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How I Make Irresistible Video Demo Tapes
by Gary Smith
1. SOUND is more important than pictures. It drives the picture. It gives the piece energy. The closer the background sound gets to the foreground sound and pictures without crowding it, the more energy you will get. It pushes the picture off of the screen!
2. Just as sound drives the picture, the background action--the action behind and between picture-in-picture boxes--drives or adds energy to the speaker talking in the picture-in-picture boxes. The background action pushes the person right off the screen and gives the person speaking dimension and energy they wouldn't otherwise have.
3. The techniques that I bring to bear on your video are honed from years and
years of on the job experience working with hundreds of editors, directors, producers, actors, writers, etc. Every moment of the piece that I put
together is carefully constructed to present you in the best light possible to get you noticed. These moments are a continuum of gut-driven decisions
designed to keep your viewer from turning off the video until it is done.
This is done by knowing where to begin a scene. Not generally where to begin, but in many cases exactly which frame to start on. Then, by knowing
exactly when to exit the scene and exactly where to begin the next scene. And not just where to begin the next piece of action, but which action from
the choices will be the best to use. And so on until the 4-6 minute piece is completed.
Just because a piece of action is interesting, doesn't mean it
will be interesting forever. An editor needs to know that you must get off of a scene before it dies and move on to the next scene and then get off of
that scene before it dies, etc. It's like going up an escalator and just before you get to the top, a door opens allowing you to move through to the
next escalator, etc. The sense should be that you never feel a pay-off at the end of the scene. You don't want the viewer to get satisfied
until they are done with the piece. That's why you need to get off of a scene and go on to the next scene before it peaks and its energy dissipates.
4. Editing has a structure and rhythm, a cadence and logic that takes you on a trip. It has a beginning, a build-up and an end. It is a science that at
its highest practice can do whatever the editor wants it to do. What I do with it is get people to immediately take notice, then take an interest in
what you have to say, then be unable to reach for the stop button on the computer or VCR until they reach the end of your piece. The object is for
them to remember you, hire you.
5. Everybody knows if they like a movie they just saw in the theater. We may
not know exactly why, or we may think we know why and may be inaccurate. Either way it doesn't matter. The point is you know if you liked it or not.
A film works if people like it and tell others they liked it. A successful editor knows the mechanics necessary to give a piece what it needs for people
to like it. Telling the story in a structurally successful way combined with using any number of editorial devices to keep the viewers attention, the
successful editor can make or break the film, promo, commercial, etc. You
can't fool the audience. They either like something or they don't.
6. As it says on our web site, Your Video Commercial is designed to give your
prospective clients an up-close and personal experience of you and your products or services. The idea is that we all like to do business with
people that we know and trust and with whom we have a personal experience. Your Video Commercial is designed to create that kind of relationship. It is
designed to inch you ahead of your competition, to get you noticed and remembered. It can either be a stand-alone piece if you don't have a video
product, or as an introduction to you and your longer video pieces.
7. With the combination of the highest quality editing techniques based on some of the most successful editing in films and commercials today, and the
concept of creating a personal experience between you and your prospective client so that they begin to know and trust you, Your Video Commercial is
clearly a stand-alone product that goes a long way to getting you noticed and hired.
Click here to see what Tom has to say about it and to see a quick demo