SCHOOL PROFILE VIDEO: YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO AN EFFECTIVE VIDEO
Step 1 - Define your audience
The first thing you want to decide when planning your school profile video is who you want to be speaking to. Is you video aimed towards engaging and attracting students? Or is it aimed more towards parents and guardians? Perhaps you want to use the video to attract high quality staff, partners or sponsors. If your goal is ‘all of the above’ it may be more effective to have different versions of your profile. This will allow for the video to be slightly tweaked in terms of messaging in order to effectively address the key wants and needs of each party.
These two Road Safety Videos produced by the Elite Media team have been developed with the viewer in mind – one for the students, and the other for the parents.
Step 2 - Consider your message
Once you have your target audience defined, you then need to decide what you would like to say to them. The best way to begin is to ask yourself or your team:
“What are the key messages I want the viewer to take away with them after watching our school profile video?”
And then, think about what information you can share about your school to help communicate these messages.
For example, if you want the viewer to feel after watching your profile that your school has a great community, you want to show visuals of the community engaging. For example, school concerts and musicals, PTAs and teachers and students happily working together. You may also choose to have teachers speak about the connectedness of the parent-teacher community, and/or students speak about how they love working as a team with their peers.
Recommended information to cover in your school profile video:
– School mission and values
– Introduction of key leadership staff
– Information about the school community (size, year levels, co-ed/same sex, religion, grounds and facilities etc)
– Any special experiences/opportunities/programs that the school offers, especially those that may be unique to your school
– Why your school?
You may also consider:
– Testimonials from students/parents and teachers
– Specific information about curriculum and learning environments, as relevant
Mudgeeraba Special School worked with Elite Media to think critically about what would be communicated in their School Profile Video, to ensure that parents and guardians would have peace of mind when sending their students to school.
Step 3 - Keep your school profile video simple and engaging
There is a lot of information to know when it comes to selecting a school. However, it is important to avoid the temptation to fit everything into your profile video. We recommend that your school profile video fall somewhere in the region between 2-7 minutes in length. Anything beyond this and you risk losing the engagement of the viewer, or worse, the viewer seeing the length of the video and not watching at all.
As a guide, 140 words = approximately 1 minute of video. And you probably don’t want someone talking every second of the video. So if you’ve done step 2 and have over 1000 words planned – go back, revise and summarise.
On that point, a school profile video is not something you tend to want improvised. Scripting the key content is essential to ensure you convey what you need in the time. That being said there can be an allowance for improvisation in the student interviews if you choose to do these.
Step 4 - Brainstorm visuals
Now you have a strong idea on what you want to say in your school profile video, it is now time to brainstorm the visuals that would support the script.
For example, if you have a section talking about your schools great musical program, it would make sense to have footage of a music class, concert, and/or musical to support this. If you are speaking about your school’s focus on STEM, then seeing students engage in work with robotics would reinforce this nicely.
We suggest having a list of ‘must-have’ visuals to be captured throughout the day. You know your school best and what will best showcase what you have to offer!
Step 5 - Work out the logistics
Schools are places where there are a lot people trying to achieve a lot of things all at once, so having a schedule prior to filming is critical to minimising disruptions to learning and ensuring that we can capture as much as possible on the day. We will work with you to create a schedule that takes into account time to set up and pack down gear, and that also allows time for breaks and unexpected delays.
Step 6 - Try to plan in advance
Creating a school profile video does require planning and coordination on the part of the school. As such, it is important to give yourself enough time to plan the script, get it approved, and plan a schedule that works with a busy school.
On our part, school profile films can be booked in generally with 7-10 business days notice, and a completed video can be ready for viewing and approvals within 5-10 business days after this, If your timescale is tighter we may be able to accomodate depending on our production schedule.
Your school profile video represents your school
People will form an opinion about your school based on your school profile video. With this in mind it it worth investing in professional video with high quality visual and audio. While it may be tempting to have your school’s Film & TV class or teacher whip something up, the poor quality of this video may have long term damage to your school reputation. A video with sub-par visuals and audio can disengage and fail to excite potential students and parents. High quality professional video will engage, excite and communicate clearly all the great things that your school has to offer.
Our school profile videos start from $3500 inc. GST. To check our availability, please fill in the form below.
