Step Two: Ditch the Script

Instead of a script – make an outline & improvise

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to making videos is overcoming the anxiety of having to get in front of the camera and remember what you’re going to say.

The professional videographer’s solution is to create scripted video. This requires that you take the time to write a script, break it down into small phrases so that it’s easy to memorize. And then do multiple takes until you get each line right.

The problem with scripting is that it’s very difficult to sound unscripted.

Professional actors like Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep are capable of delivering scripted lines in a way that sounds fresh and spontaneous. But most of us aren’t De Niro or Streep. It’s hard for us to sound genuine if we recite something that was written ahead of time. Instead, we end up sounding a bit like a second-grader delivering lines for the school play.

But there’s a simpler way – when you ditch the script

A way that takes the pressure off you. A way to make a video (or a series of videos) where you don’t need to take the time to create the perfect script or memorize anything. This method uses informal interviews that are common to the way most documentary films are produced.

First you choose your subject (in a process that’s a bit like casting a movie). Choose a colleague or one of your customers who is outgoing or interesting to look at and is articulate. Then ask them a series of questions and get their response on camera. The subject can be shown giving their answers – or you can shoot the subject doing other activities (a.k.a. “B-roll”) and edit together with the audio voice-over answers.

Case Study: Lyft Interviews their customers

The video example from Lyft (above) uses this technique to great effect. Each person speaking is a Lyft user, in this case either one of the Lyft riders or one of the Lyft drivers. And they are each describing their experience of using the Lyft service. This not only explains what Lyft is, but it also highlights the human aspect of the service – riders are getting rides from nice people in their neighborhood and the drivers feel like they’re performing a community service.

The video production process involves shooting each interview subject from multiple angles while they’re speaking, shooting each subject while they’re engaged in an activity related to your story and then shooting other B-roll footage that supports your story. Then you edit in the best, most succinct one-liners and piece them together into a coherent storyline.

The overall effect comes across as a far more genuine description. Imagine how the Lyft video would have come across if a representative from Lyft had been shown describing the Lyft experience.

What makes this work so well is that the story being told is all about the customer experience – not Lyft. Which is really the kind of conversation you want to have with your customers. To engage your viewers when you initiate a conversation with video, 95% of what you say wants to be about your customers’s experience – not you or your company.

A video made in this style becomes a story about the people who are already engaged with your service and the benefits to their lives that they are experiencing by using your service.