Unscripted, not unprepared-- how to create authentic videos that people relate to ...with Pat Taggart

Summary

In this episode of Digital Dominance, Jeffro sits down with Pat Taggart, founder of Sky Blue Creative, to explore the power of unscripted video for businesses. Pat shares his documentary-style approach to corporate video, emphasizing authenticity over scripted, high-production content. They discuss why unscripted video resonates with audiences, how to overcome the fear of being on camera, and practical tips for businesses to create engaging video content—whether they’re working with a professional or doing it themselves.

Takeaways

• Unscripted video feels more authentic and engaging than scripted, teleprompter-driven content.
• The biggest barrier to great video isn’t equipment—it’s comfort and storytelling.
• Businesses should focus on creating a mix of brand videos, service explainers, and client testimonials.
• Multiple camera angles make editing smoother and help eliminate awkward cuts.
• Even simple setups (phone + tripod + light + mic) can drastically improve video quality.
• Training and internal education videos are a great starting point for businesses new to video.
• AI won’t replace human storytelling—authenticity will always win.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:36 Why Unscripted Video Works Best

02:49 Overcoming the Fear of Being on Camera

05:45 How to Structure Unscripted Video Shoots

10:25 What Types of Videos Businesses Should Prioritize

13:51 DIY Video Tips for Businesses

18:17 A Success Story: The Power of Authentic Storytelling

21:04 Balancing Storytelling and ROI in Video

24:19 The Future of Video in Business

Links

https://www.skybluecreative.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClz64JaDTch8BYlBzFpLztA

Free Website Evaluation: FroBro.com/Dominate

Transcript

Jeffro (00:01.122)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. In today's episode, I'm joined by Pat Taggart, a filmmaker and storyteller who is changing the way businesses create video content. Pat is the founder and chief creative at Sky Blue Creative, where he takes a documentary style approach to corporate video, helping organizations tell their stories without memorizing lines, reading from a teleprompter, or awkwardly staring into a lens. So we're going to dive into why unscripted video is so powerful, how to overcome the fear of putting yourself

on camera and what types of video content businesses should focus on to attract and engage with their audience. So welcome to the show, Pat.

Pat Taggart (00:36.371)
Jefferyl, I am a fan of digital dominance. Thank you for having

Jeffro (00:40.078)
Awesome. Well, I'm excited for this conversation because video is not going away. We all know that. So we got to lean into it a little bit. And I'm curious to start, you know, why do you believe unscripted video works best for businesses?

Pat Taggart (00:52.543)
Well, I kind of stumbled upon that out of necessity. So started a wedding video business right out of school. I'm 22 and very quickly realized nobody gets married Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So I better find something to do with my time. And so I started creating what you would commonly call corporate video. And I would go in and meet these really engaging people running these very cool businesses. And then we would hit record and everything would completely fall apart.

looked like hostage videos and these people were sweating bullets and stumbling over their words. And I thought, my goodness, there has to be a better way. I better figure it out or I'm going to be awfully poor. And it really came down to two things. Number one, it was stop making people stare into the lens of the camera. It's very unnerving if you're not used to it, right? But secondly, and most importantly, stop telling people what to say.

because most people, when it comes to their business, can talk about it all day long. You can talk to potential customers, you can talk to employees or folks you're trying to recruit, but for whatever reason, when we say we're gonna create video, it's like, okay, let's figure out exactly what we're going to say. I believe that's the wrong approach. I think that you need to get people in conversation, let them speak off the top of their head, let them be genuine and authentic, and then leave it to someone that knows how to edit to put that together into something that feels real.

Jeffro (02:06.101)
Yeah, well maybe it comes down to there's a fear of like, okay, if I record this, it's permanent. In a conversation, I can always modify if I, you know, stumble, I can fix it or whatever. But I mean, you're not streaming this live. So of course, you can always just do another take or edit it or whatever you need to do. So you got to get past that.

Pat Taggart (02:18.431)
Exactly. Exactly.

That's the thing, it's not live, right? And so like, you you're not nervous when you go into a meeting most likely, or when you talk to your team or where you're recruiting, and that's live, right? It happens one time, it's real time. But people are scared to death when they go to shoot video, and you could do it 15 times, and the world's only gonna see the one that worked really well. man, it's like, where else could you be good 5 % or 10 % of the time, and that's considered a massive success.

