon cancer.
ADD AS MUCH VIDEO AS POSSIBLE
In your colon cancer story, even if you get video of the surgery, adding the firefighting video will increase visual variety and viewer interest.
- Show Joe watching TV and talk about recovery from cancer
- Show Joe cooking and eating dinner and the narration talks about the best diet to prevent colon cancer
- Show Joe walking the dog and discuss how exercise can prevent colon cancer
- Show Joe cuddling with the wife on the couch and talk about how grateful Joe is for having survived colon cancer
- Shoot Joe at the doctor’s office. Make sure and get a close-up of the doctor putting on those fun latex gloves.
Have fun and be creative! You can come up with ideas for video to visualize anything you want, even if–in reality–the video is TOTALLY irrelevant to your subject. Remember, TV video and reality have NOTHING to do with each other!
Not only does this method give you video to use, it makes your story into a STORY. People do not want to hear a bunch of dry facts. They want to hear about people and their experiences.
Any good story is about people. People who have emotions. THAT is what viewers relate to. So in this example of a story on colon cancer, you make the story about Joe, who happened to have colon cancer.
And that, my friend, is how you tell a story with video.
Thanks for reading Video Production Tips
Lorraine Grula
Internet Video Gal
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