How to Produce a Corporate Documentary
How to Produce a Corporate Documentary
Behind-the-scenes photo from a recent shoot at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO for the MLB Network.
Two decades ago, the primary method of watching videos was through television sets. Today, the average adult spends 360 minutes per day watching video via TV, computers, smartphones, and tablets. There are over 10 trillion minutes of videos on the Internet, and 500 hours of new video content are being uploaded to YouTube per minute. However, the abundance of video content out there means your company is competing with millions on the web to grab your audience’s attention.
Consumers have plenty of options regarding the types of videos they want to view, so it is important to cut through the noise and produce content that hooks viewers from the beginning and keeps them fixated. That is exactly what our team at Wide Awake Studios does when we create a corporate documentary for our clients.
The goal of a corporate documentary is to accurately portray your brand’s story, personality, and values with a unique, engaging story. In most cases, narrated marketing videos fall short and don’t maintain the attention of the audience. An approach that we’ve used successfully is mimicking the same story-telling techniques are used in feature documentaries or podcasts. Here are four steps to creating your own corporate documentary:
Study Companies with Effective Corporate Documentaries
Many companies have successfully produced corporate documentaries that portray their message and story. Before creating your own corporate documentary, look at the organizations that have done it well. Search YouTube or Vimeo for brands that have created captivating documentaries then study the story structure of these films. Think about how you can reverse engineer their story format to tell your company’s story. Look to see if any of your competitors have documentaries, as well. See if how the competition tells their story can provide ideas on how to differentiate yourself and stand apart from similar companies. However, don’t just look to your industry for ideas–instead, look everywhere for examples.
Write a Script
The first step to producing a documentary is writing a script. When writing a script, you MUST tell the truth and be consistent with your message. Throughout the creation process, you should consider your company’s ethics, values, and audience.
Part of telling your story is using a creative structure to do so. Story arcs that follow the three-act structure are very effective and have more traction. Show viewers the unexpected twists and approach it from a different perspective. Spend extra time writing a script that mimics the feeling you want to portray. Every story has peaks and valleys. You shouldn’t be afraid to incorporate the bumps in the road because viewers will view your organization as genuine.
Shooting a bunch of interviews and footage to let an editor figure it out later is the easy route that many people take. Don’t do that. Instead, write a dummy script that helps you and your team figure out how you want to execute the documentary production. A script will help you find the right people, footage, and questions to ask to get what you’re after.
Choose the “Cast” for Your Corporate Documentary
The different voices of characters are a documentary’s leading narrative. You must choose characters who can best deliver the message. This means that you are essentially “casting” your documentary. Carefully choose a cast that encompasses the message you want to deliver. Your cast should be the leaders of your organization, but this doesn’t only include management. Select the individuals that embody your company’s values and drive its success, including representation from every department, experience level, and position title. Choosing a group that accurately represents your organization is part of being truthful. A diverse group that tells your narrative with their unique stories will help you create a genuine documentary.
You should also consider the different images and footage you will want to capture during the production phase. Planning these details will ensure that nothing is overlooked on film day.
Produce Your Corporate Documentary
When an organization spends time selecting the right people, message, and footage, the documentary becomes MUCH better than anything we could have made up ourselves. An important thing to remember is that truth is always better than fiction when it comes to corporate documentaries. Now go out and tell the truth about your company, your people, and your product. You’ll be surprised to find how many people will keep watching your video if your message is sincere and authentic.
Contact us if you are interested in working with our team at Wide Awake Films to create a corporate documentary.