Video Announcements and Commercials

Why do we use Video Recordings

Tree of Life utilizes video recordings for the following reasons:

1. It educates Sunday attendees and Facebook followers of upcoming events and activities that are happening at Tree of Life.
2. To cast vision to our department, ministry or event and to recruit volunteers.
3. It helps break up the monotony of having one person share all the important announcements at the church
4. It streamlines the announcement time because videos can be trimmed, edited, and kept short
5. It maintains consistency from service to service so no one forgets to say something if doing it live.
6. It showcases the variety of individuals that lead at Tree of Life so the community always sees the church as more than one leader, oftentimes being people who would historically not be seen as leaders based on the age, gender, race, etc.

Understanding the Difference between a Video Announcement and a Video Commercial

There are two approaches toward making a video to be played on Sunday and social media. We categorize them into two different types: a Video Announcement and a Video Commercial

A Video Announcement

This is a simple recording, often done in selfie mode, of the director or volunteer simply communicating facts about an event. These should be quick to record, simple to repeat, and short. They require almost no editing, graphics, music, etc.

A Video Commercial

This is a structured and layered recording that may include a selfie recording but will also include multiple angles, music, photos, and more. Video Commercials take much longer to make and should be reserved for only the most important events in a department.

When to Use a Video Announcement

Most announcements should be a video announcement. This will streamline the announcement process that will make it easier to record and distribute the information. These should be short, quick, easy to understand. They should not take more than 15 minutes to produce in its entirety nor should you use more than 3 takes to produce it.

When to use a Video Commercial

Video commercials are intended for the most important events. It takes time to create and edit a video commercial. One needs to make sure that the volume levels are good, that proper photo releases are used, etc. Commercials should be used only for the largest most impactful events.

Video Recording Policies

The purpose of video announcements should be to advertise your event or need.

The Entire Video Announcement section of the Sunday service, including all video announcements, commercials and offering, can be no longer than 10 minutes total unless prior approval is given by the senior pastor.

You are required on the event sheets to create videos XX weeks before your event. You should submit the videos for broadcast at least 6 weeks in advance.

Videos should be uploaded to the Google Shared Drive “Sunday Video Announcements” then post in the Slack channel “directors-and-videos” when you want the starting date to be. Most videos need updated a week or two before the event. Please add any text that you might want included when the video gets posted to Facebook including any links to registrations.

Videos will be shown at least 2 times and no more than 6 times if time allows.

Unless otherwise requested, your video will get posted to our Facebook page weekly until your event or ending date submitted.

Videos should be 45 seconds to 1 minute in length. They should never be longer than 1:30 unless you have prior permission from the pastor. Video Announcements should almost never exceed 45 seconds.

Videos should be recorded in landscape orientation (widescreen) and 720 dpi is good enough. It doesn’t have to be HD quality.

Please use a quality camera to take your videos.

Use good lighting. Shoot outdoors in the daylight whenever possible.

Make any text larger than you think it should be and then make it even larger than that. Fine print cannot be seen so don’t waste the space.

Be careful in using phrases such as “at the end of the month,” “next week,” “next month,” “this morning” “today,” or other time related phrases. Use specific dates and times instead. Otherwise your video cannot be played more than the one time you submit it for.

Policies for More Detailed Announcements and Commercials

If you want to include multiple angles make sure you use the same camera to shoot the various angles and then edit them together in computer software.

Any music used on the video must be public domain or copyright free. Do not use pre-recorded tracks of any copyrighted song. This can cause our streaming license to be banned and hinder us from using social media in the future.

Music volume should be low to be able to hear the words spoken. Fade the music at the end unless your music piece was meant for the length of your announcement. Due to the subwoofers, the music volume should be lower than most usually think.

Consider using captions for videos that have distracting noises or ones that have muffled audio.

Pick one form for contacting, ie: phone, email, text, etc. as people can be confused as to which form to use.