One of the most important things that you absolutely cannot afford to overlook when considering having a video produced is location. Again, that's LOCATION!

Place is such an integral part of a story--your story--and must be given due respect.  

Let me let you in on a little secret. Whenever anyone  asks me where I come up with the concepts for the quirky music videos that we produce, the answer is never the one that they were expecting. These ideas aren't born from pizza induced dreams or buried childhood trauma; these ideas are, almost always, a product of a location. And, the first question I always ask a band who we are collaborating with is, "do you have access to any unique or interesting locations?" Once we establish location, the story unfolds.

Location is key, not only for an obviously artistic endeavor like a music video, but for interviews within a corporate video just as well--for any video, for that matter.

What Makes a Good Location?

That depends entirely upon your purpose. But, all good locations do one of two things, and all great locations do both:

1. Convey Information

2. Convey feeling. 

Conveying Information

If you are a manufacturer of food packaging materials, which setting would you think would be more informative for an interview with the Vice President: the dingy boardroom that no one really uses, or the manufacturing floor complete with one of your bestselling packaging machines in the background? For your sake, I sincerely hope that you selected the latter.

There are certain locations that are never the right choice, generally for technical reasons. In example, any location wherein the sound cannot be tightly controlled, unless that sound lends itself expressively to the piece, is a terrible location. They often say that viewers will tolerate sub-par image quality, but they will absolutely refuse to stick with a video they cannot understand.