If you want to film a branded video on location, here are 7 tips we’ve learned — some of them the hard way — to help filming and post-production go as smoothly as possible.

1. Befriend and respect the location’s manager or owner.

If you’re filming in a business or office, track down the manager, owner or supervisor.  Be friendly.  Explain what you’re doing, and what your goals for the video are.  Ask them if they know of any obvious stumbling blocks to avoid, any shortcuts, or any particularly photogenic angles.  (After all, it’s their building.)

2.  When you’re outside, roll with the punches.

If you’re outdoors, be mindful of the public, the nearby property owners and the police.  What you’re filming probably looks interesting, and you may attract a crowd.  If you’re not controlling the crowd with barriers and security, they may linger.  This is good, because it increases the exposure for your shoot — but it also increases your opportunities for unwanted noise and distractions.

When we were filming this video with Joe Torre, Phil Simms and Terry Francona for Bigelow Tea, we had the restaurant to ourselves — but that didn’t stop curious passersby from taking cell phone pictures through the window.

3.  Listen for what’s not supposed to be there.

Does the location play music on a PA system?  Is the heat or air conditioning on?  Are the walls thin enough to let nearby conversations come through?  Does the floor vibrate when cars or equipment move past?

If you can hear it in the room, you can hear it on the video.  Make sure the audio that’s in your video is supposed to be there.  And if you can’t turn the noise off, be prepared to work around it (and hope you can reduce it in post).

4.  Shoot more than you think you’ll need.

Maybe your script only calls for 10 shots, and you’ve wrapped ahead of schedule.  Be proactive.  Get an extra introduction or conclusion.  Ask the interview subject a few unscripted questions.  Pitch some alternate ways that a product could be shown, or that a topic could be discussed.

It’s these unexpected additions to the script that may well turn a stiff, boring video into a human story with actual character.

5.  Stay loose.

No matter how comfortable someone seems in person, putting them in front of a camera is like sending them into battle.  People freeze when that red light comes on.  They panic.  They become acutely aware that the next words out of their mouths will be seen by numerous strangers, possibly for years to come, and that’s a lot of pressure.

Be personable.  Help the subject loosen up.  Make them laugh.  Get them comfortable.  Change the subject.  Ask them a question.  Change the lighting.  Move them to a new room.  Make a mistake, then fix it, so they see that mistakes can be corrected and recovered from.

Above all, do whatever it takes to ensure that the personality seen by the viewers is the same personality you saw on your subject’s face before the red light went on.  (And if all else fails, film them when they think they’re not being filmed.  It’s funny what some black tape over that red light can accomplish.)

6.  B-roll will save your life.

Get ample footage of the location, inside and out.  Get shots of every participant, even when they’re not looking.  Shoot labels, packaging and displays.  Shoot products, in all stages of assembly and execution.

If you’re filming a conversation between two people, get reaction shots from both of them.  Get shots of the table.  Get shots of the audience.  Get shots of their hands.

There will always be at least one place in the final edit where you’ll wish you had just one relevant clip to cut away to, over an emergency edit you had to make.  If you don’t have something to use, you can’t make that cut.  Never, ever shoot yourself into a corner.

7.  Always carry release forms.

You’re shooting on the street outside a business and you’ve only planned to get once scene with the company’s owner.  Suddenly, her favorite customer, or a longtime vendor, or her family members arrive unannounced.  What a wonderful opportunity to film a meaningful exchange with your client and the people who matter most to the success of her business!

Now, if only you had a release form that person could sign, so you could legally use their image…

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As I continue to convince the C-Suite at client companies to trust in social media, I find that it’s an easier sell when the company is struggling to fight a negative image online.

This makes sense. Like people, brands are always concerned about fixing problems after those problems occur, not beforehand. (The school of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is also why preventative health care and preventative car maintenance often seem like luxuries, rather than logical necessities.)

Consider the case of Old Spice, which has received scads of glowing social media coverage over their customized YouTube outreach campaign.

Yes, the Old Spice ads are funny. And yes, Isaiah Mustafah (the new face of Old Spice) deserves all the accolades currently coming his way.

But we wouldn’t be talking about Old Spice at all if they didn’t have an image problem in the first place.

Old Spice has been perpetually seen as “your father’s deodorant” (or “your grandfather’s deodorant,” or however far back you’d like to go). It’s never been considered contemporary, and that anachronism was part of its charm. But it’s hard to sell “traditional” to a plugged-in, post-modern audience. So Old Spice revitalized their image.

Will seeing Old Spice as crisp, clean, adventurous and unstoppably witty help sell more sticks of deodorant? If so, then all this rebranding — and their investment in social media — will have paid off. And it’s hard to argue against the idea, since simply running in place is almost never a brand’s wisest option.

But this also raises a question of intention.

Because if the social media campaigns that garner the most attention are those that update outmoded brand images, repair PR problems and revitalize aging assets, maybe companies should be striving to generate their own “bad image” crises.

Because then they’re guaranteed to garner attention for engineering their own “new and improved” turnaround.

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There was just one problem: the metrics Bigelow cited in that video were outdated.  Newer studies had clarified the expected levels of caffeine after natural decaffeination, and they differed from the numbers in the video.

Fortunately, one astute viewer noticed this discrepancy and brought it to Bigelow’s attention.

Even better?  Bigelow listened.

Initially, they hoped they could fix those numbers with updated graphics, but there was no way around the numbers Cindi Bigelow herself was saying aloud throughout the how-to section.

So, in the end, they opted to have Creative Concepts (that’s us) reshoot the whole video and replace it across all video outlets.  Cindi even tracked two of the most recent studies the night before the video was filmed, just to ensure that the numbers were still in line.