Jeffro (02:49.549)
Yeah, so what is the approach then, now, when you go in and instead of sit down in front of the camera, is it, here, talk to this person and I'm just going to record you from the side, or how do you figure that out?

Pat Taggart (02:59.517)
Yeah. This person is me actually. And so I'm always sitting across from our clients. And one thing I need to make really clear is that unscripted doesn't mean unprepared. I would never suggest anybody just goes in and wings it without any real objectives in mind. You know, with our clients and I'm sure anybody else that does unscripted work kind of does the same thing where you have to have a meeting and talk through what are our objectives. And I've always looked at video, Jeffro as a tool. so

Jeffro (03:02.976)
Okay.

Pat Taggart (03:25.213)
It needs to do one of two things. It needs to help you take advantage of an opportunity that you have, or it needs to help you solve a problem. And if it doesn't do either, then simply don't create video. You should do one of those too. And so really what you want to get really clear on is what are your differentiators? Okay. Who's our audience? What do we want them to feel? And how can we work video into our flow? Maybe look at your website and say, man, it's all text and text is wonderful, but how do we create a really

wonderfully choreographed dance between the text on our site and then video. How do we use video to set up? How, sorry, how do we use text to set up video? And you can do it. You can do it really elegantly. And I think that if you take a look at your site as a consumer and you say, man, is this inspiring? Am I really taking advantage of the technology that's available to really tell our story? Like is this us? And if it's not, if you look at it and say, it doesn't really capture who we are. Chances are it's just missing a couple of really well-done videos.

and you have the opportunity to do that. But back to how it works, people talk to me and we kind of have a very clear idea of what we want to hit. And I think you have to take an all inclusive approach with these because there was definitely a time where someone would say, Hey Pat, we want a brand video. We want this two or three minute video. Let's go in and create that. And then we would just create and deliver that. And the client will be happy. I wouldn't be happy afterwards because I'm looking at

you know, an hour and a half of other really great footage that didn't make the cut, not because it wasn't great, because it didn't fit the kind of puzzle that we were trying to create, but man, it's so useful for LinkedIn posts or services videos or a million other things. And so now when we work with clients, it's like, Hey, let's, let's just have great conversations.

Let's really get to the heart of who you are and what makes you different. And then let's take it back and not only create that like brand video front and center, but let's create kind of an entire library of content. That's what I would encourage your listeners to think about doing is if you're going to take the time to clean up, put on your favorite shirt, sit in front of the lights and the camera, man, just have great conversations and create as much as you can. Because honestly, with very little effort on the part of a company, if you have a creative that knows what you're doing,

Pat Taggart (05:34.291)
You can go from zero or next to zero video to best in class video in one day. It should only take one day for you and your team and you could really go from zero to the best.

Jeffro (05:45.407)
Yeah, and I want to zoom in on one thing you said real quick. If you have a creative who knows what they're doing, because you being the person across the table from them makes a difference from just another employee sitting there and saying, tell us about the new plan we're launching, right? That's going to be boring, but you already, you know how to craft questions to draw out the gems that are going to do well on video.

Pat Taggart (05:50.172)
Hmm.

Pat Taggart (05:58.751)
Yeah.

Pat Taggart (06:08.125)
Yeah, and the biggest thing is, you I think people always try to hit them with like the most creative question you can, the questions most of the time are the most simple questions. My job, 99 % of my job is just making people comfortable. That is my job because that's the biggest barrier, right? So I don't hold a list of questions because when you're holding a list of questions, inevitably the person sitting across from you who is nervous, they're wondering what's coming next, what's coming next. If you could just keep that eye contact. And if you can, for example, if they're not smiling, I will smile at you.

until you think I'm completely insane. I need to give you the energy that I want in return. And then little trick I have is after one or two questions, I always tell the person, hey, you're really good at this. Do you do a lot of video? And Jeffery sometimes they are awful, right? Like sometimes people are just like, they're a nervous wreck. They're stuttering. They're not saying anything useful, but it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if I can get you to relax and make you think, I'm doing okay. Man, you see like.

