Ultimately you want to be trusted by your audience. The formula for trust is quite straightforward; they need to see you (i.e. be aware), and you need credibility (i.e. a positive perception). When you have visibility, and credibility, then your audience can trust you.

Video is a perfect tool for brand awareness. You gain SEO benefits as people are on your website longer, you can harness social media whether organic or paid, and you increase accessibility by making your content go further. Whether you’re speaking to people with disabilities, language barriers, or different regions, video is far more accessible than static.

Every project we do at Tricks, and we’ve done over 500+ successful projects, starts with a consultation to outline your vision, your expectations and your requirements. This is captured in the Tricks Creative Brief along with a series of questions designed to extract all the information needed to deliver to your objectives.

Essentially, the planning stage, setting everything up for the actual filming stage. Pre-production consists of, but isn’t limited to, scriptwriting, storyboarding, casting, location scouting, scheduling, and general preparation before the camera is set up and “action!” is called. Pre-production is crucial as it sets out the creative concept, strategy via scriptwriting, and directorial decisions like casting, props, locations etc.

This is where the magic happens, so to speak. The production phase contains all of the footage captured, and any other elements that may be included in the final video, like animation, motion graphics, illustration, etc. It includes setting up the location, capturing video and audio recordings, and managing the set including actors. A small crew will consist of a director, camera operator and sound engineer. A large crew includes multiple camera operators, sound engineers, lighting technicians, runners, gaffers, and many more roles.

After the filming is complete, the set is dismantled, and everyone’s gone home, the post-production company kicks into gear. This brings the separate elements of the video, like different shots and scenes, and brings it all together. It involves editing footage, cutting out surplus or unusable sections, adding music, sound effects, visual effects, and anything else that enhances the video. Colour correction and sound mixing is a last step to polish and finalise the video, before specific outputs are tailored to the creative briefs’ requirements. The video is constantly adjusted, ensuring the intended message, emotion and structure is tweaked to the highest quality.

Logging is where footage is reviewed and marked, noting positive and negative sections of the shots. Any missing metadata is added here. So, when looking for a clip of an actor, the footage can be searched based on the metadata containing the actor’s name, for example.

The bad parts of the shots are discarded, and the good parts put into an Assembly Edit. This is a rough cut that is a minimum viable product. It’s crucial to work quickly and efficiently, so here the flow of the video is crafted as quickly as possible. The focus here is flow and story, not polish.

The Rough Cut whittles down the assembly cut, trimming and adjusting as necessary. The story and flow are the guiding principles here, so scenes may change, edit, or move at this stage. Basic audio treatment like soundtracks are also added to enhance the storytelling.

The Fine Cut is a further layer to discard what isn’t necessary and retain what is. Continuing adjustments are made to ensure the rhythm and pacing of the video is correct, and the story progresses with purpose.

Sound Editing comes hand-in-hand with the Fine cut and cleans up audio tracks, removes unwanted noise, passes through various filters to ensure the speaker is crystal clear. Sound effects, voiceovers and music are added and finalised.

Once the story is set, and the “picture is locked”, the video progresses to Colour Correction. Adjustments are made to ensure consistency across different cameras, sets and times of day, where light can massively differ. Any issues with white balance or exposure are cleaned up, so there is a level playing field and a sense of continuity across the video.

When the colour is properly corrected, the video goes to Grading, where any creative treatments are applied. This will influence the look, mood and feeling of the final outcome. This kind of attention to detail sets professional video editing apart.

Effects and Transitions are utilised where needed to help move the audience from shot to shot, scene to scene. Graphics are also added to areas like titles, credits, lower thirds i.e. names, locations, or any information the viewer needs. Motion graphics and animation are key tools for the professional video editor to ensure video content is tailored to meet specific objectives.

The final export can take place once all of the above is completed in sequence. It’s exported into necessary specs depending on platform or marketing channel, for instance TV, Social Media, Presentations.

Commercials grab the audience’s attention quickly, and persuade them to take action, whatever that action needs to be. Commercials create an emotional connection, raise brand awareness and drive sales. Often they use innovative creativity to stand apart. These are largely for companies and brands looking to advertise their products and/or services.

The clues in the name; this is for corporations, businesses and organisations looking to communicate with a target audience. Often this is an internal audience, including employees and stakeholders. Corporate videos enhance the companies image (perception), explain products and/or services more effectively, and lead to increased trust and authority (credibility) within a market.

When hosting a large event, its fantastic value to produce video content alongside to promote to potential attendees, or engage attendees once the event has finished. Often the type of events are conferences or trade shows. It can also be used to promote future events, or provide take-home materials to future reference.

Innovative, ambitious educational businesses know that education has to become engaging to work effectively in the modern world. Whether you’re an educational institution, or training / e-learning company, creating digestible, memorable education is vital for success. Education can also be delivered on-demand, and can be referred back to, which is especially important with complex topics.

The explainer video is a simple and effective way to communicate complex ideas. This often leads to increased understanding and higher conversion rates. Explainer videos are suited to a wide range of businesses from start-ups to blue chip companies. They work brilliantly for businesses with complicated processes or offerings.

Often, purchasing decisions are most effective when the customer is educated and knowledgeable about the product, especially features and benefits. A product demo offers a showcase of the product, helping the customer to understand, leading to improved customer satisfaction and reduced returns.

Any organisation will benefit from being visible and credible on social media. A brand seeking to build a community should be maximising on the potential that social media offers. Creating content, especially shareable content, will increase brand visibility and engagement.

Trust, through credibility and visibility, is one of the most important factors for purchasing. What better way to build trust than to put happy, satisfied customers in front of a camera to talk about their positive experience. This is called ‘social proof’, and can be a powerful influence on the decision making process.

When looking to do something slightly different to your competition, explaining a complicated video, or trying to produce a video around something typically difficult to film, animation is your answer. When video was a novelty a decade ago, putting someone in front of a camera was enough, it was new and exciting. A decade later, when video content is abundant, you need to do something slightly different to keep your audience excited and engaged. Look no further than an animated video to tell your story.