School Advertising Video - Our Tips

Video content is becoming increasingly important for schools to use when they’re advertising themselves to prospective students and families. Maybe it’s your first time creating a video for your school, or perhaps you’ve decided it’s time to refresh your existing school video. Once you’ve decided to create a video, the next step is working out what to include. In this post, we’re sharing our top tips to help you decide what to include in a school advertising video.

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To make it easier for you to understand the different areas to consider when you’re planning how to create your school video, we’ve broken it down into 3 core areas:

1. Interviews
2. Visuals
3. Technical aspects

Let’s start with one key element you won’t want to miss out: interviews.

Including interviews in a school advertising video

Interviews will often make up the bulk of your school advertising video. And for good reason: they’re the best way to give your prospective students and families insight into your school community. You can use interviews to delve into what makes your school special, unique and supportive.

But who do you interview? Who’s going to represent your school the best? We’ve compiled the following list of people you should consider elevating to star status and including in your school advertising video:

• Students. This one should go without saying (but we’re going to say it anyway, just in case!). Your students are your greatest asset for your school and they will say it better than anyone else ever could.
• Teachers. Yes, we know, another obvious one! It’s a good idea to choose a few different teachers who can talk about parts of your school that you want to highlight. For example, if you pride yourself on your sports prowess, include your Director of Sport.
• Parents and families. We’ve often seen schools omit this core section of the school community in their videos, but we know that if you can get parents and families to rave about your school, your advertising video is much more likely to be a success.
• Principal or Head. If you know that everyone wants to speak to them at your Open Days, you know they should be in your video. Hint: if you’re squeezed for time in your video, keep their section to a minimum and spend more time on student and parent interviews.

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Next up is visuals: what are you actually going to show people in your school advertising video?

What visuals you should include in a school advertising video

Once you know who you want to interview in your school advertising video, you can start thinking about the visuals. You need to decide where you want to do the interviews and also any other parts of the school you want to show.

*Bonus tip - During interviews, take some notes on what your subjects are mentioning as this would give you some ideas for other visuals for your school video. For example, if one of the students mentions a particular area in the school they like to hang out with their friends, or a specific activity they like to do, you can then film those areas and include the scenes in the final film to help provide more context, build familiarity and trust.

In our experience, it’s always best to try and film students doing things that are visually interesting (not just sitting in a classroom!).

Here are some ideas of things that can have an amazing visual impact to elevate your school advertising video:

• Science experiments. Especially sparks from a bunsen burner.
• Sports. Netball, hockey, swimming, horse-riding… all these sports are interesting to watch and will keep your audience hooked.
• Performing arts. Do you have a talented dancer amongst your students? Do you put on an epic whole school performance every year? Performing arts will not only inform, but also entertain and delight anyone watching your school advertising video.
  

Other things to consider showing in your videos are your school facilities.

Think about showing the outside of your school (especially if you have extensive grounds), boarding houses, classrooms, school gym/swimming pool, stage, music centre, sports facilities, historic buildings, and any unique architectural features like fountains or ornate school gates (if you have them!).

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Finally, make sure you don’t neglect the technical aspects of creating a school advertising video.

What technical aspects to consider for your school video

All great videos must have excellent visuals, lighting, sound and music to represent your school in the best possible way.

• Camera quality - There are hundreds of cameras on the market, from small pocket cameras to cinema-quality cameras costing £50,000+. However, most cameras, including the cheaper ones, can record the quality you need for social media content. The minimum requirement you need to look out for is “Full HD” (recording in 1080p). If you have a bigger budget though, we recommend looking for cameras that can record in 4k.

• Lighting - You don’t always need to invest in expensive lighting equipment to film great videos. Natural light can be great for an interview. Place the interviewee by a window. You want to ensure the interviewee can be clearly seen and using natural light is an easy way to have a professional look.

• Sound - When filming your visuals you won’t require audio for your finished video. These visuals will be placed over the top of the interviews. Therefore to make your students and staff feel more comfortable, let them know no audio is being recorded so they can act more natural and relax in the scene you’re recording.

• Music - If you want to share your videos online, ensure to use royalty-free websites. This will ensure you won’t get flagged for copyright infringement and the video won’t get taken down. We recommend getting a subscription to music sites such as Musicbed for all of your music needs.

So there you go: hopefully you now have a great idea about what to include in your school advertising video!

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If you’re thinking about getting into video production for schools, to find out more about how we can give your school brand the feel good factor.