Most corporate video looks like corporate video. Wide shots of a building, upbeat music, a voiceover describing values, a few people typing at desks.
It gets made, it goes on the website, and nobody watches it twice.
Here is what we do instead.
People, not messaging
Every video we make is built on interviews. An operator, a foreman, a founder, a customer.
Not because it is warmer, but because it is more credible. A company describing itself is a claim. A twenty year employee saying why he stayed is evidence.
The further someone sits from the sale, the more weight their words carry.
No scripts
Read a script and you sound like someone reading a script. Everyone can hear it.
We prepare questions instead of answers, and we do not send them in advance. The moment worth keeping is almost never the one somebody planned.
Twenty minutes of talking usually produces ninety seconds of usable material. That ratio is normal, and it is why you cannot write it beforehand.
More on whether you need a script.
Plain language
We ask people to explain their work the way they would to a fifth grader.
Not because your buyer is simple. Because somebody on the deciding end has probably never done what you do, and if they cannot follow it they default to price.
A warehouse automation client of ours had a five times output increase to talk about. The finished video does not contain a word of industry jargon, and that is why it works.
What corporate video is usually for
A homepage that explains the business in two minutes instead of six paragraphs.
Sales conversations, sent before a meeting so the meeting can do something else.
Recruiting, where job postings compete on pay and video competes on whether somebody can picture themselves there.
Proposals and bids, reaching the person on the committee who will never call you.
Trade shows, built into a booth loop and sent as follow up.
What comes off a shoot day
A main video plus twelve to fifteen shorter cuts, plus stills from the same day.
The cuts are the part most companies never use. They should carry you across a year of posting, not sit on a drive. More on what happens after delivery.
Short version
Corporate video fails when it sounds like a company describing itself.
Build it on people who actually do the work, skip the script, and cut the jargon.
One day of filming should produce a year of material.
Dylan Smith is the owner of With A Twist Media in Greensboro, NC. He has been making documentary style video for manufacturing and construction companies across the Triad since 2019.