S2 Ep11. Who should tell your video story?

When it comes to making a great video, casting is key. It doesn’t matter how skilled your camera crew is. How excellent your storyboard and script are. If the weather was a sunny 27 degrees without a cloud in sight. Or even how delicious the catering was on shoot day (although keeping the production team well fed is a good way to ensure they’re on side). 

Yes, all these elements are critical to getting your video just right (ok maybe not the catering) but none of it will matter if you get your talent wrong. 

Picking the perfect hero, storyteller, presenter or messenger – whatever you want to call them – is an art in itself. An art that relies on some serious deliberation in the planning phase to be successful. 

Without sounding too dramatic, we really can’t minimise the importance of casting the right messenger. It can mean the difference between producing a video that achieves the outcome you’re hoping for …. or one that completely misses the mark. 

Sometimes you might have one messenger . Other times you could have more than 100 (we actually had 120 for a documentary we released in 2008 called The Man Who Souled The World).

You might choose to recruit internally and get employees or your executive team to star in your film. Or you may consider hiring a professional actor or presenter. 

The choice is yours – but you need to get it right. And that's what Sue is going to help you with in this episode of Moonshine Moonshot. 

Listen to 'Who's the Messenger' via this link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/846682/3425152 

Read the blog post Sue mentioned to help you figure out your audience by clicking: https://moonshine.agency/know-your-audience/

Learn more about all the types of videos you can make in episode 22 of season one, Listen via: https://www.buzzsprout.com/846682/4692350 


