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The Birth of DET’s Local Product Video Series: Getting Started With Delta
By David Nakayama - Published January 28, 2021
Text and Photos by David Nakayama, DET Corp Comms
Necessity is the mother of invention. And when we need people to know who Delta is and what we do to sell all our “best-in-class” gizmos, then things can get creative fast. As getting seen is the first step to establishing our Delta brand, what better way to do that than to use videos?
Today we’ll peek under the hood of the creative process behind our new product video series: Getting Started With Delta. The stages of creation in our first episode in a two-month project were:
- Propose for value add
- Cast, script, prepare
- Shoot the film
- Post-production
1. Propose for value add
This year, Delta HQ encouraged all regions to use their lockdown time to focus on making a pivot to digital. For marketing content, this includes video production. With a shoestring budget at our disposal and a "create value or bust" mission, we began drafting ideas.
I scoured our earlier productions as well as videos from corporate Taiwan HQ, Delta EMEA and local content and came up with a proposal to create for a short video series locally for our four DET businesses (CIS, IA, EVCS, IAQ) called-Getting Started With Delta.
Each video has three 2-4 minute episodes for beginner, intermediate and advanced audiences. They would be filmed at Delta, customer and application locations and would be in a conversation format between a regular person and a Delta expert and sometimes a customer.
2. Cast, script, prepare
With a green light for my initial proposal in hand, it was time to go out and put together my “coalition of the willing” to actualize it. COVID had fueled a boom in our CIS business and so the team jumped at the opportunity to make a new local video series.
I recruited our CIS regional director Sakda as our resident expert and a young QA engineer Airy as the presenter. My creative brief had the video’s overview (aims, audience, tone), details (location, length, distribution) and storyboard with photo and scene descriptions and script. I went over this script with Sakda and had it translated into Thai before sending it to our filmmaker vendor.
We picked a film vendor that made a couple of videos for us before with good quality work and production speed. We got their quotation, confirmed our project budget and set the film and production schedule to meet everyone’s needs.
3. Shoot the film
To keep within our tight time and budget constraints, all filming for this short film was done in one morning at a single location in front of our DET data center. The CIS BU kindly provided us with the editable files of two data center product videos to use as b-roll.
As soon as the film crew arrived, they checked the light, sound and area of the film site and began setting up. Meanwhile, our two actors practiced their lines. Each scene was filmed a few times depending on the quality of the take. The producer did a great job helping our presenter relax and focus on the conversation while our IT team helped us to control the lights and keep people from disturbing the set.
Besides the conversation part, the film crew also took some extra footage of the data center, control panel and screens. Finally, we went over the brief and confirmed what stock footage and scenes from our product video to add as b-roll.
4. Post production
In the weeks following the shoot, our film production vendor edited the conversation to the best scenes and camera angles. They then added the stock footage and Delta product video scenes as b-roll before coloring and adding English and Thai subtitles.
The majority of time at this stage was spent checking and getting the b-roll just right and the content accurate. After finalizing the 4-minute video we were ready to launch it as a single video on our website and YouTube channel and as 2-3 shorter clips on our social media platforms.
This video can now be a key part of a 2-6 month campaign for each BU/BG and be used along with other content (ebook, blogs, infographics) for presentations at marketing/sales events both online or offline.
Summary
I hope this overview shows you that making your own product video is not too hard or expensive. With commitment from the right people, you can make a relevant and localized video to showcase your market’s solutions and reach your audience.
If you'd like to educate your audience with the Getting Started With Delta video series please contact us at DET Corp Comms and let's see how we can work together to reach our goals together!
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