DIGITAL NEWS: PROMO VIDEO PLANNING AND PRODUCING

When it came to planning and shooting the promo video, we knew we wanted something short and snappy. We didn't want a promo for this episode, we wanted a promo video for the channel. Our pitch is a weekly YouTube series to help students and each week would be different and we wanted that to come across in the promo. But, we also needed to keep up with the branding. So this meant we needed a slight amount of comedy and a way to keep it lively and fun.
For this, I referred back to my Directions Unit and my favourite Director, Edgar Wright and his style of directing: Edgar's Directional Style
He uses the camera and the editing to his advantage. With fast cuts and whip pans to make it fast and exciting. This is where we found our idea.

We decided to go with the idea of having George and Jack simply tell us what NewsGrad is. These are our presenters, who we would be watching so they should tell us. But whip pan and cut between them. Quick and snappy to keep it excited. George says one bit, Jack another and then bring them together and welcome them to NewsGrad.
But then George had the idea, to have them sitting bored in a lecture and then we cut to the fun they have with the channel.

Below is our finished Promo:

So in post, we added in a black and white effect to the first footage. Make it look dull and boring with the music to create the atmosphere. Then with the whip ban we bring in the colour and we add in the sound effect and it creates a fun video. I added in the bloopers at the end as a joke originally but found that they really helped make some fun and laughter. It shows that these are students making the content and that they are relatable. So, we kept them in and brought the green screen background in to help with branding and uploaded this to the website and YouTube channel.

Top line
When making the promo we also decided on our top line for our channel and it's the ending of the promo video. "Sit back, relax, push your course work aside and tune into NewsGrad". The key words here being relax and push your course work aside, making the students wonder why they should do this. Adding in the name to make them question who we are but with the name telling them it's something to do with News. We went with this as it worked, it flows nicely in the video and rolls off the tongue and fits nicely with the branding for students.