Medical Videos and Smiling Doctors

Here’s a short post that might save you a lot of time. Having shot several promotional videos in clinical settings, the one thing I’ve learned is:

You may shoot a lot of “doctors at work” shots, some more medically specific than others, but honestly the only shots that will most likely end up in your final video are simply smiling people. That’s it. Doctors and patients smiling.

Here’s two :15 spots for Providence Imaging Center

AKPM Prov Imaging Spots 11-2013 from Alaska Public Media on Vimeo.

And here’s a longer video I made for my mom’s dentistry clinic in Pasadena, California. Again, lots of slides of smiling people. I probably threw away 75% of the shots I took, simply because they didn’t feature smiling people.

So next time when you shoot one of these commercial medical videos, just go ahead and ask your subjects to fake smile all the time. Trust me, those are the only shots you’ll use.