Almost every client asks, at some point, to cut the hard part. Not in those words... It arrives as "can we soften that," or "leadership won't love this bit," or "is there a version that's a bit more positive." I understand it. Nobody wants their organization to be the place where things went wrong. But the hard part is the reason anyone is still watching.
Take the struggle out of a story and you're left with a person who wanted something, made a plan, and got it.
No obstacle, no doubt, no cost.
It isn't offensive. It's just nothing.
The audience finishes it having learned that your organization is good at things, which they either assumed already or were never going to believe on your say-so.
People are much better at spotting this than we think.
They know what a life actually looks like. Show them one with the difficulty edited out and they start wondering what got left out.
The other thing that happens is smaller and worse. The good bit stops working.
If nothing was ever at risk, there's nothing to feel when it works out.
And a film with no valley has no peak either. It just has an ending... point A to B. Linear.
Companies frame this as the risk of sounding negative. But for me, the bigger risk is being forgettable, and that one is much easier to get into, because it's the easiest, safest path.
If nothing in your video ever went wrong, there's nothing in it to be moved by.
David Balista is the video director and co-founder of Puggers Video Production, a Vancouver video production company that makes films for foundations, health care organizations and associations, each one built around one real story.
See the work: puggersvideoproduction.com/work
First posted on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidbalista
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