Thousands of Orlando companies commission marketing videos every year — some turn out great, others not so much.
The good ones are no accident. Experts agree advance planning and scripting is essential for effective video creation. Storyboarding and good communication play an important part. Masterful technical skills matter, too.
To help you get the best video content for your campaigns, Orlando Inno reached out to Dan Ballester, a filmmaker and senior video editor at Orlando-based edgefactory whose work on a video for Quest Software helped earn the final cut a Gold Viddy Award this summer.
His description of his team’s process revealed the meticulous detail work that goes into creating a client video, which can inform businesses looking to make advanced content creation part of their plans. Here's what he had to share:
What should a business look for in a content creator?
One thing is curiosity. I get ideas from everything I watch, even if it isn’t the kind of content I produce. When I see an edit that catches my attention, I think of ways the marketing videos I create could benefit. Also, having empathy is key. You want an editor who thinks about your audience and how the audience will feel when they watch the video, someone who puts themselves in their shoes and connects with their perspective.
Did Quest request anything specific for the highlight reel?
There was definitely a lot of conversation during pre-production so we could understand what Quest wanted. You always want to have meaningful conversations about a project so there are no gray areas. We storyboarded everything. It helped that the theme was so fun. They gave us a lot to work with. They called the event “Game On,” and to get employees engaged, we produced something we called “QTV Pregame Show” during the event kickoff. We had a comedian interviewing tons of people on camera, with the employees as athletes and executives as coaches. As a result, the material we had to work with for the highlight reel was gold.
Did you ask videographers to capture any specific footage for you?
The videographers sent us footage as they captured it, and we selected segments as we reviewed everything they were sending. It was very much a juggling act with incremental choices being made along the way as the story unfolded. Once we got a sense of what the story was, we started asking for ‘more of this’ and ‘less of that.’ We were tuned in to the details so we could get the best possible outcome. That's something to look for with content creators — attention to detail.
How big of a role did the music selection play in this video?
The music was chosen ahead of time. Sometimes people will put a video together and throw music on as an afterthought, but everything we did was intentional, and it should be that way. The music is the key — the center. It sets the tone. It holds the narrative together.
What editing software did you use?
For the most part, we used Adobe Premiere Pro and a few parts were edited in DaVinci Resolve for the "wow" moments that need to pop. Resolve has really great motion capture that lets you isolate people in the foreground and change the color of the background. But most of the effects and transitions tools we use are built into Premiere. We’re always looking for ways to make videos stand out and be more special.
Dan Ballester
- Position: edgefactory senior video editor
- Education: Bachelor's in film, University of Central Florida
- Years in profession: 10
- Film career highlights: IMDB Profile
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