You see like this huge weight come off their shoulders and then they're able to just kind of settle into the zone. And eventually you creatively get back and ask those first couple of questions again in a different way because they're probably unusable, but it's really just about getting true authenticity from people. And you really can't get that unless you get people to relax. That's my whole job. It used to be that the equipment, the technology that was kind of like, we need to hire a company because we don't have the technology to create these. Well,

Now you do, right? The cell phone in your pocket is better than a camera I bought for $7,000 10 years ago. That's crazy, right? The cell phone in your pocket is wonderful. So technology is no longer the barrier, it's storytelling.

Jeffro (07:44.02)
Yeah, no, I love how, you know, it's weird that you have to help people be themselves, but I think at the same time, it feels like a quiz. Like you mentioned, if you're holding that piece of paper, they now like feel like, no, I have to perform or else. And so it's just so interesting the way humans work, you know?

Pat Taggart (07:51.433)
Mm-hmm.

Pat Taggart (07:59.709)
Yeah.

Pat Taggart (08:03.793)
It is, but it's, know, and I always try to make sure I have empathy for people because it it's not, they're probably world-class or close to it, whatever their particular specialty is. But man, that's not creating video, right? That's not being an interviewee. It's whatever else they do. So have empathy, make people relax and just kind of make them the star of the show. If you tell them, you know, how much you admire the work that they do, which I typically do and let them shine and they, they will.

Jeffro (08:13.289)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (08:31.613)
What are some of the other things you do? You mentioned some things you do during the interview. What about beforehand that you do to help build confidence and prepare them to make sure everything goes smoothly?

Pat Taggart (08:41.191)
Yeah, I love to go in and meet the team in person. You know, the default is always virtual for these planning meetings that we have. We typically do one strategy meeting in advance and the default is always virtual. But I really think if you can get face to face with people, it's just, it's a totally different level of familiarity. Before we start, before there's ever a question when somebody enters the room and never an audience, right? So we'll set a, we're interviewing say eight people from a company or having eight conversations. We'll bring them in one at a time and make sure that nobody can.

kind of be in the background or sit in the room and watch them other than myself and a couple members of my team, because nobody likes to perform in front of an audience that's not used to an audience. But I'll never have like a firm start. I don't want anybody ever saying action. That's ridiculous. If you hire a company to create video for you and your organization and they're yelling action or using a slate, which is one of those clapboards, you have probably gone down the wrong road. Like that is not necessary anymore, right? It's very easy to sync up different cameras.

just with a single click of a mouse. You don't need to do that stuff anymore. All that does is freak people the hell out when you slap a clipboard right in front of their face. So I'm talking to people and probably asking my first question before I sit down in the chair because I want them to get into it and then realize a couple of minutes in, maybe we started, right? Like there shouldn't be a firm start because that really freaks people out. It's not like, are you ready? Okay, five, four, three, two, one. And you see like the deer eyes come out, right? And they just kind of freeze up.

So there's just all these little things that you can do to really make people relax. The most important thing is don't make it feel like an interview. Whatever you can do not to make it feel like an interview and make it feel more like a conversation between friends or between familiar colleagues, that's really what you want.

Jeffro (10:25.097)
That makes a lot of sense. What about, let's talk for a second about, you know, let's say a business wants to create this video content, but they might struggle with deciding what to focus on. You know, what types of videos do you recommend that they prioritize? And how do you make sure that those videos they're saying will actually help the business?

Pat Taggart (10:42.867)
Yeah, so, you we talked about a brand video earlier. I'm a huge believer that it's very, very helpful, regardless of the business size or industry, to have something on the homepage of the website that tells people who you are, not even necessarily what you do, but how you do what you do differently and why you do it. And focusing on your differentiators is important because chances are people found you because they kind of know what you do.

And they're not there to find out what you do. They're there to find out how you do it differently than everybody else and help them make their decision. So from a pure marketing and branding standpoint, I think a homepage video is really important. It lives front and center. That is if somebody has 90 seconds, two minutes to click play, they'll know who you are. They'll have a really good feel for who you are. Beyond that, you I know you work with a lot of service companies and you help so many people in service industries.

