Making showreels is fun when you’ve got the proper footage. Read on to learn where to obtain clips for your scenes and get the best-performing clips for your marketing.
Companies and individuals use different types of video content to promote and sell their brands. And showreels are one of the highly profitable options available. Commonly dropped by brands to showcase skill, creative scenes, catchy dialogue, and impressive graphics characterise these specialised corporate video content.
Showreel videos exhibit a powerful potential not unlike what’s expected from short video content used in marketing. More than 99% of businesses and promotional bodies admit that videos are so productive to their marketing needs that they’ll use them for the long term. About 66% of said marketers even decided to increase or maintain their budget on video in 2022. And the percentage of viewers interested in video content increased by 3% last year from 85% in 2021!
Like every other marketing and promotional video material, showreels promise such numbers for prospective brands that use them. And if you seek to harness this potential for your business, it helps to know how and where to make them. But a significant element is picking the proper footage for your showreel videos. And do this requires understanding where these footage are sourced for showreel video production?
Why Do You Need Showreels?
Showreels are videos that display a brand or company’s expertise; if you’re an individual, you’ll have more people seeing what you’re skilled at. We explained all you need to know in this article about how to make a showreel yourself. But you may still wonder if it’s something you need for your business. Well, these perks below can help you make a decision:
- They spread your brand’s information.
- They give your business exposure.
- They promote your services and expertise.
- They increase your business’s online visibility.
- They showcase you to potential markets.
- They increase your brand’s traffic.
From these few benefits alone, any business, brand, or individual would want to own a showreel video for their product or service!
Mining Showreel Footages
The most crucial aspect of making a showreel video is compiling the footage. And because these videos are usually short, you want to ensure each clip sourced is relevant to the concept of your video. Picking the proper footage depends on how your showreel scenes are written, and we’ve shown you how to do so here.
You can obtain footage in two ways, depending on how urgent the project is or whether you’re specific about authenticity.
Use Your Footage
If you have clips or video recordings of your business activities, you can compile them and select footage that works in your showreel scenes. Many brands produce media material for different reasons and have archived. For individuals, footage from interviews or previous video production gigs can be sourced and sorted for showreel production. The key here is to use existing footage of your business or brand to make your showreel.
Make New Footage
Most times, brands and businesses don’t own any footage of their expertise or skills, so they may need to shoot fresh ones from scratch. This can be done in three ways;
- Shoot the footage yourself,
- Task members of your staff to do it, or
- Hire a professional camera crew.
Each option comes with its benefits and drawbacks.
Self-Shot Showreel Footage
While this option remains the cheapest, it doesn’t guarantee the best quality. Of course, you can control this by hiring top-level equipment, but that negates the need to make it yourself, plus you may not have experience with professional equipment. Most self-shot showreel footage is done with simple camcorders and mobile devices, especially in emergencies. And while the clips are quickly gotten, the result may not be as clear-cut as you hoped.
Team-Shot Showreel Footage
Sometimes, someone from your staff can handle the shooting and footage recording for your showreel, while others direct the action. And this option delegates more duties to different people allowing more productivity and creative flexibility. But as with self-shot footage, your staff members may need to be more professional at handling camera equipment. Plus, you’ll still spend money on high-quality tools to create the clips, which may not be well utilised by novices.
Professionally-Shot Footage
This is the most effective option when creating fresh footage for your showreel video production. Here, an experienced camera crew is hired to handle the video coverage and usually comes with their professional tools and equipment. The professional range ensures all video recording aspects are appropriately balanced, from lighting to colour balance, camera angles, and take duration. And at the end, you’re left with high-quality and professionally recorded footage for your showreel video production.
The visibility and success of your company or product in the market depends on a high-quality explainer video. Zelios team has realized more than 100 successful projects and knows how to turn video into an effective marketing tool.