Choosing The Right Emotional Tone For Your Video
June 29, 2017
29th June 2017 by CH
Setting the appropriate tone of voice for your video using emotion can help you convey the right message to your audience, as well as connecting with them in a special way. If you’re trying to portray something happy and jolly, you wouldn’t make your video sad, now would you?
But sometimes an unexpected emotional nuance might be better at achieving the desired outcome. Which is why choosing the right emotional tone for a video might seem like a challenge. But this is where we come in to help you with our video production expertise!
Laugh-out-loud content
It’s without saying that funny video content often prompts a positive response from audiences, but just where can you include humour? You need to remember to use humour responsibly, as it isn’t always appropriate. Know your brand AND your audience, and play off their tastes. You can include humour in a number of different ways, such as:
- Hyperboles
- Metaphors
- Pun and world-play
- Comedic timing
- Parodies
All of these are fool-proof techniques to slip a little slapstick into your videos. If you’re trying to promote the mundane, why not intertwine a little comedy? It might just help to get a better response.
For example, we chose a humoristic tone of voice when creating this short promotional video for Walkers Crisps’ social media, as this helped engage the audience right from the start. The humour in this video is created via the use of puns, exaggerated body language and the voice over.
PepsiCo Walkers Blippar from CH on Vimeo.
A different kind of more subtle humour is used in this video for Fuze about Office Jargon, where the music helps emphasise the confusion of young office workers confronted with office jargon they are not familiar with, resulting in an overall funny video:
Fuze – Office Jargon from CH on Vimeo.
Lights, camera, DRAMA
Dramatic videos really play on people’s emotions,and can even be used for more serious, corporate video production. In fact, a dramatic video would really stand out from the crowd, and could be an impactful way to get a message across to businesses through this visual medium. The emotional impact of a more dramatic video – which can be achieved with a bit of help from the right music and content – can remain longer on people’s minds, making a lasting impression.
Bring on the waterworks
Tug on people’s heart-strings with emotional videos. Whether they’re sad or so cute you just can’t help but cry, it’s a great way to prompt a reaction.When it comes to social media, you have a little more room for creativity in terms of using moving language and creating emotional content. Include puppy dog eyes (or just puppies) and sad music and the people of Facebook will be swooning!
With that being said, you can’t really do the same when it comes to a more serious type of video content … instead, use compelling body language and other visual and audio cues to get rightthat emotional tone of voice for the same emotional impact, whilst remaining professional.
Bupa Dementia Care from CH on Vimeo.
Tackling a sensitive topic, dementia care, the video we created for Bupa combines uplifting music which helps convey a sense of hope with emotional images of people suffering from dementia and the moving content of a dementia carer who shares her personal experience. By adding different emotions into the mix, the video feels more personal and helps convey the message better in the end.
If you’re still a little lost on how to incorporate different emotions into your videos to easily convey your message and make your video stand out, you can always get in touch with the CH Video team by calling us on 01189 676 494. We’re always more than happy to help!
Share this post:
Recent posts
Lots of brands are pulling video production in house. On paper, it sounds efficient but in practice? We’re seeing a different story. Here’s what often gets overlooked. You’re Hiring Individuals - Not a Creative Team Once you factor in salaries, kit, software and overheads, most businesses end up with one or two junior to mid creatives. Talented, yes. But limited in scope. An agency gives you directors, animators, writers, cinematographers, strategists… activated only when you need them. Creativity Gets Stuck In house teams work on the same brand day in, day out. Agencies work across sectors, styles and problems and that cross pollination is where the best ideas come from. Retention Gets Hard and Expensive Strong creatives crave variety and progression. Small teams can’t always offer it, and when one person leaves, the whole system wobbles. Replacing technical talent is costly and the “savings” of in housing disappear fast. Who’s Challenging the Brief? Executing a brief is one thing. Challenging it is another. You should have someone asking, “Is this the right format?” or “What if we did it differently?”. That’s where outside perspective becomes invaluable.
We're #23 in the UK Top 50 Big news from us! CH Video have climbed 7 places in the EVCOM (Event & Visual Communication Association) + Moving Image UK Top 50.
When Euronics came to us with a brief, it was a good one: take a true story about an extraordinary delivery and turn it into something worth watching. The Brief Joe, a Euronics delivery agent, had been tasked with getting a chest freezer to a customer in rural Wales. The road ran out. He carried on anyway, on foot, through fields, across rivers and over hills. The customer was delighted. The story deserved to be told. Euronics asked us to produce a short comedic video retelling that journey. The challenge was finding the right visual language to match the scale of the tale. The Concept We pitched several approaches centred on a comic-book aesthetic, bold, energetic and a little tongue-in-cheek. It felt like the right fit: a story that was equal parts heroic and absurd, told in a style that leaned into both. The concept paired real interview footage of Joe with AI-generated visuals to bring his journey to life. Where a traditional shoot would have required location days across Welsh countryside, generative AI gave us the tools to illustrate the story scene by scene. Creative Wrangling We filmed Joe against a studio blue backdrop, letting him tell the story in his own words. His delivery did a lot of the heavy lifting (puns intended!), dry, matter-of-fact and quietly brilliant. The AI-generated visuals were built around detailed multi-angle reference sheets for Joe, the Euronics van and the chest freezer.
