How Can Pro Production Add Value To Short-Form Storytelling?

How long does it take to tell a story?

A 90-minute feature film? A 12-part Netflix limited series? A ten-minute YouTube video? A 60-second advert? 

The truth is, you can tell a story in a single line. 

The famous six-word story of grief, often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, reads like this:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

You can read it and understand it in seconds. It is a template for short-form storytelling today and the story stays with us long after reading.

Storytelling For Short Attention Spans

For years, we’ve been repeatedly told that our attention spans are shrinking. Social media platforms and smartphone technology often bear the brunt of the blame. 

The need for instant gratification means we aren’t always inclined to focus on slow-build stories and characters. Sometimes we just don’t have the time to wait for the big reveal. 

Today, everything seems to compete for our attention. That is where short-form storytelling comes into its own. 

What Defines Short-Form Storytelling?

In video, short-form storytelling can take the form of TV advertisements, corporate videos and social media. Each reel, video ad or 15-second clip tells a story about a brand, a product or a person, whether real or fictional. 

Concision

Shortform is exactly that, concise and edited down into snippets that can be consumed quickly. Most are less than 60 seconds, but they can be as long as three minutes.

Impact

It is to the point and delivers its message with precision and clarity. 

Visually Engaging

While some user-generated content is filmed in the passenger seat of cars, many content producers use effects, imagery and text. 

Why Is Short-Form Video Good For Brands?

Using engaging visuals to market a brand is not a new concept, but we’ve come a long way from static billboards. 

Now, companies want to communicate their personality, or that of their products, through creative advertisements and content. 

TV commercials fall under the same banner of short-form stories. Slots can be as short as 15 seconds, though most are slightly longer at 30 seconds.

Repurposing a well-made TV commercial for social media can increase the reach further than keeping to just one media format.  

Storytelling using short-form video on social media alongside or instead of TV ads is a core tenet of digital strategy for many brands. 

According to HubSpot reports 89 per cent of businesses use video marketing.

Engagement rates for short video content are far higher than longer content.

Short social content has the advantage of reaching more people in a shorter amount of time and gives a higher return on investment.

How Can Short-Form Storytelling Benefit From Professional Production?

Scrolling social media and flicking through TV channels, we feed our dopamine-hungry brains with a quick fix of TikTok or snappy car advertisements. 

Amateur content production has the advantages of immediacy and relatability. While viewers can emotionally invest in the creator, it does have its downsides.

A poorly filmed or edited video can stop us in our tracks in a bad way. The jarring effect can immediately turn us off the brand or person. 

Quoted on BBC’s Digital Cities, former BBC Three Controller Damian Kavanagh hints at the importance of quality in short-form content:

“I think everyone recognises that short form is the future. The challenge is to find the best of the huge amount of content out there.”

Creating videos that have professional filming and post-production values at their heart is one way to avoid being lost in a sea of digital content. 

What Are The Advantages Of Professional Production?

Some of the benefits of using a professional production company include:

• Better sound quality

• Professional lighting set-ups

• Excellent video quality and definition

• Film in a professional studio

• Project planning from start to finish

• Professional post-production effects

• Video editing by professionals

• Transfers to other formats and media channels

  
  

How Can A Commercial Production Studio Help Manchester Brands Tell Their Story?

A TV advertisement or a YouTube short is often a potential customer’s first introduction to a brand. 

60 seconds or less is not long to tell a brand’s story. Strong creative ideas can be let down when presented in an amateur way. It is important to get it right the first time.

Employing a TV commercial production house can create a clear vision of the brand’s purpose and values, all in a short video.

It can negate problems associated with in-house video content creation, such as a lack of appropriate studio space and harsh lighting for filming. 

Editing your brand’s story should be in safe hands, so the key points are not lost in a visual melee. Concision in short-form storytelling only works when you don’t cut the important plot points.  

Slick professional production with sharp editing can help a brand stand out in an ocean of snackable content. 

For brands that want to access a young, social media-savvy audience, one thing is for sure: short-form storytelling needs to be part of your future marketing plans.