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"Tom Clifford is by trade a filmmaker. For most of his life, he rarely wrote anything longer than a brief comment in the margin of a script. 

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« Can Your Company’s Video Story Change a Life? | Main | Fast Company: 7 Steps to Film Your Corporate Documentary »
Friday
Aug152008

Pitching New Business: 3 Interesting Questions I Love Asking

DateFriday, August 15, 2008 at 09:04AM

I'll be presenting my corporate films to a large company in a few hours.

These presentations are always fun; I get to meet new people, learn about their industry and find out if we have any common interests. In general, I get to inspire people to incorporate video stories into their communications efforts.

But as I prepare for these presentation, I have so many questions I might want to ask.

In the end, here are my three favorite questions I enjoy asking to stimulate the conversation and establish common ground for everyone.

Maybe you can use them when thinking about your own corporate film.

1. Why video?
If we can understand what the video intends to capture that other media has a hard time capturing, then this insight becomes a framework for all of us to use. It uniquely positions the video. As a producer/director, this is extremely helpful.

2. "Video" means a lot of different things to people. What does "video" mean to you?
Context is important. Talking about concepts and intangibles become a little more focused when people share what they mean. Is "video" the story? The visual techniques? The emotions? The context of what "video" means becomes significant. We can place the video in relationship to other things. What "video" means to me may be different to what it means to you.

3. Why now?
This tells us the back-story. Is it the first time incorporating video? Is there
a new initiative requiring video? Have other videos been successful? Not so successful? Is competition a factor? Is it time to up-date the old video? What's the saying? "Timing is everything!"

Thanks and have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

---Tom

AuthorThomas Clifford | Comment1 Comment |
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Reader Comments (1)

Listening to brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor speak of her life-changing shift to intuitive perception of the world after losing her left brain cognitive abilities after a stroke, I began to wonder about the social-changing effects of video/photo proliferation now that masses of people can capture & see the world through images--images are no longer confined to MSM sources. How differently we source information when selecting from photos & videos rather than words ( PICLENS / VIEWZI). Most people are visual learners. We see, understand and feel authenticity (or lack of it) even more when we observe facial expressions hand gestures and context via video.
August 15, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterMeryl Steinberg

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