So what's the point of a video?

Last week I came across a video promoting children's swimming lessons at our local pool.

It was visually beautiful. A wonderful montage of shots of smiling children swimming set to some carefully choosen music. Nearly 3 minutes of footage which, ultimately, told me diddly squat about the lessons, what the children could achieve, the support they get - all the questions I wanted to know but couldn't find the answers to.

 What the company missed was an opportunity to talk direct to the parents and potential customers – explaining what they want to achieve with their swimming lessons and how they go about it.

So what are videos for? What do you want to tell your audience and how are you going to do that? This should be part of the planning process before you even pick up the camera. I'm not talking about storyboarding as such as I'm not a great fan of such prescriptive filming, but thinking about what your audience would like to know before hand is essential.

This film by Bamboo Sushi does just that. In a creative and innovative way it promotes the company and it's products by explaining the history behind every plate of sushi that it serves.

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The Story of Sushi from Bamboo Sushi on Vimeo.

Now the sushi video is probably beyond many people reading this, but there is no reason why  standard talking head interviews cannot be used as creatively to give an insight into your company or organisation, instilling a sense of confidence and expertise in your products and services.

Turning a talking head interview into a concept is exactly what the BBC have done in Five Minutes With....

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So how do you do give the audience what they want?

• Think of your audience first and foremost. What do they want to learn from your video?
  
• Use the old journalist checklist: What ,When, Where, Why and How to plan your video 
  
• Plan but allow for creativity on the shoot
  
• Don't just put a video on and hope for the best - introduce it in a written 'lead in' outlining who is talking to who, what topics and issues they cover and how long it it.
• If you have the material consider filming a series - using the same or similar backdrop to create continuity film several videos which you can then release weekly or monthly keeping your website fresh and giving your 

Otherwise, beautifully shot and edited as the swimming video is, what is the point of a watching something that leaves you no better informed at the end than at the beginning?