Playing To The Audience

While inspiration is definitely the soul of art, video producers of commercial video are obligated to differentiate between subjective inspiration and personal emotional attribution. If the concept of a business video is too personal, than its intent might get lost on the audience. The “Nobles” video is an example of how this happens. The video can be seen at: http://www.foodreference.com/frvideos/html/local-rest-032.html

The story behind this video can be gleaned from the content of the video itself. A 1953 restaurant and dance hall named the Elite Café and Lounge was closed down for a while and then opened more recently, in 2005, under a new management and a different name, “Nobles.”

Apparently, somebody decided that shots of the old dance hall would go well with the Barbara Streisand hit “Those Were the Days.” The video starts off in blackness and the song comes on, and then we see still shots of the old lounge A little more than halfway through the video, there is a shift to a parallel shot in the new lounge, and the sound track beat is turned up to signal the change. A caption on the screen tells us: “Elite 1953, “Noble” 2005. and then “Those Days That Never End Are Back Again.”

A nine second segment towards the end of the video features shots of people dancing in the new lounge, this is the strong part of the video. The video as a whole has sentimental appeal. Unfortunately, the words of the song are telling us that the heyday of the lounge has ended, and this theme conflicts with the intent of the video, which is to create excitement about the new lounge. People viewing the video will be looking at the small 9 second segment squeezed into the end of the video, to get some idea about what the new restaurant is all about.

The videographer seems to have put the song and the sentiment first. He has enough of a challenge convincing people that the downtown can be revived and brought back to the way it was 50 years ago. But his choice of the song is telling the viewer that he is not so convinced himself that the days which ended can be brought back. The one little caption, which tells viewers that “Those Days that Never End Are Back Again,” is no match for a famous song which spans the whole length of the video.| Another problem with the video, is that it seems to put the music first and the visuals second. The song is a great song, and it probably does express somewhat the nostalgic memories people have of the Elite. However, in fitting the video around the meaning of the song, exciting visual representation of the new restaurant as an attraction in and of itself seems to be missing. So the video only accomplishes a fraction of what it should have and could have.

The moral of this video, play to the audience, and look at the video you are creating from the audience’s perspective. Show them what they need to see and want to see, to make a decision about coming to your place, and present your establishment in the strongest possible way.

Thanks to Winmax Video of California for sponsoring this report. Winmax produces restaurant videos trade show videos and corporate videos.

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