Influencers Week: What Do a Scientist, an Economist, and Your Emotions Have in Common?

Living without emotions.

When you go through your day to day life, you probably don’t consider how you feel in every single moment. But what if you were not able to process emotions? For the last twenty-five years, a neuroscientist and professor at the University of Southern California named Antonio Damasio has been studying the human brain, consciousness, and the effect emotions play in human decision making. Damasio wrote a book called Descartes Error which set out to prove that Descartes, so famously known for saying “I think, therefore I am”, was wrong. Damasio postulated that we feel therefore we are.

Your brain is wired a certain way.

Damasio has spent the majority of his career studying people who had sustained injuries to the part of the brain that regulates emotions. As you would expect these people's’ lives fell apart, but not for the reason you would think.  Damasio found that they couldn’t plan for their futures, make decisions at work, or even make the simplest of choices like what to eat or what to wear that day.  They were no longer able to sense how they felt, and they were paralyzed in their daily lives by not being able to make decisions.  

Similarly, Richard Thaler, who won the Nobel Prize this year for Economics, has been quoted as saying that Economics assumes that people are super-rational and almost clinical in their decision making. Thaler has found in his extensive research that people hardly ever make rational decisions as to how they spend their money. Most of the time, they make purchases based on their gut feelings and instincts. When he accepted the Nobel Prize and was asked how he would spend the award money, he said jokingly, “as irrationally as possible.”

What does that have to do with a videography company?

Last week, we began the journey of dissecting the effect emotions have on the decision making process. Today we will spotlight our favorite authorities on the topic. At Rooted Content we realize that there are many ways to use video marketing to a myriad of different ends. We choose to make videos with purpose because we believe that tapping into people’s emotions is the most effective way to elicit a response. Or, more simply put: you can have the most impressive product in the world, but no one will buy it if they don’t like you.

In his book Blink, popular theorist and journalist Malcolm Gladwell talks about how most people spend too much time trying to sort through the facts, when they should just trust their intuition. Intuition, he says, can sometimes be more correct than all the rational thought. Damasio has a similar opinion in his aforementioned book, Descartes Error. He talks about the concept of Somatic Marker Hypothesis. In simple terms, the Somatic Marker Hypothesis means that we associate certain situations with certain emotions, which lead us to conclusions faster via intuition than by assessing them through all of our other senses.

You depend on your feelings more than you think.

If a situation gives you a feeling similar to a past experience, you may expect a similar outcome to that previous situation. For example if you see a photo of a kitten, and you had a cat as a child that you loved and made you feel safe, that photo will also bring feelings of love and safety. The trick is, as Damasio points out, the better we are at knowing our emotional responses, the more in-depth our intuition becomes.

In addition to this, Thaler points out that human beings are not robots. We do not assess our surroundings with cold, rational detail. Quite the opposite, we assess our surroundings by how they make us feel. So, you may have bought that rain jacket because you needed it, but did you get the cheapest one, or the one that best suited the color of your eyes? We should note here, out of fairness, that Thaler does make a solid point that making only irrational and emotional financial decisions can be economically detrimental.

We want our videos to convey emotions to their viewers.

This reflects Rooted Content’s philosophy as a company. When you are appealing to your audience, you do not want to solely give them your rational argument and then say, “choose the logical choice.” You want to hold their attention and grab their emotions by using what we now know about how the human brain works and how we naturally make decisions.  It is important to remember that in order to win your audience over you have to give them a reason to care, and once you have their attention and heart you can help them rationalize their emotional decisions with your arguments on why you’re the best.   

When Damasio began his research he began with patients who literally couldn’t make decisions because they had no emotional base to draw from. At Rooted we make every decision before, during, and after being on set with your intended viewer’s emotional response in mind. When communicating your company’s goals we want to show the viewer places to connect with your brand’s specific voice and story. By offering points of connection you invite the viewer into your story. Once you have their undivided attention you can then present them the facts and data necessary to show them that there isn’t a better brand or company for them to use than you.

We pride ourselves on producing top of the line content for our clients. Call or click today to connect with us about the ways we can help you start telling your story.

