If you want to raise awareness of your brand and highlight its unique selling points, a great video can help you to do this effectively. But even if the goods or services you offer have little or nothing to do with making videos, a production that is low on quality or contains some obvious flaws could undermine your best efforts.
There are two major reasons professional video editing is something you cannot do without. Firstly, a low-quality production will give a bad impression of your company, something that could put people off, especially if your rivals do a more professional job of their promotional videos and other advertising.
Secondly - and perhaps worse - is the fact that without professionals to work on the video, you may also leave something in the video that constitutes an embarrassing error, such as a gaffe, a comment ‘off mic’, or something visual. This could go viral for all the wrong reasons.
Of course, even professional adverts can fall foul of issues such as offending or shocking someone, such as a Pepsi advert involving Kendall Jenner when she handed a can to a policeman during a Black Lives Matter demo, which some said trivialised the issue, or a Ford advert with three women tied up in the back while the car was driven by Silvio Berlusconi.
Such clangers are more about bad taste than poor production, but what if the issue is that the product does not appear clearly enough because you don’t have a sharp picture, or the lighting is too dull and has not been enhanced? (The latter is one area where AI technology is being increasingly used.)
As well as hampering the visual recognition of a product, it is flaws like this that will stand out and make a video look poor and amateurish.
Another consideration is whether there is anything you need to digitally remove from the background to prevent distraction or embarrassment. Whether that is a passer-by trying to get on camera or a dog relieving itself, you don’t want this. Background action is great for comedy, but not when you want the focus on the topic at hand, upfront and central.
Sound is another key area where you need to make sure everything that the person viewing the video hears is what you intend. Sound post-production is absolutely vital.
In the first instance, that means ensuring that the audio in the video is very clear. In addition, post-production enables you not just to clean up or enhance this sound, but add a voiceover that has been recorded separately.
This process also helps you to remove any sounds that you don’t want to be part of the production. This can include anyone talking off-mic, which could be at best distracting and at worst will involve someone saying something rude or embarrassing.
Other interference could come from background noise such as footsteps, someone moving heavy objects, traffic, dogs barking, babies crying, and more, all of which may make the audio less clearly heard and might distract the viewer.
With post-production work taking care of these issues, you can ensure that your video gives a strong visual impression, sounds very clear, and is free from the kind of background distractions that could divert attention away from the message you wish to convey.
