When I first started producing these videos, I aimed for more than just a stunning, eye-pleasing picture with trendy music showcasing a dish, some nuances of a restaurant’s interior, or your typical cooking video. I am sure this is what most clients want to see—filling up their Instagram pages with trendy short-form videos and oversaturated pictures and calling it a day. But that has never been part of my plan. Social media users are bombarded with so much content, most of which isn’t original at all. Small businesses often try to create a positive image of their establishment on social media through random posting of generic content, which doesn’t differentiate their offerings in the eyes of potential customers.
I believe that as time goes on, the demand for more unique, engaging, and desire-provoking content will emerge. Video content with multiple layers, like great feature films and music videos, will steadily drift away from the primitive forms of video promotion that are prevalent now, as well as from traditional TV or print advertising. However, the rules of traditional marketing are not going anywhere; they will remain fundamental for businesses of any size. Distracting trends, like working with influencers (modern-day opinion leaders), are becoming more popular, but this doesn’t change the fact that the industry needs more compelling, complex videos that utilize the fundamentals of advertising, promotion, marketing, and PR. Competition isn’t going anywhere.
I mentioned that I want my videos to be multilayered. What do I mean by that? I remember reading an interview with David Fincher when he was making music videos and TV commercials (he was superb at it; my favorite is his ad for Coca-Cola in Japan). He said, “The best ones don’t tell the story of the song, but offer an alternative way of thinking about what’s being sung.” This quote was so profound to me that I immediately saved it in my notes. There should be an alternative way to interpret what you see or hear, depending on what was primary in the project.
In other words, just straightforward showcasing of your product will definitely help inform potential customers of your existence and may even influence their decision-making processes, creating a desire to try your business. But that is pretty much all it will accomplish. The next similarly crafted video will eclipse yours in their minds, and, voila, your business is forgotten.
Some might argue that people have extremely low attention spans nowadays. Plus, with more and more content available online, attention spans will keep shrinking. This is another argument in favor of creating more complex and meticulously constructed promotional content, like it used to be before social media emerged, giving rise to a vast amount of amateur advertising in recent years. I strongly believe that once our minds and lives catch up with the modern-day distribution channels of different PR materials, the need for high-quality video content will be as high as ever.
To touch on what I consider high-quality videos, I want to draw an analogy from the world of music and introduce you to the concept of counterpoint. I learned about this concept from one of Derek Sivers’s posts. Even though he was trying to prove a different concept, I think counterpoint is quite suitable to prove mine as well. Basically, underneath every melody, there’s a counter-melody that goes against the main one, and together they create harmony. So, as I see it, every video should have this counterpoint, which can be another story that contrasts with the main one, creating focus (contrast always creates focus, no matter what we are talking about), or on the contrary, supports the main line on a larger or smaller scale, creating parallel lines. It may take various forms and shapes, as long as together they create harmony. With that in mind, I believe we as craftsmen are already halfway to creating truly successful and effective video content when we utilize the concept of counterpoint in our visual storytelling.
Another contributing factor is the rapid evolution of technology available to everyone these days, which is becoming more proficient with less demand for skilled operators. And should I mention AI? I am afraid all the strictly technical jobs in pre-production and post-production are going to disappear. But not the role of a creator. In fact, those who have found a way to unleash their creative skills are not entrapped by the necessity to coordinate with other specialists. I believe the times of strict specialization are over. This is the time of a jack of all trades and master of one. Modern technology has made this possible, and it’s just the beginning of vast changes.
I just briefly touched on a few aspects of video creation in this post; I believe they deserve more attention and analysis. I will return to these topics in my future posts. And, who knows, perhaps I will have a slightly different opinion on those matters.