How to Make a Non-Profit Promo: Video 101

The following lesson was created by Vimeo for its Vimeo Video School. It's used here with permission. Look for a new lesson each week.

Do you want to help your community? Are you just dying to use your brain and visual storytelling talents and your resources and your big awesome heart to make a difference somehow? Good! I've got just the thing to help. This video, brought to you by our friends What Took You So Long? highlights some of the keys tips for creating short films to promote your non-profit organization or project.

The video gives an intuitive set of helpful tips and insider tricks for making a successful video to promote your cause. The tips are broken into three effective categories, as follows:

I. Directing and Producing

In this category, we learn some of the essential directorial and production tricks to ALWAYS keep in mind when creating a promotional video. This includes information about aesthetics of the scenery, methods of community involvement, and successful thematic elements. Thinking through more specific film techniques such as POV as well as shot variety can be essential to creating an engaging video.

This video, from the amazing organization Helping Hands, is a prime example of well-directed, informational, and personal video promoting a service. Also, there are monkeys.

II. Shooting in the Field

Here, we learn the more technical tricks of the trade. We should always be aware of how we shoot and what we shoot. We learn to be spontaneous and inventive, improvise when we can, frame natural and amazing things the right way, and always have our bases covered with B-roll footage.

III. Editing

This part of the process can be tricky, but we get some helpful hints to keep things simple and effective in the editing process. How should the editing be paced? How should we handle title cards? How can we be most creative in our sound cutting?

Check out this video from an organization called charity: water, which is a great example of quick cuts and clear, concise information straight from the source:

You all know that here at Vimeo, we are believers and supporters of a strong, vibrant community. Interacting with each other, learning from each other, appreciating each other- it's what we love to do! Let this lesson help you to transfer these community-driven ideals into your filmmaking and create something that can help, something that's inspired, something that can change the world!

Ready for more? Learn about jump cuts or view more lessons at the Vimeo Video School.

Guest Post's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net