And sometimes we have multiple lines of service. Man, a video that explains that specific line of service is so helpful. We worked with a company recently, they had six different lines of service. So in addition to creating that brand video in those conversations, we were able to really hone in on those six different service lines and explain it in a way and bring it to life in a way that it's very, very difficult to do with just words. Something else that I found that's really helpful. And if you go on our website, skybluecreative.com, we have a video FAQ page.

You can do this one for free. Take out your cell phone, figure out what the six or eight or 10 most commonly asked questions are of your organization and just hit record. You can split this up among the team or just have one or two people do it and just answer the questions. Now. Yeah, you can do it in text, but man, it's so much more impactful for people to be able to put a face to the business because people buy from people. And the other thing you can do with those videos is say you're having a conversation with a prospect and you're like, Hey, how does this work? Or how does that work?

and you can respond with, you know what, we have a video that talks about that very thing. Here's a link, take a look and let me know what questions you have. Number one, it saves you from answering the same damn question over and over again. Number two, it just adds a different level of sophistication to your process. It saves you a little bit of time, which we all need. And then finally, what I would say is you can talk about how great you are all day long. It's nothing compared to other people talking about how great you are. And so maybe get a couple of your clients on, right?

Pat Taggart (12:59.635)
have your clients talk about the experience they've had with you. And again, don't make them read off a teleprompter. Don't tell them what to say. In fact, you probably shouldn't even be able to be the one sitting across from them because that's weird to say, tell me how great I am. Have somebody else do it. You don't need a ton of these. You need one or two or three and you already have more than your than your rivals or your competition. So grab a couple of those really well done testimonials that don't feel like infomercials. And I think that'll go a long way for you.

Jeffro (13:27.644)
Yeah, those are all great tips and I hope you guys at home are taking notes because some of these like, like Pat said, you can just start doing this on your own right now. It makes a huge difference. It makes you stand out. I also wanted to ask a practical question. So when you're filming these, you mentioned earlier how, know, you get a bunch of content, but you don't always use all of it, right? So are you filming with multiple cameras to do like a wide shot and a vertical shot so that some can be cut for social media or how do you approach that?

Pat Taggart (13:35.391)
Totally.

Pat Taggart (13:51.303)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It's a great question. Always, always, always for our team, it's at least two cameras, often three. Why? Well, because if you have multiple cameras, number one, it's a little bit more visually interesting to be able to punch in. You're able to cut around stumbles that way, and you're able to bridge thoughts. Sometimes, you know, we'll have a video where someone says what sounds like a really cohesive, wonderful sentence, and people at home don't realize that the first half of it was something that happened in minute two, and the second half was something that happened in minute 10.

but they just kind of piece together really well. And without multiple cameras, you're not able to do that unless you pop that person off screen. And so for us, it just creates a way better video all around to have multiple cameras.

Jeffro (14:38.395)
Right, just to explain that a little more for people who aren't familiar with editing, if you took the same video and cut out minutes three to nine, you're gonna notice that I'm gonna like suddenly jump like this, and it's jarring, and people now feel like this is unnatural and I'm feeling tricked somehow. Whereas if you've got, if you cut to the side camera, it feels natural like we're still continuing the same conversation, but now the context all makes sense, and it's a smooth thing, and it just flows naturally.

Pat Taggart (14:49.661)
Yes.

Pat Taggart (14:55.582)
Yeah.

Pat Taggart (15:08.521)
By the way, it's also a really great tool to take more pressure off people when they walk in the room. I always say, hey, look, there's multiple cameras. These aren't here to freak you out. It actually helps you because we're able to cut out any of your stumbles. We're able to bridge your thoughts. It's really kind of a cheat code for you. So this should take way more pressure off you. You do not have to be perfect. Just talk to me and people are like, that's awesome.

Jeffro (15:30.256)
Yeah. Well, and this is all good advice for a business that maybe doesn't have a big budget to do the high value production, right? To pay for this. We don't want the slapboards anyways, but are there any other practical tips for creating this video content if they're doing it in house without hiring someone from outside?

Pat Taggart (15:39.583)
Mm.

Pat Taggart (15:43.167)
Yeah.

