2-Day video production challenge

Introduction:

Making films for your company is an exciting and creative endeavor, but it often seems like an arduous process that takes months or even years to complete. That can be intimidating when you have so much on your plate already. But what if we told you that you could craft a captivating short film for your business in just two days? Well, that is what this post is going to help you achieve. Welcome to the 2-Day Film Challenge, where we'll guide you through the steps of finding a compelling story, identifying the main characters, shooting cinematic B-Roll, and how to bring the story to life with editing. Let's get started!

Step 1: find your anchor

Every great film starts with a compelling concept or idea—the story's anchor. Often, marketers will make the mistake of filming without a story in mind, because it is assumed that they can spend an afternoon filming things and build a story out of the footage later. That is an incredibly difficult thing to do well even for filmmakers with years of video production experience.

Instead, you should make sure you have a great story in mind before you ever begin filming. It can be a customer testimonial, a story about an employee and their experience with the company, or maybe a documentary about how the company was formed. The anchor of your story should be something that you are personally interested in within the context of your business. The more interesting it is to you, the easier it will be to tell the story, and the more interesting it will be to your audience.

(Watch the full breakout session)

Step 2: identify the characters

Now that you have your anchor, it's time to give it life through the characters that will drive your story. For the challenge, you will find a total of 2-5 characters that intimately understand the story that you are trying to tell. These characters can be service technicians, salespeople, or even your customers, as long as they are part of the story you are trying to tell. These characters will be the heart and soul of your short film.

You will then pick 5 environments that coincide with the story to interview your characters in. Three of the interviews will be of your main character(s). Two of them will be for your supporting character(s). For each of the interviews, you should keep a scoreboard in your head. You are trying to get to ten points on your scoreboard for each interview. Every time they say something meaningful that you can use in your film, that is one point. Learn about their backgrounds, personalities, and motivations. What drives them to get out of bed and work hard every morning? Dig deeper and ask them “Why?” until you get the answers you are looking for. Do not let them off the hook until you get to ten points.

Step 3: b-roll

B-Roll is the supporting material that enhances your story, providing context, depth, and a visual narrative. Whilst at your interview locations gather the B-Roll you need to complement your anchor and characters. Whether it's scenic shots, close-ups of meaningful objects, or scenes that help convey your story, B-Roll is an important layer to tie your story together. At each interview location film 10 B-Roll clips that support your story and that can also be used as supporting materials for future campaigns or films. Examples could be: employees laughing, a technician working on a piece of equipment, boots in the mud, shaking hands with a customer, etc..

Getting good B-Roll footage is an essential piece to make your film look more professional. Here are some concepts to think about when you are filming: lighting, frame rate, sho composition, and image stabilization. Utilizing these concepts effectively will take your footage to the next level and help you stand out with your film.

Step 4: the edit

With your story, character interviews, and B-Roll ready, it's time to dive into the edit. Editing is where you weave your story together and bring your vision to life. There are a number of different softwares available to edit your footage with such as: Adobe Premiere, Final Cut, Davinci Resolve, iMovie and many others. Use whatever software you are comfortable with.

For the 2-Day Challenge, You are going to make 1 anthemic video and 10 short-form pieces. To edit the anthemic video, you will go through the process of making “champions”. These are essentially all of the best clips you filmed during your two day challenge. To find your champions you go through your footage and select “winners” and “losers”. If the clip is really good it is a winner. If it is bad, it is a loser and you cut it. Once you have chosen all of your winners, you repeat the process over and over until you have around five minutes of footage.

Now, all that is left, is to start weaving together your story. You are a writer at this stage. Listen to the interview clips and put them in an order that tells the story you are trying to tell. Then use a combination of your B-Roll champions to fill in the gaps between sound bites and add more context where needed. Throughout this process you should go through several drafts and revisions, this is to be expected. For the 10 short-form pieces use your new B-Roll to create 15-30 second videos that align with your upcoming campaigns.

How AdPipe can help

AdPipe is a great tool for creating a consistent stream of content. The platform uses a combination of creator and AI-driven tools to help you turn the existing video you have into great content to be used across all of your different platforms. Whether you need to build content for emails, paid ads, organic social, presentations, etc., AdPipe is a powerful tool to help you create more efficiently and save you money and time in the process. The platform allows you to generate motion-first assets up to ten times faster than you could before.

Conclusion:

In today's marketing world video is taking over. It is an important tool to boost engagement, build brand awareness, and drive leads. It is also a great way to humanize your brand and connect with your customers on a deeper level. Having to hire a production team every time you set out to make a new video is not going to cut it. You have to be able to do it yourself when necessary. Learning this skill takes time, but will lead to meaningful results the more you practice.

If you follow the steps in this challenge, in just two days you will have an anthemic film that can captivate, entertain, or inspire, and 10 short-form pieces to post on social media or use for paid advertising. This challenge is not just about creating a film; it's about leveling up your storytelling skills and displaying your team’s creativity.

The more you practice, the better you'll become, and the more quality content you’ll have to tell your story. You can repeat the video production challenge as many times as you like. Adapt the process to work best for your goals and to better fit your company’s style as you make more films. Good luck, and don’t forget the most important part, HAVE FUN!