Ready to hire a video production company to create your documentary-style brand video?

(If not, here’s how to make the same brand video we’d charge you thousands for.)

1. Does the video production company work unscripted?

Working without a script is essential for any interview-based brand video that seeks to establish a genuine emotional connection with its audience. Even though they’re more work to edit, videos based on unscripted interviews are far more likely to capture authentic moments that communicate the entrepreneur’s genuine passion to the audience.

Unscripted interviews are more time-consuming to edit, but they avoid the risk of coming across across stiff and uninspiring.  At the same time, they save time in pre-production, since no script has to be written.

A great video production company can get the best material just by sitting down with you and having a natural conversation.

2. Are the samples in their portfolio primarily about products and services, or are they about people?

Watch the videos in their portfolio. Do they highlight human beings, who have desires and passions, or do they highlight products and services, which have no meaning on their own?

The most engaging films, books, TV shows, podcasts, and all other media products, including brand videos, are about people, not things.

The story of a company is really the story of a person or people, so if a brand video focuses on a human being’s passion and personality more than their products and services, it’s likely the production company understands this essential aspect of storytelling.

3. Do they transcribe their interviews?

Transcribing interviews is a positive sign that a production company is serious about making sure they don’t overlook any great material. This doesn’t mean they deliver transcripts to you – just that they generate a written version of your interviews so they can easily scan them for moments where you and your team are expressing yourselves subjectively and build the story from those moments.

Video editors working with transcripts don’t have to rely on memory or rudimentary methods of “setting aside” the material they want to use. I can tell you from my own editing experience that having transcripts available is the easiest way to avoid exhaustion and ensure the most compelling final result.

4. Did you enjoy your conversations with their sales representatives?

How were your first few conversations with the video production company? Was there an ease to your discourse? Did you feel safe enough to open up about yourself and your business? Did you feel supported and validated?

Easy, comfortable conversations with the representatives from the production company are a good sign that you’ll have easy, comfortable conversations while you are filming your interviews. It’s incredibly important that when the cameras are rolling, you feel open, enthusiastic, and comfortable expressing your passions and desires.

Those expressions of passion and desire are the most powerful way to create an emotional connection with your audience, so the more a production company is able to create a comfortable space for them to happen, the better your brand video will be.

5. Are they more interested in talking about your business than their business?

When you talk about your business, do you feel like they’re taking a genuine interest in what you’re saying? Do they ask followup questions? Are they able to immerse themselves fully in your world, rather than being preoccupied with the business you’re going to give to them?

The level of genuine interest that a production company takes in your business will have a direct impact on the way they interview you, your team, and/or your clients, as well as the way they tell your story through their editing.

The best brand video producers know how to dive headfirst into a conversation about your business with no agenda beyond finding the root of your passion. They know that nobody can tell your story like you can, and see their mission as finding the most compelling way to deliver your passion to your audience.

Need Help?

Concurrent Productions is crazy about authenticity and we love helping passionate business leaders express their most genuine selves through video. Contact us to start making deeper connections with your audience!

Want to learn more?

I teach an online course called How to Make a Brand Video that Isn’t Boring that will arm you with everything you need to know to make sure your video production company is telling your story in the most effective way possible!