Should I hire a video production company?
“I’ve been talking to Jack about this quite a bit and we are working on a plan for video. I truly don’t believe we need to pay for this, as Jack and I can shoot/edit this on our own.”
That quote above is from an email I got this morning. I’ve been talking with a client for the past 8 months or so about doing a big video project. We were starting down the path of doing a bunch of videos and traveling to 5 or 6 of their offices around the country. Then Covid hit and the project got put on hold. But with projects on hold right now, we always want to get the pre-production rolling. We can get all the up front stuff figured out and then as soon as the production is ready to start, we’re all ready to go.
So I periodically follow up with this client to get a temperature for where the project is and if they’re still interested in going forward. My main contact usually sends a note back saying that they’re still figuring things out. Today, the main contact’s co-worker deleted him off her reply and sent the note that said “I’ve been talking to Jack about this quite a bit and we are working on a plan for video. I truly don’t believe we need to pay for this, as Jack and I can shoot/edit this on our own.” Obviously, she meant to delete me off the email and keep her co-worker. It was deflating to be talking to someone about a project for 8-10 months to hear they were just going to do it internally. But then something clicked in my brain and I thought “I should just give it one more shot and let them know why internal options aren’t always the best.”
It’s true. You can absolutely shoot / edit something on your own. Thousands of people do that every day with home movies and things they like to tinker with. But, if you’re a business and you’re looking at recruiting the best talent and putting forth the best image of your company, doing it yourselves is a terrible idea. And I’m not just saying that because we do video production, it’s because your competition is hiring experts to create great content for them and you look amateurish and unprofessional if you cobble something together in house just to save a couple bucks. It’s also an interesting mentality that only applies to the more creative fields. No marketing person thinks their job can just be done by anyone off the street, but photo and video is often looked at that way. But here’s why you shouldn’t try to do it yourself…
AUDIO
You might be able to find the perfect person to interview, find a great room to interview them in, borrow your friends mirrorless camera and buy a cheap tripod on Amazon, but I guarantee you’re going to have 3 issues with your video. First, audio. It’s said that anyone can watch a movie with great audio and okay visuals, but they lose it when they watch a movie with good visuals and bad audio. Audio is 3/4 (or more) of the experience. When you do a video yourself, you’re going to mess up the audio. It’s not your fault, but it’s why you should hire a professional. We have more invested in microphones and audio gear than you will have in your entire setup. We’ve mic’d people in every kind of situation, so we know where to put the mic and how to control noise. Your video will have bad audio because you’re going to use the built in microphone or, if you’re lucky, buy a little on camera shotgun mic that is essentially useless. The audio will suffer when you do it on your own.
LIGHTING
Even big companies like Barstool Sports are guilty of not considering lighting for interviews. They might get halfway there with audio by clipping a lav to someone’s shirt (why don’t they ever run it under the shirt?), but they almost ALWAYS forget about good lighting. Sometimes they’ll film someone in front of a window, or in a conference room with only overhead lighting, or just a totally dark area and crank the ISO. When you do it yourself, your video suffers because you don’t have lighting gear and you don’t know how to use what you have for free in a room.
STORY
The other two are important, this one is critical. I’m sorry, but 90% of people can’t tell stories through video. Even if you’re an expert copywriter or marketer and write an amazing script/outline, you don’t know how to talk to talent and ask the right questions to get them to tell that story in their own words. It’s not your fault, you don’t do this for a living. We do. We almost exclusively work with non professional talent and we know how to take your script and help the talent say it in their own words. It’s literally what we do on every project.
WHY YOU SHOULD HIRE EXPERTS
So when I got this email, I was disappointed. Like I said, it’d been 8-10 months of calls, emails, follow ups, brainstorming, etc. Just to find out that they felt “I truly don’t believe we need to pay for this, as Jack and I can shoot/edit this on our own.” Then I realized the analogy between what I do and what they do is perfect. They’re a HR Staffing company. When someone wants to hire a new employee, they could easily “do this on their own” and go to LinkedIn or where ever and get fine candidates. They probably won’t blow anyone away, but they’ll be great employees. OR their clients can hire this HR Staffing company. This company knows their industry inside and out. They know the best candidates to fit every role. And they know what it takes to deliver in the industry they’re experts in. The same way this company are experts in HR and staffing and elevate their clients businesses, we know video and we know how to elevate their brand.
So I emailed that to the woman. And I like to think that she got the email, realized just how right I was and will call momentarily to hire us on the spot. In reality, she’ll be embarrassed, delete the email and I’ll never hear from them again.