Feb '18 | Need to Create Intrigue? There’s a Video Style for That

First, define the emotional qualities. Then choose the tool.

RocketSpace brought Patina Pictures in to capture event video production for their accelerator’s final demo day presentations. The goal: to promote future accelerators to new startups by piquing their curiosity, while creating hype and intrigue.

Our Challenge

There are only twelve startups accepted into each cohort, so demo day is a rather intimate affair. So how do you create intrigue when there’s only a handful of people at the event?

For Marketers Who Skim

• Take some stylistic inspiration from today’s hottest reality TV shows.

• You’ve heard of the 360 review, but have you heard of the 360 narrative arc?

• Don’t just get soundbites, get imagery to support those soundbites.

Bring your audience behind the scenes by showing the “set.”

Bring Your Audience “Behind the Scenes”

Demo Day occurs at the end of the accelerator, when the startups sell their new products to a room of corporates in hopes of creating a partnership. So for inspiration on how to portray this event in a way that created suspense and intrigue, we drew on Reality TV’s Shark Tank.

If you watch a few episodes of Shark Tank, you’ll notice there are a few different stylistic approaches they recycle over and over again when it comes to filming. We employed two of them for our event video production. First, the interview in the hallway before they go into the shark tank. We employed this same tactic by interviewing our startups in a stripped down setting, in the room where they were about to give their presentation.

Second, the “confessional” is not only used in Shark Tank, but is a tactic across many reality tv shows. Instead of the camera being a fly on the wall, it’s a character. You know it’s there to record intimate moments, and because of that, you lean in to see what’s going to be said. We employed this same style by giving a glimpse behind the scenes during our startup interviews– you see the light stand, the boom pole, the director– all with the goal of getting the audience to lean in.

The 360 Narrative Arc

A good 360 review occurs when you have multiple different people, of all levels, weighing in on one thing. We employed that same construct to our narrative approach in order to provide a high level of legitimacy. First, we determined that our three main characters were the startups, the corporates, and the RocketSpace team. Then we determined a unique “set” for each group.

We filmed the RocketSpace team standing up, and incorporated a variety of different angles, to give these interviews a cutting- edge-disruptive-kind-of-feeling. We filmed the startups sitting down, on a bright red couch in the middle of an open space, and gave them a confessional quality by giving the viewer a glimpse behind the scenes. Finally, we filmed our corporates man-on-the-street style, even though they were scheduled and not spontaneous interviews. This gave the event a quality of legitimacy, as if we pulled them out of the audience to ask them a few unscripted questions.

Soundbites + Imagery = The Full Experience

Soundbites provide us with the answer to “What do you want your audience to think?” Imagery provides us with the answer to “What do you want your audience to feel?” And when you combine both soundbites and imagery together it creates a full picture, and helps push your audience toward your CTA, or “What you want your audience to do.”

So once your characters are determined, make sure you follow them around with the camera and capture them in action. Whether that be giving a presentation, talking to a group of people, or just walking into the room. This kind of event video production will tell a fuller story and give their soundbites more life.