How to capture emotion for a compelling story
If you wanted to say something meaningful, something that grabs attention, how would you say it? To captivate your audience, you’ll need to use emotion. Just as we discussed in our video storytelling blog. We know that emotion can lead the viewer to take action. But how do we capture emotion? How can we use visuals, audio, and narrative together to create the right emotion(s) for the story? Below are 3 methods we use to capture emotion for a compelling story.
#1: Be Authentic
Nothing will ruin the emotion of a video quicker than feeling like the subject of the video is too scripted or inauthentic. It is imperative that you pay attention to your target audience the emotion you are wanting to deliver. The second your video begins to feel salesy or too forced, you begin to lose the attention of your viewer or worse you begin losing trust.
Be less focused on looking or sounding “perfect” and focus on being natural and comfortable for your audience. Viewers don’t want to feel tricked or “sold”, they want to relate. They want to see themselves in the story you’re telling. Remember, they are they hero of the story. (insert link)
#2: Warm Up
Most videos we create are documentaries, video docuseries, and testimonial videos for businesses. When working with a subject or interviewee, we want to ensure they are comfortable and at ease. We do this through a process of “warming up. This might include warm up questions, but it could also include light talk, humor, and of course coffee….yes coffee is needed everyday, everywhere. We find that the “warming up” process helps our clients feel natural, at ease, and come across as their most authentic selves. Some of our greatest content has even come from cameras rolling as we begin to warm up.
#3: Ditch The Script
Often we see the mistake of having an interviewee or subject read from a script or teleprompter with zero emotion. There is a time and place for this type of content, but it’s not helpful when pulling out natural emotions. It comes across rigid, dry, and emotionless, the exact opposite of what you want from your video. At 963 we spend time understanding our topic, our audience, and the story we are trying to tell and turn that into a series of questions for our clients. The better the questions, the better the content, and they more natural the conversation will come across. You can see this throughout all of our testimonial and documentary videos. No scripts, no teleprompters, just a conversation documented on video.
We will talk more about this in our next blog as we discuss how to “pull the story out” and how pre-written scripts are ruining your videos.