Your Brand Video Doesn't Need To Tell Your Entire Story

One of the hardest parts of making a brand video is deciding what not to put in it.

By the time we get through pre-production with a client, we usually have way more material than we could ever fit into a two- or three-minute video. There's the story of how the company started, the services they offer today, the people who work there, their customers, their values, the things that make them different, where they're headed next, and about a hundred other things that all feel important.

And they probably are important.

They just don't all belong in the same video.

At Bunker Hill Media, Boston’s best video production company for brand videos, we produce a lot of interview-driven brand films, and one of the biggest parts of our job is figuring out what the actual story is. A great brand video doesn't need to explain everything someone could possibly know about your company. In fact, trying to do that is usually what makes a brand video less interesting.

The goal isn't to finish a three-minute video knowing absolutely everything about a business. The goal is to finish it understanding who they are, why they matter, and why you might want to know more.

A Three-Minute Video Can't Say Everything

Three minutes can feel like a lot of time when you're planning a video. Once you actually start building the story, it goes incredibly fast.

A few seconds establish the company and the people we're meeting. Then we need enough time for someone to actually tell a story rather than firing off one-sentence talking points. We need room for pauses, emotion, b-roll, music, and all of the little moments that make a film feel like a film instead of a corporate presentation.

Suddenly, those three minutes don't feel very long at all.

That's where companies can get themselves into trouble. Everyone has something they understandably want included. The founder wants to tell the origin story. The sales team wants to explain every service. HR wants to talk about culture. Leadership wants the mission and values represented. Someone remembers an award the company won five years ago. Before long, we're trying to squeeze ten minutes of information into a three-minute video.

Technically, we can make everything fit. We can shorten answers, speed up the pacing, add more text on screen, and cram information into every available second.

But that's usually not going to make the video better.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for a brand film is simply decide what story we're telling - and give that story enough room to breathe.

More Information Usually Means Less Emotion

This sounds counterintuitive, but we've seen it happen over and over again.

The more information you try to communicate, the less time you have to make someone actually feel something.

Imagine we're interviewing the founder of a company. They start telling us about the moment they realized there was a problem in their industry, why they decided to do something about it, how difficult those first few years were, and what it feels like now to see the company they've built.

That's a story.

Now imagine interrupting that story every twenty seconds because we also need to mention six services, four office locations, a new software platform, three company values, and an industry certification.

We've technically communicated more information, but we've probably made the video less memorable.

This is why we care so much about emotion in interview-driven videos. People don't need to remember every fact in your film. They need to remember how your company made them feel. If they walk away understanding what you care about and believing the people who told them the story, the video has done something much more valuable than reciting every bullet point from your website.

Pick The Story You Actually Want To Tell

This is one of the biggest conversations we have during pre-production. On a shoot day it’s better to pick one story for the main video and use free time to capture other lines/stories you might want to tell down the line.

Before we start writing interview questions or building out a creative document, we want to understand what the video is actually about.

Not what information needs to appear in it. What is the story?

Maybe it's about a company that started with two people and became something much bigger. Maybe it's about the customers whose lives have changed because of a particular service. Maybe it's about a team that's obsessed with solving a problem nobody else has been able to solve. Maybe it's about where a company has been for the last fifty years—or where it's going over the next fifty.

Once we know that, a lot of the other decisions become easier.

We can still communicate important information along the way. A great brand film can absolutely explain what a company does, introduce its services, establish credibility, and give viewers a sense of scale. We just don't want those things competing with the actual story.

The story should be the thing holding everything together.

Your Website Can Handle The Details

This is something we remind clients of all the time: your brand video doesn't exist by itself.

Most people are going to watch it on your website. That means there's probably a navigation bar sitting directly above it and pages full of information sitting directly below it.

Your services page can explain every service you offer. Your About page can include your full company history. Your team page can introduce everyone who works there. Your case studies can dive into specific projects. Your contact page can explain exactly how someone can work with you.

Your brand video doesn't have to do all of those jobs too.

In fact, we think video is most powerful when you let it do the things video does better than almost any other medium. Let us see someone's face when they talk about why the company matters to them. Let us hear the emotion in a customer's voice. Let us watch your team doing the work instead of reading a paragraph describing it.

Use the video to make people care.

Then let the rest of your website answer their questions.

Leave The Audience Wanting To Know More

We don't think someone reaching the end of your brand video and wanting more information is a failure.

We think that's the point.

If someone finishes watching and immediately wants to click through your website, read about your services, watch another customer story, or contact your team, the video worked. You earned their attention without trying to explain absolutely everything in one sitting.

Some of our favorite brand films leave things unsaid. They give the audience enough information to understand the company but enough breathing room to connect with the people behind it. They create curiosity rather than trying to eliminate it.

That's a much more interesting place to leave someone.

Final Thoughts from Bunker Hill Media

Your company probably has a lot to say. That's a good problem to have.

But your brand video doesn't need to say all of it.

When we're developing an interview-driven brand film, we'd rather tell one strong story really well than tell ten stories halfway. We'd rather let someone finish a thought than cut them off to squeeze in another talking point. And we'd rather have an audience genuinely connect with three minutes of your story than spend three minutes trying to remember twenty different things you wanted them to know.

There will always be another page on your website, another social video, another testimonial, another case study, or another opportunity to tell a different part of the story.

Your brand video has one job.

Make people care enough to want to hear the rest.