Our Promo Piece

[David Kovalev]

Hey Guys,
Take a look at our promotion piece. We are getting ready for our first bridal show this weekend! We'll be showing this piece along with a few other pieces. Any advice or tips for the show would also be appriciated.

Hope you like the clip:

TouchDream At Work on Vimeo

be sure to post what you think.

[Travis Cossel]

Nice work. As a piece to show brides, I don't know though. It shows a lot of HOW you guys get your shots, but I don't think most brides really care about that. In terms of something to show to brides, I think you'd do better by just showing THEM off instead of showing how you achieve shots. Just my own personal opinion. Thanks for sharing.

[Matthew Ebenezer]

Hey David,

We actually did our first bridal expo a few days ago ... so, here's a few thoughts for you:

- Audio is relatively ineffective at an expo with all the noise from other vendors plus people walking around talking - and you want to be able to talk easily with couples and not be drowned out by your own music/sound effects etc ... We were the only "audio/visual" stand in our area of the expo so we just had some music tracks playing softly in the background with two 40" LCDs looping photos and video

- We felt we should have included some footage of us shooting in our video loop because people didn't seem to get it with the video. Not necessarily footage of how we get our shots but more stuff of us interacting with brides and couples, having fun etc ...

- I agree with Travis that there's maybe too much footage of you guys shooting and not enough footage of brides - but I think it'd be cool to have a little bit of you guys shooting in the loop.

- There's no way possible to showcase your video work effectively in an expo environment but it's an awesome opportunity to meet and greet people plus let them see your personality and passion for what you do.

- Our goal for this expo was to let people know we exist and encourage them to checkout our website and blog to see more of our work - and for them to get a feel for who we are as people. It wasn't so much about the 'products' that we're selling but more about us ... if that makes sense.

- We're pretty selective when it comes to the weddings that we shoot so we didn't set out to book every bride or couple that walked through the door. Out of 400 or 500 people that came past our stand there would only be about 3 or 4 weddings that I'd be really keen to shoot.

- Go all out with your booth if possible. We didn't spend much on ours but it really helped to re-inforce our personality and quality. With some creative thought you can come up with something cool that will hopefully help you stand out in the crowd. You can check out some photos of our booth/stand here: Shadowplay Blog Our First Expo!

- Make it a priority to meet as many of the other vendors as you possibly can. Exchange cards with them and have a chat if possible - after all, they're all in the same industry. We did this towards the end of the day as things quietened down.

- Don't just rely on your promo video or your booth/stand/display to draw people in. We made sure to have at the ready a handful of flyers or brochures plus an easy smile and a "Hey, how it's going?" or some similar pleasant greeting. Making eye contact and smiling works wonders.

Anyway, not much of that is about your promo video but hopefully it helps :)

Cheers,

Matthew.

[Carl Wilky]

I would agree with Travis and remove some of the "behind the scene" shots and replace them with more WOW footage to get the viewers to admire your work. You have to remember that the potential clients are more interested in the finished product a lot more than how it was done. Take a movie for example, unless you are inserted in cinematography, as long as the movie you are watching is great and you are getting your money's worth, you don't care how it was captured and edited, same thing would apply to the bride and groom.

Matthew -> thank you for your feedback, it was very helpful and your booth looked great. I particularly like the props you guys used for your table top, very creative. (might use that for my next show) P.S. i saw the shootsac promo video you guys did at a photoshow last weekend at the shootsac's booth. I was like, "Hey i know her she's Katie from Shadowplay..."

[Matthew Craggs]

I personally dig the behind the scenes stuff to a point in the earlier parts of the piece. There is value to them and the video is very good, but it may benefit your cause to lay off a bit.

Up to 1:14 it's neat to see how you work, but if you took away the behind the scenes shots after that point, and instead increase the pace of your piece just a tad and focus more on the bride than I believe it would leave a longer lasting impression.

Shots like the LCD screen at 1:35 or the trio of you walking just seem out of place to me and take the focus away from where it should be.

Just my two cents :)

And Matthew, just wanted to mention that your bridal show booth looks absolutely awesome, as well as the way you present your DVDs (two of them vertically with the photo on the left).

[Matthew Ebenezer]

Carl and Matthew - Thanks for the feedback on our booth. I might copy and paste my expo thoughts into a new thread in case others find them helpful.

[David Kovalev]

Thanks all of you for your helpful comments! I will take it all into consideration.
Matthew thanks for your tips and very nice display you got there. Our show is this weekend and I'm a little nervous. As for the clip... I will probley shorten it, this is one of three clips that we're showing.

Thanks again

[Chris P. Jones]

Originally Posted by David Kovalev

Take a look at our promotion piece. We are getting ready for our first bridal show this weekend! We'll be showing this piece along with a few other pieces. Any advice or tips for the show would also be appriciated.

Hey David,

I think your shots of the couples are great, and I would like to see more of that instead of the text.

Normally, I wouldn't want to see shots of the videographers at work except for the following reason:

Demos are received differently at Bridal Shows because of the presence of other vendors. I have been asked, "What are you selling? Do you make dresses?" among other things.

When your work looks as good as it does, many brides think it is a *commercial* selling something else!?!

It was then that I realized that when I watch a McDonald's commercial, I want the fries, I don't really think about who made the commercial.

So, having yourself working in the video answers the question "what are you selling."

But there are probably better ways of showing what you do while maximizing the demo time with money shots of couples. It's all about how you decorate your booth, and I don't mean by putting your glidecam on a C-Stand. Find a female to help you in this if you don't have a lady in your business or in your life.

One suggestion for the future - buy some cheap useless super8 cameras off ebay and put them on/across your table. They're cool in the decorativeness and they communicate what you do.

But most of all, network with other vendors that are setup near you. Get some cards, follow up, get to know them. I received referrals that turned into money from other vendors at bridal shows more than I got brides directly from the show.

Good luck!
jones

[Matthew Ebenezer]

Originally Posted by Chris P. Jones

Hey David,

I think your shots of the couples are great, and I would like to see more of that instead of the text.

Normally, I wouldn't want to see shots of the videographers at work except for the following reason:

Demos are received differently at Bridal Shows because of the presence of other vendors. I have been asked, "What are you selling? Do you make dresses?" among other things.

When your work looks as good as it does, many brides think it is a *commercial* selling something else!?!

It was then that I realized that when I watch a McDonald's commercial, I want the fries, I don't really think about who made the commercial.

So, having yourself working in the video answers the question "what are you selling."

But there are probably better ways of showing what you do while maximizing the demo time with money shots of couples. It's all about how you decorate your booth, and I don't mean by putting your glidecam on a C-Stand. Find a female to help you in this if you don't have a lady in your business or in your life.

One suggestion for the future - buy some cheap useless super8 cameras off ebay and put them on/across your table. They're cool in the decorativeness and they communicate what you do.

But most of all, network with other vendors that are setup near you. Get some cards, follow up, get to know them. I received referrals that turned into money from other vendors at bridal shows more than I got brides directly from the show.

Good luck!
jones

Great advice Chris!