How to Create Videos: Pitches and Virtual Tours

First, determine what type of video you’re making—what is your end goal? Here are some types of videos you might want to create:

• Virtual Tour: Walk families through your classrooms, hallways, gym, auditorium, offices, or any other spaces you want to highlight, and show your school building’s exterior. Goal: To showcase your school by giving families the experience of having visited your school: then they can picture their children attending it.
• Pitch Video: Film a principal, teacher, and/or other member(s) of your school community talking directly to the camera (families) about your school. Goal: To tell your audience what it feels like to be part of your school’s community and why they’d thrive there. A few pointers:
  • Refer back to “Understand What Makes Your School Special” and “Consider Who Would Thrive at Your School” sections on the main toolkit page.
  • Tell your audience what makes your school community great, what popular extracurriculars your school offers, and/or how engaging your teachers are—anything you think represents your school well to students and families.
  • Be careful not to oversell. Your stories/pitches will only be compelling if they are authentic.
  • Read this article about pitching your school’s culture and climate.
• Student/Parent Testimonial: Film a student or parent: ask them to talk about why they chose your school and why they’re happy they did. It’s powerful to hear students share their experiences, so consider including student voices—they can help parents imagine their own children at your school. See examples of this approach here and here.
• Something completely different. Be creative!

An outline can help you focus your planning process. If you’re planning a quick 1-minute testimonial, make sure to stay focused on your message; each second needs to pack a punch. If you’re planning a longer video, keep it interesting to keep families engaged. 

Tip: In addition to featuring speakers’ faces as they talk about your school, consider using B-roll footage—this means splicing in images and video footage of your school over their voices so viewers get a holistic experience of your school. If you have existing footage of your school (video and/or great photos), consider including it in your video.

Sample Template – Outline for 1 Minute Video

Once you have your outline, use it to write your storyboard. What will you say? What do you want the viewers to see? Who is going to speak in each section? Planning all this beforehand will make the recording process go more smoothly.

Be clear on your mission and vision and stay concise. Make sure everything you include highlights your school and supports your goal.

This is also the time to identify all the tools and resources you’ll need to produce the video. Do you need a graphic designer to add graphics? Do you need help adding animations? Do you need to reserve space in your school to film?

Here are the minimum requirements to produce a successful video:

• Good lighting. Natural light is great and free but not always guaranteed. If natural light is not available, basic lighting equipment is the next best thing. Something like: this ring light or this LED video light. You can also just point a desk lamp at the person on camera. Lighting doesn’t have to be fancy—it just has to get the job done.
• Camera. For people without DSLR cameras or other professional equipment, the latest smartphones have reliable cameras that can work seamlessly with most video editing software.
• Sound. This is one of the most important things, if not THE most important. Always test your sound before recording. Make sure there’s no background noise and the person speaking can be heard clearly. If the audio quality is low, try using a separate microphone. Some are designed specifically to work with smart phones, like this PoP Voice condenser mic or this Valbrand condenser mic.

Bonus: Consider using additional attachments for your phone or other recording equipment. The basic attachments include tripods to support steady footage and handheld attachments (this one includes a mic and light attachments) to support smooth footage. You can also prop your phone or device on a stack of books to create the ideal shot.

Some of these items, like tripods and lights, are on ShopDOE. Check there first before purchasing.

This is when you bring your idea to life. It should go smoothy—and be fun—if you invested in pre-production.

PRODUCTION CHECKLIST

Be sure to consider the following during and directly after your shoot:

• Angles. Check your angles and frames throughout. Remind any speaker(s) addressing the audience to keep eye contact with the camera. Use wide shots to capture the look and feel of your school, and use closeups when someone on camera is talking.
• Steady Camera. If you’re recording a video while walking through your school, keep the camera as steady as possible. Remember to keep your movements and turns slow. Also, if zooming in or out, do so gradually.
• Background Distractions. Make sure there are no background noises or distracting things in your background (for example, TV playing, people walking by).
• Video and Audio Quality. Before moving on to another part of your shoot or wrapping for the day, check that your video and audio are high quality and determine if you will need to do any retakes and/or audio overlay. It’s better (and more time-effective!) to reshoot than to rely heavily on editing later. This will also ensure a more consistent, high-quality end-product.

This is where it all comes together. Postproduction includes editing the actual footage to tell a story, adding music, graphics, sound effects, and closed captions. Here are some resources, best practices, and a checklist to walk you through the process.

SELECT A VIDEO EDITING PROGRAM

Read about these free options and more in Tom’s Guide and Oberlo.

• iMovie (MacOS only)
• VideoPad (good for beginners)
• Lightworks
• VSDC
• Open Shot
• InVideo
• Quik (mobile)
• Adobe Premiere Rush (mobile)

CONSIDER CREATING IMAGES OR GRAPHICS

Please note: We advise using stock photos as little as possible. It’s important to create an honest, authentic representation of your school.

• Pexels
• Shuttershock
• Unsplash
• Pixabay
• Within most presentation software

• Bensound

• You can learn how to create and format caption files yourself. This is more work for you and more time-intensive, but it also gives you the greatest amount of control over your captions. These are usually SubRip Subtitle files (SRT) files, which are plain-text captions of your narrations and timings for when each caption will be displayed during your video. Learn more about creating your own SRT files in this online guide, OR
• You can save time by sending your video to an online captioning company. This is usually very affordable (under $2/minute of video) and can be done in hours.

We also recommend translating captions for your video. To do this, get your video captioned and then sent it to the person/people doing the translating. Each translator will provide a translated caption file in that language. Learn how to submit a translations request.

Now you’re done with your video! Congrats!

Once you have your exported video file and any additional caption files, you can:

You can also share your video with families or partners directly.

• Link to or embed it in your emails to families.
• Screen it during live virtual events.
• Link to or embed it in your social media posts.
• Share it with your school’s SLT or PTA and ask them to spread the word.
• Link or embed it in emails to current families, encouraging them to share it within their communities.
• Work with your superintendent to see if you have any district-wide showcasing efforts.
• Reach out to partner organizations or elected officials who might want to help showcase your school.