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Transcript

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When it comes to making great video content, casting is key, and it doesn't matter how skilled your camera crew is or how excellent your storyboarding and scripting are. If the weather was a sunny 27 degrees without a cloud in the sky, or even how delicious the catering was on shoot day, although I have to say keeping the production team well fed is a really good way to keep them motivated. But all these elements are critical to getting your video just right. Perhaps not the catering. But in the end, none of it will actually matter if you get your talent wrong. Picking the perfect hero, storyteller, presenter, or messenger, whatever you want to call them, is an art in itself and it's an art that relies on some serious deliberation in the planning phase for you to have a successful story on screen. So without sounding too dramatic, I cannot minimise the importance of casting the right messenger. It can be the difference between producing a video that achieves the outcome you're hoping for or one that completely misses the mark. So welcome to this week's Moonshine Moonshot Podcast. I'm Sue Collins and I've been specialising in video production and filmmaking for many years. I don't want to see more boring, poorly crafted videos any more than you do. So to help combat the onslaught of pretty rubbish content being served up on social, I'm sharing what I've learned about how to make great videos because the good news is it's not as hard as you might think. I know that no one sets out to make boring content, why would you? But that is exactly what can happen when you don't have the skills or information to make it great. Sometimes just a few small pointers can take something dull and make it shine online. And this is one episode about one of those important pointers. It's about who's going to be cast in your video. Sometimes you might have one messenger, and other times you might have a hundred. We actually had 120 for a documentary released in 2008 called The Man Who Sold the World, but that is another story, and that was a very specific choice by the director Mike Hill on that one. But what I am suggesting, and I'm definitely not suggesting you need 120 different cast members for a very short film for social, but you might choose to recruit internally or get employees or your executive team to star in your film. You might consider hiring a professional actor or a presenter. The right messenger will depend entirely on what type of video you're creating. If you're getting stuck on the word messenger in the context of video production and filmmaking, you can get up to speed on what we're talking about there in an episode called Who is the Messenger? And I'll put the links to that in the show notes because I can't emphasize enough how important it is to understand this. But for the purposes of this podcast, right now, when you come across the term messenger and you hear me saying messenger, I'm talking about the hero of your story. Who's the presenter? Who's the cast? Who is that person that's going to be telling your story on screen? So who is the right messenger for your video or film? It could be an actor, an influencer, maybe your CEO, or what about your marketing manager? Perhaps it's a thought leader, perhaps it's an expert, maybe it's a customer. The list goes on and on, and the options truly are endless, but there's not necessarily a right or wrong option either. There is always the right person for your video because it always comes back to your audience. You have to consider who your audience is and the type of person that they will respond well to. Audiences tend to relate to people like themselves. So casting, you know, a fast food munching couch potato in your Reformer Pilates video is probably not going to make a lot of sense. But you also need to consider who your audience respects and will happily listen to. And maybe if your video is about how to take yourself from being a fast food munching couch potato to somebody who regularly uses a reformer for Pilates, then maybe that is the right person to cast. You've got to be thinking about your audience and what do they want to hear and who do they want to hear it from. These types of messengers might work well in a secondary role, for example, to bring a layer of credibility and authority to your video. So you may have the fast food munching couch potato, but then you might have the Pilates instructor that brings the credibility to the information you're sharing. If you're not really sure who your video is talking to, you're going to find it incredibly difficult to pick the right messenger. If you're not really sure who your video is talking to, you're going to find it really difficult to pick the right messenger. In those situations, sometimes people fall back to using, you know, a generic person. I mean, I'm not sure that you can really label humans as generic, but you start looking for someone that might be a catch-all that everyone relates to. Um, and that's that's difficult because that sometimes leads people to think, oh, I'll just use animation. And sure, animation has its place, but people relate to other people. Humans relate to humans, not cartoon characters. So if you want to use your video to create some sort of connection with your audience, animation is probably not going to cut the mustard and pull on the heartstrings. If you need some extra help in the audience defining department, you can check out a post called Why You Need to Know Who Your Audience Is to Create Winning Video Content. I'm going to put the link to that in the show notes so it's easy for you to find. And if you'd like to dive even deeper into your audience and who your audience is, why don't you check out the new online course we've just released called Define Your Ideal Audience? It's really simple, just go to www.moonshinecommunicationsacademy.com and you'll find it there. And it's a great course that really does explain everything you need to know about identifying your ideal audience so you really know who your video is for. So moving on. When you pick your genre, it's gonna give you a clue. At the top of this episode, I mentioned that the right person to tell your message or story will usually depend on the kind of video that you're creating. And look, it's a good point. So we're gonna expand on it a little bit, help you understand it a little bit better. Once you've got a clear idea on your audience, you need to figure out your video style. Are you creating an overview video to include on the home page of your website? Or is it a case study that's investigating a recent project? Perhaps it's a testimonial or maybe something instructional. Whatever you and your production team land on, zoning in on the type of video will help you see who will be the best fit. If it's an about us video, utilizing your staff is likely to be the most obvious and cost-effective option. And sure, employees come and go, but your audience is unlikely to know or care if somebody who appears on camera moves from your organisation a few months later. As long as you've got all the right permissions in place to continue using their image, you're going to be fine, and your audience isn't really going to know if they do or don't still work at your organization. The reason that I'm labouring that point is because I've been asked a few times what if the person who's in my video leaves that role? Depending on the way it's produced, it really shouldn't matter. And again, just make sure you've got the permissions to use that person's image in future. So we covered types in an earlier episode, and I will put links to that again in the show notes. It was different videos and they their types, I'm pretty sure that's what it was called. Double check it and I'll put the in the notes because it's really helpful to really clarify what the different types of videos are. So do some research before you do a casting call. So you know your audience, you figured it out, you've also landed on a video style, but you're still scratching your head when it comes to the right messenger. And that is okay. That is why you are here. A really great starting point is to take a look at some videos online that are similar to what you're thinking of making. Just head over to YouTube or Vimeo and see what's working and not working in the types of videos in the genre or area that you're trying to create a video in. It's going to give you some great ideas giving that kind of research as well. It'll really help with your briefing, it'll help you figure out what you do and don't like. You could I really pay attention when you're watching other people's videos too. Did you like the music? Did you like the person telling the story? Did you like the locations? Watching other people's content is a really great way to figure out what you do and don't like for your own content. You could also watch a video from this series, uh, one of the Moonshine Moonshots called How to Cast Your Talent. And there's a blog companion for that as well. So again, I will put those into the show notes because they're great research for you. So I've got some parting words on this. Landing on the right person to share your story isn't rocket science, but you will need to put in some groundwork. The perfect messenger will ultimately depend on who your audience is and the type of video that you're creating. If you can get those two points nailed down, you'll find the whole process is just so much easier. Thanks so much for joining me today. I would love it if you could hit subscribe on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on. It really helps me to know that you're actually enjoying the content, so I'll continue to produce more content. So just hit that subscribe button. The universe will love you for it and send you good vibes. I'm going to be back next week talking about more tips to get the most out of your video content. So see you next week!