Product Video Editing: How to Make Your Products More Appealing Online
You’ve filmed it from six angles, the lighting is acceptable, the background is clean, and there’s a decent close-up of the pack. It just seems a bit flat when you play it back.
The product is absolutely there, just not in the slightest bit interesting at all.
This is the classic problem with product videos. The camera can certainly record what it looks like, but it's a bit more of a challenge to work out what a buyer actually wants to see. A person looking at a backpack would want to know whether it will fit their laptop. A person looking at a table lamp would want to get a sense of its size and the amount of light it gives.
The edit is where you start to answer those questions.
Start with the part someone would want to see
A rather slow logo animation and then a wide shot of the pack before the product actually does anything.
Sometimes that opening is spot on for the brief. Quite often, there is a better place to start.
For a food container, you'd open it up with someone putting it in a work bag once the lid was on. For a desk organiser, you'd just show it on a desk with the normal clutter already in place. You'd give them something they're used to from their own everyday life.
Go through your footage and find the shot that actually makes the product easiest to understand. It might well be right in the middle of your original sequence.
Good product video production is all about getting those moments to happen during the shoot. You need to have a list of the questions a customer would ask if they could actually pick the product up prior to filming. That gives the camera operator and the editor something to aim at.
Let the useful shots stay on screen
Quick cuts can add energy to a video, but they can also make a demo absolutely frustrating to watch.
Imagine a travel bag video that just cuts away as you see someone open the main compartment. You see the zip, then a different angle, then a close-up of the strap, and you still have no idea how much it holds.
Keep the shot long enough to show what's in there. If there’s a separate compartment for the shoes, show how that operates.
The right tempo will obviously vary depending on what’s going on in the frame. A simple exterior shot may only take a moment. An adjustable mechanism or something being assembled is going to take longer.
When you're looking at an edit, be on the lookout for the bits where you naturally want to stop and go back on. Those bits may need a bit of breathing space.
Be careful with colour and cleanup
Colour correction is used to ensure that the footage from different shots all look consistent. A white wall in one shot shouldn’t look yellow in another and blue in yet another.
But it’s easy to go too far with the finish. Increasing the saturation can make a rather flat fabric look a lot brighter than it really is. Heavy smoothing can actually take away the texture that you need to be able to judge the fabric.
For products that people buy in part for the look of them, the detail does matter.
Give your editor accurate reference images (especially for clothing, furniture, cosmetics, etc.). Be very specific about what you want to be accurate.
The same is true of retouching, really. Getting rid of a speck of dust is simple cleanup. Getting rid of a seam or changing the shape of the product is a completely different thing in terms of the impression it gives you of the product.
Use text where the footage needs help
A short label will answer the question that the shot leaves open.
A close-up might tell you a shelf is thin, but not how deep it is. You can have a demo of a bottle being filled and then a small caption to confirm the capacity.
That’s useful. A paragraph on “exceptional quality and unmatched convenience” is one that's a bit more difficult to justify in terms of the product.
Keep it readable on a phone and leave it on screen long enough for it to be absorbed. Just watch the video without sound. If the key benefit only comes in the voiceover, then obviously some people are going to miss it.
Give each version a purpose
The same footage can be used to create a number of different edits, each one requiring its own set of decisions.
A product-page video might spend a lot of time on the dimensions, the controls, and the accessories that are included. A social ad may well be all about one particular use case. A marketplace listing may well be down to a very simple demo with just a bit of intro.
Simply cropping the finished video can be an issue. Hands can go off-frame, the captions can cover the product, or the product can end up too small to look at.
When you're briefing the video editing services, be very clear about where the video is going to be used and what the viewer is meant to take away from it. Get agreement on the formats required at the outset so the editor can plan the framing and the placement of any text.
Review it as someone who hasn’t seen the product
By the time an edit is ready, you've probably watched that footage dozens of times over, and you'll know the product inside and out, so the gaps are absolutely obvious.
Show it to someone who doesn't know it. Ask them what they thought they understood and what they still wanted to see.
Their questions can be more useful than yet another round of minor transition changes.
If you’re comparing post-production video editing services, then look at the way they do their demos, the way they render the product colour, and the order in which they present the information. A slick showreel will tell you something about their style, and a full product video will tell you whether they can actually make the product understandable.
The finished edit should be one that gives the buyer enough detail to be able to picture the product in their own hands. That’s a far more useful objective than having every shot look 'impressive'.
Glocal Edit provides professional outsourced video editing services — eCommerce product videos, social ads, brand films, corporate video, and promotional content — edited to your brief, your timeline, and your standards.