10 Questions You Should Be Able to Answer Before You Film

Though you may be excited and feel ready to start filming and getting the content you want, here are 10 key questions that you should be able to answer before you even pick up a camera. 

1. Who has the power to create the change you want? (This is your primary audience.)
2. Do you have access to this primary audience?
3. If not, do you need to engage allies or an intermediary who has access (eg: a person who knows the person or organization you want to reach)?
4. What do you want your audience to do?
5. What will convince them to take action?
6. What will be appealing, persuasive or interesting to your audience (i.e.: factual information, potential people who can be interviewed or featured in your video, any experts you may want to include on the video or in accompanying material)?
7. Who will your audience listen to – and why? (This should be the messenger [or messengers] in your video.)
8. How will your video be integrated into your campaign or advocacy plan?
9. When should your audience see your video?
10. What is your distribution plan to ensure your audience sees your video? (See Section 5 to learn more)

NOTE:

Be very clear at the beginning of your advocacy plan who the target or primary audience is for your video.  Though you can have more than one audience, the primary audience should be the person or persons that have the power to create the change you want to see.  Though this is often an elected official or representative of an organization, it can also be citizens you are trying to engage to get involved to help strengthen your advocacy work.   For each audience, you will want to chose the best message and messengers to move the audience to action.  Moreover, some of the most successful advocacy plans have multiple audiences at the same time, or they target different audiences, one after the other, using a variety of materials for different settings.  Analyze your situation carefully to design the best plan of action to support your advocacy.

What Next? Research to Know What is Out There

Plan Your Video

[note: this and the outline are a bit of the same, need to find optimal path for users on this]

Step 1:  Write a ‘guiding paragraph’

Take time to write a description of the story and what viewers will see in your video.  This should not be a summary of the video’s message or an analysis, but a description of how you visualize the story unfolding.  This can also incorporate the style and feel of the video – for example, If you are looking for a fast MTV-like feel or a more slow-paced story, or a series of stark images interspersed with title-cards.  An example below is a description of a story on internally displaced people in Burma.

Think visually and verbally – every word should describe something you see in the video.  If you are producing a series of video, discuss with your facilitator how to consider how elements of your story will be conveyed through the series of videos.

{SAMPLE GUIDING PARAGRAPH}

Step 2:  Finalize Your Messages

List out the most important messages for your audience and put them in order of importance.  Remember, this should be a list of messages that you will be able to convey in your video with interviews, testimony and b-roll images and audio.  Think big, but be realistic.

Step 3:  Choose Your Messengers

Among the messages you identified that will best move your audience to the action you want, who can tell your story most compellingly for your audience?

Remember that compelling and memorable individual, personal stories are part of most powerful videos and stories, and that an “expert” interview may give credibility and help elaborate nuanced legal or policy obligations.  You may consider how you would tell “both sides of the story” or explain why this is infeasible or ill advised.   Consider that ‘who’ tells the story can also include the narrator – you can read more about narration here.

Step 4:  Choose Your Audiovisual Content

What are the video, images and audio that can best support your video to move your audience to action?  Write a create a wish-list of content and prioritize it, accounting for what you may already have or have access to easily, what content you’ll have to shoot yourself and what archival content you may want to find.

Step 5:  Create a Video Outline