Video production support

Accessibility

Please be aware that all our videos must meet accessibility requirements. All videos with dialogue must also have subtitles/captioning which a viewer can choose to use when playing the video. Additionally, for a social media video, most viewers will scroll through their feed with sound off so if your post does not have captioning, your audience may simply scroll past. Further information on adding subtitles/captioning can be found in the Media Centre's resources on Moodle.

Writing a video brief

Whether you’d like to promote a new course or research project, conduct an interview, or film an on-campus event, the first thing to do is submit a video brief. Submitting this form will create a ticket in the video request system. The team will use your brief to work out who is best placed to support you in creating your video and contact you about next steps.

An initial meeting will be organised with the production team, the client requesting the video and relevant marketing staff. A storyboard, script, timeline and cinematography will be discussed to create a completion plan.

No work should be commissioned with external suppliers without submitting a video brief for our internal team to consider first.

What to consider in your brief

• Where will the video be used? Is there really an audience for it?
• How are you going to promote the video? Have you got a network to help share it or will you need to use University channels?
• What’s your call to action? What do you want your viewers to do after they've watched your video? Book an Open Day? Email someone? Whatever it is, make sure that you give the viewer the tools they need to make that happen. For example, this could be a web address or the X (formally Twitter) handle for the account promoting an academic's research.
• Does it feel like Essex? Does the tone and style of your video reflect the University of Essex? Have you considered the tone of voice? It's important that our videos reflect the distinctiveness of the Essex story and personality, so think about how you are capturing this in your video.
• Choose the best approach - University marketing videos can be anything from short cinema commercials to mini documentaries profiling students and staff. Some University marketing videos are targeted towards 17-year-old school leavers, while others are geared towards professional alumni. Different audiences will react differently to the same video, so think about who will be watching when writing your brief.
• Find the right students and staff to participate. Using real students and staff will give your video an authentic feel, instead of giving them scripted lines to recite, come up with good interview questions that will lead your subjects to say what you want in their own words.
• Which buildings and/or campus locations do you want to show off in your video? When choosing locations, think about when you’ll be shooting, whether there will be people around, and what the sound and light will be like.

Filming can be very time-intensive, and you may end up recording as much as an hour of footage for each edited minute in the final video, so consider the enormous job ahead for the video editors.

Please bear in mind that video production may need to be funded by the department.

Recognisably Essex

Videos which don't meet our guidelines cannot be uploaded to the University's channels, including the website so please make sure you’ve consulted with our video team before production commences. It is much easier to make sure you are doing things in the right way from the start, than make changes at the end of the process.