Pat Taggart (15:50.961)
Yeah. so in general, one thing is don't be afraid to get started, right? The only way you can get better at it is if you get started and you can also, if you can't afford to bring a team in house, I bet you can find an editor on fiber or someone from a local creative college. You can find someone to do posts for you for these things. So, one thing I would always recommend to an organization is if you're going to create anything in house, go on Amazon or wherever else you buy stuff and pick up, you know, a simple.

cell phone tripod, pick up a ring light or some other light. A lot of times they sell the tripod ring light combinations and find a good microphone that interfaces with your phone, whatever it is. You can probably buy all three of these accessories for like hundred bucks. And it really ups your production value so much. So just a little tiny investment can take that cell phone to the next level.

And I would say a really great place to start internally if you're not comfortable with the quality of the stuff that you're putting out is use it for education and training purposes. organizations in service industries, you you have rock stars, you have these people that are so good. They're your A plus players, right? Just follow them a little bit with a cell phone and document some of the things that they do really well. It's a great way to educate people, either people that are there for continuing or continuing education or people that you bring into the organization. Like

We have this default that we only want to educate from the top down. We want leaders to educate folks on the front line. But really, the front line folks are the experts. And so you find your best one or two, you document the things that they do every day, and you use that to help educate everyone else.

Jeffro (17:27.587)
Yeah, I mean, it's so helpful for creating SOPs and just defining, you know, training material for new hires. you can, instead of handing somebody a playbook or a handbook that's this thick, you can say, here's a list of five videos I want you to watch. And now, okay, they can do that. It feels more manageable in that sense. And even if you want both, know, hand the video to an admin assistant and say, okay, transcribe this for me, put it into a document. Okay, now you got both and people can watch or read whichever they prefer.

Pat Taggart (17:32.127)
Exactly.

Pat Taggart (17:56.713)
Yeah, exactly. And you know, if you get really great stuff, mean, there's so many apps now that can transcribe everything for you, right? So yeah, start with the video, let it transcribe it. You have both. You have text and video.

Jeffro (18:01.739)
Exactly.

Jeffro (18:07.791)
Can you share a specific success story from where this unscripted approach really impacted a business that you came in and made video content for?

Pat Taggart (18:17.499)
Yeah, certainly. I'll get one of the most fun ones and you can go on YouTube at home and look up the TickPick, T-I-C-K-P-I-C-K, Youper story, Y-O-O-P-E-R story. And so this company TickPick, they're like StubHub, where they sell tickets on the secondhand market. And I heard this story from their CEO about how the...

One of their customer service folks messed up. They didn't have the upper peninsula of Michigan on a map and somebody from the upper peninsula of Michigan complained and this person thought they were being funny. said, well, Hey, thanks for letting us know. But at least we have the important part of Michigan. And overnight, this was an overnight employee overnight. Their Facebook rating went from like a four point something to like a one point two. And the Uber, the UP kind of banded together and they were just slamming this company. And this guy got this call first thing in the morning and said, Hey, our reputation is in the tank.

Jeffro (18:55.893)
no.

Pat Taggart (19:14.171)
and he had to go on this crazy quest to try to gain their trust back of these folks and make it right. And he did. And it's a great story. Sometimes the best stories aren't the stories of our organizations. They're stories that come from our organizations because stories about us or brand video are probably only going to be consumed by people that may want to use our services. But a great story is universal. And so I sat with this guy, just him and I.

and had them talk through this story. Well, if you look now, I'm not sure where it's at, but last I looked, it was over 2 million views. And they hired Ric Flair for a more traditional commercial, which was very funny, right around the same time. And at one point, it may still, this video has more views than Ric Flair and this huge production, which cost a lot of money. Why? Because it was authentic and it was memorable and it was a real story. And so I would encourage everybody, tell your stories.

not only the story of your company, but the story that you tell when you're at the bar and maybe you have to clean it up a little bit, but tell these great stories, tell these human stories. If you screwed up, tell self-deprecating stories, right? Tell the story, your origin story of your company where your family thought you had lost your mind and you were crazy and the company almost went out of business and somehow you saved it. Like stories are so universal.