Three Ways Emotions Affect Decision Making

In our data driven society, it often feels like people equate numbers with success. Likes, clicks, followers- all of these are indicators of how well we’re doing, or how much people like us. While it is true as the old saying goes, “the numbers don’t lie,” over the next two weeks we want to look at how and why people choose to click, like, or follow something in the first place. That choice is contingent on the emotional connection you feel with whatever you are seeing on screen. Once that in-road is made, the logical, rational part of the story can be told second.

One of our favorite examples of this was a shoot we did with the Columbus School for Girls. CSG is a private, all girls school in Columbus, Ohio that focuses on changing the face of female-only education. They were aware that there is a stigma that comes with female-only education, but were determined not to live into those stereotypes. CSG has mountains of data regarding the success rates of their students, the viability of their teaching plans, and the credentials of their staff. But instead of making a video for them that focused on the qualifications of their programs, we instead made a video about Charlotte Falk and her family’s experience at the school. Why? Because an emotional connection with the Falk family allows the viewer to experience what a good school CSG is on a deeper level. Here’s how:

1. Tell your viewer why they should care. The first shot of the video focuses on Charlotte, sitting in a brightly lit classroom, telling her personal story. Immediately the viewer is invited into her world, and her struggle, of being a teenage girl who felt misfitted at her previous school. Charlotte is an extremely relatable narrator, as she openly explains the lack of confidence she felt before attending CSG. It is easy to identify with Charlotte, whether you are a student, parent, or casual onlooker, because everyone has had times in their life when they have lacked self confidence or felt misfitted. As Charlotte’s parents, Nancy and Steve Falk, are introduced, you are invited deeper into their family as a whole’s experience. Establishing these three characters in the first seconds of the video gives different perspectives and viewpoints for the viewer to choose from. And no matter which the viewer identifies with the most, this is a family that they can care about, not just watch on-screen.

2. Show your viewer what they should feel. It would have been easy to have simply interviewed Charlotte’s parents without ever showing any shots of the school. It would have been easy to have them list off the statistics of the successful students at CSG. At one point in the story, Steve Falk begins to talk about college acceptance rates among CSG grads, but the audio and visual cuts from that statement to girls going to class in the hallways. While college acceptance rates are extremely important, they are not the focus of the video. The students are. We wanted to show the interior and exterior of the school so that the viewer could get a clear feeling of what a day is like for the students there. By having much of the audio in voice-over, and showing the girls everyday school life, the audience is made to feel connected to what goes on in the school. They are not lost in a long list of statistics and data, they are allowed to see how great the school is. After feeling connected to the stories of the students that go there, data can be presented that backs up those stories.

3. Give your viewer a reason to come back. Throughout the video, we hear Charlotte and her parents give reason after reason why they love CSG. You can tell from their stories, especially the anecdote about Charlotte’s little sister scoring her first goal on the basketball team, that the reasons why they love the school are varied. The most important reason is that Charlotte is engaged and involved in school for the first time since middle school. The feeling of safety and support that the viewer feels when the Falk family talks about CSG is contagious. It’s a feeling that your viewer wants to live in. By creating that feeling of safety, solidarity, and acceptance through words and images, the viewer wants to hear this story told over and over again.

Next week, we’ll continue to talk about this concept of emotional decision making and how it works towards our process in video creation. By telling your viewer why they should care, showing them what they should feel, and giving your viewer a reason to come back, you can lay an emotional framework that is more influential than all the data in the world.

At Rooted Content, we believe in telling real stories with purpose to help your brand succeed through video marketing tools. Call or click today to find out how we can start helping you find the emotional storyline in your business today.

Mat and His Camera

A fun (and potentially obvious) fact about our team at Rooted Content is that we love gear. You can’t run a video studio like ours and not be totally enamored with equipment and the way it works. Almost two years ago we were able to get our hands on 1DX Mark ii.

This camera was brand new to the market and had some pretty cool special features, like the ability to shoot in 4K, while still being portable and fairly straightforward to use. Around that same time, we had befriended Mat Marrash, who worked at Midwest Photo Exchange, the local camera store. Mat had been shooting large format photography for years and had even helped spark an interest in the discipline in our team. The day after we received our beautiful new Canon camera, Mat happened to have the day off. We asked him if we could follow him out into the Hocking Hills south of Columbus, Ohio to take some video of him shooting large format photos and see what the new 1DX Mark ii could do. He happily agreed.