In Bigelow’s view, sharing accurate information is far more important than cutting corners.  They pride themselves on providing their customers with insights and information they can count on, and when those facts and figures are in dispute, they take their corrections very seriously.

How committed to clarity is your company?  (And are they listening to their customers to make sure their messages are being heard… and heard correctly?)

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But if there’s one thing we’ve learned here at Creative Concepts, it’s that our best-laid video production plans often need to be scrapped once the camera starts rolling.

Here are three examples of the ways we’ve adapted our original video ideas to suit a client’s newfound needs — or to accommodate the limits of reality.

“What Do YOU Know About the Children’s Aid Society?”

That was the question we expected to ask people on the streets of New York.  And their answer?

Well… as it turned out, not much.

Although nearly everyone we spoke with had heard of The Children’s Aid Society, most of them weren’t quite sure what the charity actually does.  Despite operating in NYC for over 150 years, we quickly realized the organization was still “under the radar” for most New Yorkers.

When we recognized this disconnect between public impact and public image, we adapted our video’s premise and used our “man-on-the-street” style Q&As to educate the the viewers about the charity’s multitude of programs.

The First Rule of Live Event Planning: Something ALWAYS Goes Wrong

Ruth Ridgeway is a veteran event planner in the New York City market.  As such, she’s unflappable in the face of any challenge — including having her entire event crew videotaped during one of their signature two-day location transformations.

But when the wrong furniture gets delivered and there’s no time to revise her designs, Ruth switches from “management mode” to “problem-solving dynamo” in seconds — and our video capitalizes on her shrewdly-solved conundrum.

Have A Cup of Tea with (Windblown) Wally at Fenway Park

Even when everything goes right, there’s still no way to control the weather.

As proud sponsors of the Boston Red Sox, Bigelow Tea was thrilled to have a chance to shoot a quirky video with Wally the Green Monster.  The idea was to have Cindi Bigelow herself teach Wally how to make a cup of tea.  But the weather refused to cooperate, forcing Cindi and Wally to race through the process before their props blew clear across the field.

The lesson?

No matter what happens, find a way to make the most of every unexpected, inconvenient and downright blustery situation.

When we joined Cindi Bigelow on a trip to her alma mater (Boston College), we were blown away by just how many college students drink tea (we figured college was a serious coffee haven).  But even more surprising than the students’ taste for tea was how they developed their tea-drinking habits: it came from their families.

If you had told us beforehand that we’d find a random wave of passersby (none of the students were pre-selected) and almost all of them would have had a love of tea instilled in them by their parents, we would have said you were crazy.  Why?  Because of sterotypical preconceptions, like:

• Kids don’t listen to their parents
• Kids rebel
• Kids define their own personalities in opposition to family tradition
• College students have horrible eating habits
• College students live off caffeine

And so on.

Yet, if college students are willing to admit that their parents’ love of tea has rubbed off on them, what other bits of wisdom (or, conversely, what other bad habits) have you passed on to your kids?

Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  If you have students returning home from college — or if it’s you who’s heading home for the holidays — take a moment and find out which elements of your (or your parents’) messaging have survived the gap between the backyard and the dorm.  You may be surprised.

And you may learn a thing or two about the kinds of messages that last.

But the most amazing thing about cancer is the way some people not only overcome it, but convert their experience with cancer into a lens through which they can more clearly see — and more fully enjoy — the world they’ve now more fully come to appreciate.

Two of our clients have just such stories, and since cancer is a condition that extends beyond the constraints of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, we thought we’d share them with you now.

Elizabeth April-Fritz is the Product Manager for Bigelow Tea.  She’s also a three-time breast cancer survivor.  Her message is inspiring and self-evident:

“I can say with total certainty that this is a disease that I am living with NOT dying from.”

Likewise, Ouidad is another successful businesswoman.  Her eponymous New York salon just celebrated its 25th anniversary.  But along the way, Ouidad had to overcome more than just the fashion industry’s skepticism about a self-made “curl professional” — she had to overcome breast cancer.  And she did.  Now she and her husband Peter oversee Curls for a Cure, which works year-round to raise money for breast cancer research.

These remarkable women are only two of the millions who’ve refused to allow their cancer to define them, and who have emerged from their medical challenges with their energies renewed and their focuses sharpened.  We hope their stories serve as inspiration for you, no matter the hills or mountains in your path, and as a reminder that there is a life to be lived passionately on the other side.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Since Ouidad and her daughter, Sondriel, are so comfortable being themselves and sharing their insights with the camera, we knew they’d represent their business better than any hired hosts possibly could. But they also realized that Sondriel’s expertise may sound more authentic to a teen or young adult audience than Ouidad’s would, because not every audience perceives “authority” the same way.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you (or a client) are creating original media for the web, you need to be consistent in your branding, but don’t be slavishly insistent on a single point of view. Your audience is multifaceted; let your messaging be, too.

We produced this great video for Pitney Bowes called Better Mail Moment which is geared for direct marketers and small businesses or any business who needs guidance on how to effectively reach their customer through direct mail.  Watch Carol Wallace guide us through her daily mail opening and learn!  Go here for more information about direct mail via Pitney Bowes and go here to see more videos.

This video produced for our client Bigelow Tea is not only a perfect example of how to use video within the social media channels but it’s just a good business model to follow. Cindi Bigelow, President Bigelow Tea, hit the streets of New York City and got an earful about tea from everyone she talked to. No crazy editing, no corporate speak, just honesty from both Cindi and the variety of people she ran into.

Others seem to appreciate this as well. Take a look at what Chris Brogan has to say here and our mention of the video on our Business Smart Tools site here.

Take a look at more of our videos here.

We believe in this ourselves…we have Bigelow Tea to prove it and some new clients and their newly shot videos to show you soon!

See more of the article here.