In this blog I am now going to look into how to set up a testimonial shot/ how to create a testimonial as this is one of the features in my videos, this is also something I said I needed to look into following my last blog about the development of my idea.
I have done some contextual analysis of testimonials to see what they look like and what people say in them and the analysis is here in this blog Testimonials in a promotional video.
In this video above by Chase Me Films it explains how to make an effective testimonial. He starts off by saying don’t be fake so get real clients that have used your product or service, don’t go getting actors. He then gives some good questions about what to ask the clients to get some good responses, the questions are:
What was the experience like using my product/service?
What results have you seen?
He finally says make sure you have a good editor to edit the testimonials down to the powerful parts of what your clients say.
In the video above by Robin Hood Studios he gives some great advice on setting up a testimonial video so how to layout the shot etc, this is something I need to learn so I wanted to make note of this so I could practice it beforehand.
First of all, he says to get some depth of field in the shot as just getting a wall behind is boring getting the depth with items relating to the video in the background adds good depth its also good mise-on-sene as in my case if I use the gym in the background of the testimonials in my video people will be able to see what it’s like where Josh is doing his PT classes and it’s also related to the video so it makes sense.
He then says to prepare questions in advance so you need to know what you want your clients to say and then figure out what questions you need to ask them to get them to say it. So when I am planning I need to think about what I want the clients to say about Josh so then I can think of the perfect question to get them to say what I want. He also says if you give them the questions in advance you can let them prepare themselves for what they are going to say, so I can either give them to Josh for him to send to his clients that are doing the testimonials or I can give them the questions 10 minutes before the shoot so they can still prepare themselves. My testimonials aren’t going to be that long so I know the questions don’t need to be long-winded and neither do the answers.
The next step he says is to shoot in a quiet place as sometimes you don’t realise the sounds that are being generated in everyday life, such as an air conditioner as these give off a lot of noise but you don’t realize because you block the sound out but when you come to edit the video you will notice it ruins the audio. This is a problem I may face as I am doing it in a gym where there will be other people and air conditioning so I need to pre-plan where I can take these testimonials.
The fourth tip he gives is to have your subject standing as when they are sitting they look slouchy, so if you have them standing nice and straight it looks better.
He then says to have them look off camera as if they are having a conversation with someone next to the camera as if someone is looking down the camera whilst being asked questions from the interviewer it feels unnatural.
This research has helped me learn more about testimonial videos and I now know what I need to do in order to make the perfect testimonial, at the end of the Robin Hood Studios video he says in his next videos he gives tips on audio and lighting so I am going to watch these in my next blog to help me get a well lit shot and good audio for the videos.
YouTube. 2018. How To Make An Effective Testimonial Video. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=68&v=Q_rS97esv-M&feature=emb_logo> [Accessed 23 March 2020].
YouTube. 2018. 5 Tips For Shooting Video Testimonials | Shoot Better Video. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbASK2FuJUc> [Accessed 23 March 2020].
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