Character: Mat Marrash

Mat and his camera are the sole focus of this video. When building his character arc, we wanted the viewer to feel Mat’s excitement for a photography form that is truly a discipline but also to discover his inner conflict with practicing a hobby that can cost so much time and money. We chose to never show Mat speaking directly into the camera and placed his interview in voice over throughout the entirety of the film. We wanted to put the viewer inside Mat’s head using his voice. The calm, deliberate, and truthful tonality of his words makes the viewer feel as if they are watching a journal entry. It communicates Mat’s passion for what he is doing and why he will take the time to lug a very large and heavy camera out into the woods day after day to get the perfect photograph. The effect on the viewer is calming, beautiful, and inspiring.

Location: The Hocking Hills and Dark Room

Mat is primarily a landscape photographer, which means most of his time is spent outdoors trying to find the perfect shot. By following him through the woods, the intentionality and devotion he feels for his work is deepened for the viewer. It’s not a simple thing for him to get out to a certain location and set up his gear. By adding in the long shots of him walking across the bridge and out into the forest, the viewer is made to feel how much effort it takes for him to get the photographs that he wants and is introduced to the story and the environment. The first three shots all have Mat walking from left to right in the screen which in western culture is how we envision time progressing, left to right. This all adds to the gravity of his work and the viewer’s experience.

Emotion: Passion and Perseverance

As the viewer watches this film, they are meant to feel Mat’s enthusiasm for what he does and also his perseverance to go to great lengths to follow that passion. By shooting most of the film in slow motion (thanks to the Canon 1DX Mark ii), we are able to show how slow and deliberate his movements are. When it comes to the scene of him pulling inserting the film holder and pulling the dark slide out of the camera, the anticipation has built to its peak. This single shot lasts almost 20 seconds! This builds tension and mimics the anticipation Mat feels in the darkroom, waiting for his negatives to develop. Similar to the process of large format photography, the shot is long and deliberate. What is it about that upside down image that drives him to revisit places again and again just to get that perfect shot?

Purpose: Build a Brand, Tell a Story, Try Out Something New

The capital ‘P’ Purpose of this video is a few different things. It is first, and possibly foremost, to try out our brand new camera and see how it works out on a long day of shooting. Secondly, it was to share a creative project. At the time that we shot this video, we had known Mat for over four years. He had expressed his love of large format photography to us, and we wanted to share it further with a wider audience.

The lowercase ‘p’ purpose of this video is manifold. When we began the process of shooting, we were focused on certain keywords: process, slow, tedious, perseverance, and vision. By combining the elements of character, location, and emotion, we sought to communicate these words to the viewer. We were also able to utilize certain features on the camera that were very useful to communicate those keywords. As mentioned before, most of the video is in slow-motion, adding to to the tedious deliberateness of Mat’s work.

Most of the shots are long, averaging almost five and a half seconds each. This also communicates to the viewer just how important every detail of Mat’s shot is. We used a motion controlled slider and a tripod in order to communicate deliberation and stability. Also, every shot leading up to the dark room is pushed in on Mat and his actions, inviting the reader deeper into Mat’s mind and the story. The final shot of the dark room door pulls out to give the viewer a sense of closure and also continuation. That the end of the story we see is not the end of the story all together.

This is also not the end of our story. At Rooted Content, we strive to make meaningful stories, whether they be for creative projects or large scale ad campaigns. Contact us today to learn how we can help you tell a better story.

The Elemental Nature of 'purpose'

Making videos is our love, but telling stories is our passion. Lately, we have spent a lot of time talking about purpose and what it means to us when we sit down with clients and start planning out the narrative that they want to tell onscreen. Last week on the blog, we talked about capital ‘P’ Purpose, and lowercase ‘p’ purpose. Purpose is the client’s intent in commissioning a video, whether it be for advertising, employee engagement, or anything else. Lowercase ‘p’ purpose is every minute detail and production decision that goes into making a video for our clients. (If you missed our video explanation of purpose, look below and take a peek!)

Today we want to focus on the purpose our videos are made with and not the Purpose of the videos (although we believe that those two things go hand in hand). The production details and decisions included in our lowercase ‘p’ definition of purpose can range from lighting to camera angles, and beyond. This post is meant to be both: a pro-tip full explanation of how structuring a video set looks; and a behind the scenes look at how we take every single, miniscule detail into account when we are planning and on set at a video shoot.