And sometimes we feel like we have to only put our best foot forward and say, we're the biggest this or the best at this. And that's not what people really want. What people really want is authenticity and people love great stories. And so I would encourage everyone just be yourself. And if you don't like the way that you look or sound on video, remember it's not for you. So just never, ever watch it, right? Like you're not creating content to consume yourself. Sociopaths do that. It's not for you.

Jeffro (20:53.475)
Yeah.

Jeffro (20:59.428)
So that's a great example and I'm going to go watch that after we finish here. I was going to ask what other... no, come on brain, come through for me. It was right there.

Pat Taggart (21:12.285)
It's, hey man, you have an excuse, the holidays, they did this to everybody. I'm still trying to get back in the flow.

Jeffro (21:16.259)
Yeah, I know. It's still a shame though. Well, I had a really great follow-up question I wanted to ask because I know obviously there's tons of stories. okay. I remembered. So when you are talking about video for business, I think there's always a big focus on the ROI of that and how it converts for the business. And so I know you're talking about stories and getting people to watch it and engage with it, but where do you balance putting in calls to action?

and deciding if every single video needs to have an ROI or if it's just part of the overall package.

Pat Taggart (21:53.085)
Yeah, and so this is really where we love partnering with either in-house marketing teams or if there's an outsourced marketing team, if a company doesn't have one that we're able to partner with and really kind of build out both sides of it because we like to stay in our lane and we are absolutely content. First, last, and always. We don't pretend to be marketing companies. There's plenty of folks out there that their talent is creating videos and they say we're marketing companies, but they don't really know what the hell they're doing. And that doesn't do anybody any good, right?

And so I think that the marketing folks should make that decision. I would also say though, in my experience, that you don't have to sell something with every video, right? Really, if you are being authentic and you are telling people who you are and you're sharing great stories and you're getting your clients involved and letting them share their stories, you can very, very effectively, indirectly sell.

Because that can be awfully annoying if you're spamming people constantly with buy this, do that, right? And it's also, it doesn't also align with kind of my philosophy of genuine storytelling. Like, you know, I think I'm much more of a soft approach than a hard sell approach. I certainly think there is nothing wrong with having a CTA in a video if you're providing some sort of value or telling a story. But if it's just straight sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, that's fine.

That's typically just not the type of work that we create.

Jeffro (23:21.442)
That makes lot of sense. And I think that's a good spot for us to wrap up today. Because I think we've kind of covered the whole picture of, you know, this is a better way to do it, especially if you don't want to spend a ton of money on this big production. You don't want to spend all the time trying to memorize lines and like, yeah, just have somebody who understands what you're trying to do. Have a conversation, record it, and then let the editor do a lot of that work to piece it together in a way that's going to come across naturally and really tell that story that you want to tell.

So thank you for joining me today, Pat. I always appreciate it when entrepreneurs like you are helping business owners simplify the various aspects of promoting and marketing their company because there's so many options out there. This makes it feel less overwhelming and actually doable. So for those of you listening, take Pat's advice. Start doing video this way. You know, if you want to connect with Pat directly, his LinkedIn profile website will be in the show notes as well if you want to connect with him. And Pat, I'll ask you one last question before we finish.

Pat Taggart (23:50.399)
That's right.

Jeffro (24:19.616)
Looking ahead to the future, how do you see video evolving as a storytelling tool for businesses?

Pat Taggart (24:27.753)
Yeah, so I'm so glad you asked that. Someone asked the other day, do you think that AI is going to kill your business? And I said, I think it's going to kill the non-creative part of our business. But as long as people buy from people, and in service industries, I believe they certainly always will, one of the biggest differentiators that you will have is storytelling and authenticity. That's not going anywhere.

There's not going to be a replacement for you. And so while people can create an avatar of you, they're always kind of a little off, right? Like be yourself, tell your story, be self-deprecating when you can, be human. Don't always worry about telling people how you're the biggest this and you have this many customers. They just want to know if you can help them and they want to like and trust you. And so really cater your content around that and you'll be just fine.

Jeffro (25:23.423)
Well, I love that. That's great advice. Thanks again for being here, Pat. Thanks to all of you guys for listening. We said it before, we'll say it again, video's not going away. AI isn't going to do this job for you, so you got to do your part. Start making videos and we'll see you back here next time. Take care.