I wanted to talk today about corporate (or company) videos, and about different styles and different elements that you may or may not want to include - and indeed, should or shouldn't include. For example, have a think about how you might want to combine filmed footage and a voiceover with graphics, stock footage, interviews, etc.

A corporate video, I believe, should always start with a script. If you've had a video filmed, that might not be your experience, but worst case I would be surprised if your production company hadn't spent some time on the phone to you beforehand, and they surely would have trawled your website - in particular your 'About Us' page. You may not have seen a specific script, but hopefully the production company would have had an idea of the type of narrative they were aiming at.

However, I would still expect to sign off a script before hand. I could point to lots of companies who, on the face of it, have perfectly serviceable corporate videos, but when you press them a little harder about how satisfied they really are, they'll tell you that they worry that the video doesn't really represent what their company is about, or misses key differentiators.

So, you've signed off a script that reflects what you want to say. Now, what do you want to show? Are there elements of your business that are different to your competitors or which will give customers added confidence? The corporate video, like the corporate brochure, is a calling card, an overview, an introduction. Do you want to show how big you are, what history you have, your design facilities, the manufacturing that you do, the services you can offer, the range of products you stock? How can you translate that to film?

Will you include interviews with key personnel? Have a look at this corporate video. I think it's very different to the norm, because the whole thing is built on interviews with the management personnel. There's no narrative voiceover as such - where narrative is required to explain key processes, that comes from the interview as well. Try to think about how that affects the pace and power of the video, and whether you believe that's a good thing or a bad thing and, if you like the style, how you might incorporate it into you own company video.

If you do what to include interviews, think very carefully about how you're going to film them, where you're going to film them, and how to make the interviewee comfortable. On the practical issues first, you must absolutely be able to control sound. You definitely do not want something that goes from pristine, clear voiceover (which is easy to control) to something hissy, environmentally noisy and difficult to discern.

But on a personal level, how does your interviewee want to work? Some people like a set script, perhaps broken down into short lines that they can rehearse. Others will prefer to speak informally to camera, perhaps prompted by questions or talking points.

Perhaps the key to the success or failure of the corporate video is how you bring all of this together in the editing suite, making sense of all the elements to take the viewer on a narrative journey. If you've filmed to a set script and to a set filming plan, you have a much greater chance of success.

So my top tips for a corporate video come down to this: script it in advance, plan your filming in advance, and make sure that all the key stakeholders are on board with that script and that filming plan. Because if those key people aren't absolute happy right at the start of the process, you've got your work cutting out making them happy at the end.