Lighting:

If you stop and think about how your day went yesterday, one of the key elements to the timbre of your day was probably the weather. If it was a bright, sunny, warm day, chances are that your mood was slightly lifted. If it was dark, rainy, and dreary, chances are you felt a little more sluggish. Now, we’re not creating weather on our video sets, we do intentionally set the mood and tone for a shoot with lighting. Here are some examples:

This photo is bright and airy, with a high key light. This image is meant to convey a feeling of brightness, and to highlight the fun, easy-going nature of the speaker.

Now, this photo is the opposite. For this shoot, we toned the key lighting down, which lends itself to a darker, tenser feeling for the viewer. By making a simple change in lighting, the entire mood of the video shifts. By communicating with your audience via lighting, you are deepening the Purpose of your video by more accurately emotionally connecting with your viewer.

Lens Choices and Framing:

We have all heard some variation of the phrase, “to see something from a different lens.” While metaphorically, the idea that viewing something from a different perspective can change your opinion on a matter, it is also practically true. The lens that a character is filmed through, plus the way they are framed on screen can communicate multitudes to your audience. If we shoot with a lens that allows for a shallow depth of field, meaning the background is out of focus, it gives the viewer a clear directive as to what’s important in the frame. A viewer’s attention is automatically drawn to areas of an image that are the sharpest and have the most contrast.  Using this information, we can compose a frame that draws the viewer’s eye to exactly what we want to hold their attention.  Another option is to use a wide lens which allows the viewer to take in the entire frame and make their own decisions about the details.

Framing is another important element to consider. By putting the subject in the above photo to one side of the frame, the character has the ability to look around the frame, making the viewing experience comfortable and relatable. This combined with the soft focus of the background provided by the lens communicates that the most important thing that they should be paying attention to is the woman on the screen. Now, for another example that uses the same lens, but a different framing technique, see below. 

This frame is an example of short-sided composition. As she looks away to the short-side of the frame, there is a sense of distance and distress. The viewer's eyes are led immediately out of the frame, and the composition feels off-balance.  The audience immediately feels her sadness. Just by framing the character in a different way while using the same lens the audience is led to feeling a different emotion.  

In the above photo two elements are different. While the subject is in hard focus, you are still able to see bits and pieces of the background behind him. This communicates to the audience that the character should be their main point of focus, but that it’s also okay if their eye explores the rest of the scene. It can serve to draw the watcher deeper into the viewing experience. The character is also centered in the frame, giving our character the ability to deliver his dialog with authority and instill confidence in the audience.  

Camera Movements

The last topic we want to mention today is camera movements. But, bear in mind, these are only a handful of the myriad decisions that we process through when shooting a video for you as our client. Each one serves a smaller purpose that helps better communicate the big Purpose of the story for you, and to help form a stronger connection with your audience.   

Camera movements are extremely important to the viewer’s experience. Since the viewer’s vantage point into the story is the way the camera moves, there are several ways to manipulate that experience.

• Tripod - If you lock a camera to a tripod, you are communicating a very stable experience to the viewer. Camera angles and lenses become very crucial if this is the method we choose to use for filming, because there will be no camera movement. The audience still needs to see and interesting picture, even if it’s standing still.

• Stabilizers and Steadicams -  If you put a camera on a track or a slide, you can give slow, deliberate movement to the what your audience sees. This makes the viewer feel like they are moving with the story, but in a deliberate way. It’s adds a high production value to a video.

• Handheld and Go-Pro Cameras - Oftentimes, when we work with medical facilities, we want to show the day to day life of the hospital staff without intruding on sensitive medical procedures or information. By giving the staff Go-Pros to wear, we can often capture high energy footage that puts the watcher very in the moment. The same can be said for handheld camera shots. They are often shaky and unpredictable. They communicate to the watcher a sense of excitement and chaos. If it does incorrectly, it can feel like low production value to the viewer.

All of these filmmaking decisions add up to support the big Purpose of our client’s goals, and harness the power of intentional storytelling and drive emotional decision-making.  Shooting with purpose is just one of the elements that will make a difference between a story that will create powerful connections and drive your audience into action, and a story that will fall flat and never make it off the ground.  At Rooted Content, we take the purpose of video production and intentional storytelling seriously to provide our clients with a process to emotionally connect with their audience.  Contact us today to see what Rooted Content can do to help further your company’s Purpose.