Tips from a professional videographer on how to make your video content more engaging

We sat down with one of Australia’s best videographers, Lachlan Russell of Headstrong Films to talk about all things video, social and viral.

So how can we apply some of Lachy’s insights to creating highly engaging video content to the real estate industry? Let’s find out!

When asked about how Headstrong found their two distinctive styles, documentary storytelling and viral social content, it developed naturally from a passion for this work and that there was nothing else out there with this kind of depth.

“There is so much out there, so many stories to tell that aren’t being told.” – Lachlan Russell, Headstrong Films

How do you go about planning for a shoot and do you have any advice on how to do this really well?

With pre-production, there are lots of different styles you can go for. And often you should tailor your process to suit the production you are shooting for.

Lachy has narrowed it down to three different styles of pre-production for us.

1.        Pre-production on the shoot or just “winging-it” – This means going with the flow and figuring out the story as you go along. This can work if you are shooting for multiple days. You can do your pre-production on the job and review your shot list each night.

a.       Benefits – You can really let the story develop naturally this way.

b.       Cons – You really have to think on your feet as to how you are going to pull the elements of the story together. Because

c.       To pull this style off you have to be really on the ball to not miss the shot!

2.       The in-between approach – You go in with a good solid idea of what you want to achieve and you know how much content you need to create. You will have a checklist of what you want to shoot.

3.       The storyboard – you will prepare your ideas ahead of time and you narrow it down to one major concept or storyline with your team prior to the shoot.

a.       This includes storyboarding each scene.

b.       Preparing images for what each scene will actually look like.

c.       Headstrong then use a sketch artist to bring these concepts together visually which we present to the client prior to shoot and use this to make sure we get each frame and “hit those shots”.

d.       We find this method really helpful for creating our viral style content and it is amazing how sometimes when we go back to compare the end product to the initial sketches, how similar they are.

e.       With this style, you still have to be flexible on the shoot as quite often something amazing will happen that you weren’t expecting, so sometimes it’s more important to capture that.

f.         This style also really helps to communicate between the video team and the client the creative vision for the project and is often used for large-scale productions.

How can clients or people who want to work with videographers, how can they work better with you to help you do your job really easily?

The most helpful thing is examples!

Examples of what you want it to look like, feel like or how emotive you want it to be is so helpful to helping us be creative to achieve the outcome you want.

I honestly believe there is never a truly original idea, you get pieces of inspiration from everywhere and then you make it your own.

This is always the most helpful thing people can do when working with creatives.

It’s also helpful to share your ideas and be really clear on the outcome that you want to achieve.

Where do you recommend for people who have no idea where to start, on where they can go to find inspiration?

People often use YouTube, but there is a big variation of quality on there. I use Vimeo – this is a platform for filmmakers so the quality of production and examples there are incredible.

Try out the Vimeo Staff Picks! And every year they also have awards for different film categories, so this is a great source to use for inspiration.

In terms of creating viral content, what tips can you give to help people create highly engaging content, especially video?

The biggest thing would be trying to make the piece emotive. This is the number one thing. There is so much content out there that is just throwaway content. You wouldn’t even watch it for more than 10 or 15 seconds. I think everyone is just so desensitised to content now, there is just so much out there, so you really need to create an emotional connection to keep people engaged.

It does take a bit to keep people engaged – and it can be really challenging to create emotion and it’s hard for me to describe how to do this. Emotive videos are what will get people to engage with and share your content.

So there is that way of making something meaningful and then there is the other way of making something so visually appealing that it really has that wow factor, and people really want to know how you created that shot.

Something that sparks curiosity and just amazes! For example, the Attenborough documentaries – these are just so visually appealing and you wonder how they captured those shots.

If you can achieve something like this, then your content should be highly engaging.

Is there a favourite video that you have made or a scene you have shot that is a standout for you?

There are a lot but the one that I am most proud of was our Real Moto video that we shot in 2020.

It was more the amazing viral stunts that we created, the danger involved and that everyone came away safe from that shoot was just something we were all really proud of achieving.

You can watch this video here:

https://vimeo.com/456409074/ad74af3d5c

What is the best performing piece of content you have created and why do you think it performed so well?

There is one standout for me – which is a job we did for Monster in 2019 called Monster Mentality.

The approach of that one was a bit different to your typical content for extreme sports which is normally cool tricks or dangerous stunts.

This kind of content is good, but I would say it’s quite shallow in that you can watch this content and appreciate how hard those things are, but they lack a lot of depth.

So we went in with the approach of let’s tell a story and show some emotion in there and actually figure out what makes these people tick. Everyone had a really amazing story, especially with one particular skateboarder, Lizzy Armanto who had such a cool story to tell.

I see this series as one of our most successful. I haven’t checked the stats recently but each piece of content in this series got between 1 and 2 million views, so I think this was really effective.

Watch the video Headstrong Films made with Lizzy Armanto below. Fun fact that not many people know – because of production schedules getting messed around and working with high profile athletes, the team only had 3 hours to shoot this! Such an incredible piece of content and story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG7o6w0uHSY

Thank you to Lachlan Russell and the team at Headstrong Films for sharing their insights and a bit of their process with us!