Here at Simplifilm we talk a great deal about Video Treatment once we’re done with the Creative Brief and Scripting stages of a project. Why? Because Treatment is – nothing to do with the spa – but how your project looks and feels. Colors. Fonts. Imagery. Each video Treatment is different for each project, customized to the client and the video. Nothing is cookie cutter or out of the box. Our Team of artists and designers work diligently to source a cohesive look through these elements. Colors: What color palette are we using? Video utilizes an RGB color palette so we match brand colors from the client logo, website, and branding collateral in RGB format…but we extend it into a full palette. Complimentary colors or contrasting colors? Monochromatic? Desaturated? Pastels or brights? Each color evokes an emotion or an association – so we are careful to choose those which evoke the right association with the client and product.
Favorite tools: Adobe Color CC, Paletton
The color palette for The Challenger Customer book trailer was informed by the book cover itself: we choose a complimentary palette of blues and aquas, with pops of black to define the people, white for negative space and accents, and orange to delineate the “Challenger Customer.”
Shapes: Along with color, we also decide on the shapes and style of additional elements. The company logo and website elements help us a great deal here. Straight lines vs. curvy, organic shapes vs. vector. We pay attention to even the small details in the website background or whitepaper design elements that can help inform these graphics. These can become stylistic elements we use in animated transitions, shadows, and motion effects that help create a unified feel.
IdealSpot‘s imagery was 2D, but featured rough, organic-looking edges that made it unique to the product and echoed the imagery on the website.
Imagery: Imagery comes to life as we determine the above elements. Do we use businesslike silhouettes? Cartoony characters? Stylized illustrations of people’s hands? This is also informed by who are audience is and what they respond to.
In our video for JumpCloud, we utilized simple icons to illustrate the variety of apps and software that were overwhelming the employee directory industry – and reflect the simplicity of JumpCloud’s logo. This positioned the SaaS company as the easy solution to this complex problem.
Fonts: According to typography disciplines, certain fonts evoke certain associations. Just as you wouldn’t use Comic Sans for a tech company’s new GPS app interface, you wouldn’t use it in their video. (Just where you would use Comic Sans is still open for debate among typography enthusiasts.) The feeling that Abadi Condensed creates is quite different from Arial Bold, which is again different from Times New Roman. Sans serif is often associated with the web and tech, whereas serif fonts are associated with newspapers, books, and printed matter.
For the Trust Me, I’m Lying book trailer video we chose to go with the Baskerville font for most of the on-screen text, which creates an “old-timey,” historical feel, and pairs with the engraving illustrations in the video well. This taps into the history of media manipulation, the main focus of Ryan Holiday’s book.
Overall Feel: Often the client will supply us with a direction such as “delicate and elegant” or “bold” etc. We work to incorporate this direction with the existing Client branding seamlessly. In this way our videos can stand on the Client’s homepage and look cohesive with the brand’s overall feel. You’d never know that the video was developed by an entity independent from the brand…which is exactly what we want. We want that magic to be undetectable.
Need a handy Video Treatment worksheet? Done. Download one below and supercharge your videos with a cohesive look each and every time.
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