Using templates for affordable high quality corporate video productions
Many corporate video production companies Johannesburg based and around the country have long known that the way to turn a basic marketing video into a power marketing tool is to use After Effects Templates.
After Effects Templates can be used in two ways. One is to make an affordable video production and the other is to make an already good production into something amazing.
The first way can be done my using already existing video footage or even photographs.
The second way is having the template as the icing on the top to an already amazing production.
Looking at the first option, a template can be used to make a video product which is highly effective for online marketing while still fitting the budget by taking the photographs of the business including product photography, business pictures, project snaps and general company service photos, which they provide, and combine them in such a way as to make the photographs become video with moving digital effects and titles. This can be combined with music and voice over to turn those old snaps into a new super slick marketing tool.
The results are often astonishing considering the original source material was nothing more than often poorly captured pictures of the past of the business.
These Jpg files that once clogged up company hard drives now become the ingredients of a powerful advertising video.
Looking at the second option the after effects template can simply be used as the finishing touches to a previously made video or it can be purpose build as the structure to a final product. As in the first example a collection of video footage which made up an original final video product can be revamped with the use of the template or it can be the backbone of a new production. While past corporate video production Johannesburg services, have mostly focused on the video footage as the content, the template becomes the vessel in which the content can become like a glossy magazine version of the original footage.
Although often it is difficult to determine the difference between the two types, it can have a significant cost difference. This is pretty much why the after effects templates are so fantastic as a low budget production can look almost as good as a high end big budget video production.
What is truly amazing is that using a video template, a corporate videographer or video editor can produce a company video without ever meeting the client. The photographs or even video footage can be emailed or drop boxed to the editor and the final production can be drop boxed back to the client to and from anywhere in the world.
While being a Johannesburg company, it makes sense to use local suppliers, there is no reason why you couldn’t use an editor anywhere else. One factor which does come into play is that often the Johannesburg or Gauteng based video companies, and editors, are often cheaper due to the poor rand exchange rate.
This means the corporate video production can be done from across the street in the same way as across the world.
So you might ask, what is the price difference between a template video production and a conventional production? In the first example the difference can be quite significant. It can mean the difference between paying around R 10 000 for a basic production up to hundreds of thousands of rand for high end productions compared to paying as little as a few thousand rand. Some productions can be as little as R 2000 and still be considered high quality.
It is important to note though that if the photographs used in the first example are of extremely poor quality, there is little to no chance the production will be worth doing. While slightly lower quality images can be cleaned up and made more professional by a trained expert, pictures taken on old cell phones with low bit rate and resolution are almost impossible to rescue. While those pictures may still work in the company album for memories, they cannot, reasonably, be used in a high quality marketing product.
So what is the solution if the company photographs are bad? There is one great and simple answer. That is stock photographs.
While in many businesses the examples of actual work are necessary, such as a pool repair company, an accountant’s office has no such need. Neither does a lawyer for that matter.
Generic images of people and money related graphics can easily replace personally taken photos. What’s more, these images can elevate the company image often way better than personal images because of the high quality.
This means even companies with no photographs or video footage can have a company video made which will not only boost their image, but if done correctly, can boost their online presence, their search engine optimization and sense of accessibility to the general public.
You might ask, well if that is the case, surely I can get one of these templates and throw it together on my home PC. Unfortunately as much as the templates are extremely useful for creating an affordable high quality video production, they are far from easy to get and use.
They are often created by highly skilled graphic designers and are used on software such as Adobe After Effects software. This means having a level of video production skill which is actually fairly rare even in video production circles. There are many videographers who have never even used the software. The reason for this is that it is not your run of the mill video editing software but is in fact a high end graphics software used in major movie productions like blockbuster Hollywood films.
So how is it possible that this great video service can be so cheap? The reason is that in the hands of skilled individuals these types of videos can be made quite easily. It’s a matter of rocket science is easy to rocket scientists. So After Effects editing is easy to After Effects editors…well to a point. Even skilled editors can struggle to make the effects work well. This is why the templates are so useful. They take the basic after effects skills and make them into high end skills. In the same way a recipe of a great chef can be used by a reasonably skilled cook, an After Effects template can be used by a reasonably skilled editor to create something wonderf