Creating Promotional Video: HarperCollins executives talk about the publisher’s new in-house studio

Extra: What is the creative process of developing and shooting each author’s video?
Benedetto: [HarperCollins’ public relations and marketing departments] send over 10 questions. We’ll let the author read the questions. If the author wants to add something, they can. We really don’t talk about … the look of the video. I think it’s a learning curve. … We turn around a video in a couple of hours.

Extra: What were the first few steps that were taken to pull this in-house studio initiative together?
Ana Maria Allessi: [HarperCollins new President and Chief Executive Officer] Brian Murray had seen The Wall Street Journal studio down at the Journal offices. He asked me, because I run the audio studio, to go down and see if it made sense to do something similar. Two former offices here have been turned into the studio. We mimic [the Journal] very closely …. It was really an interesting experience for me because it involved a lot of different departments—from IT [and] building management, to the electricians, I worked with all our office coordinators. The most challenging thing was relocating the offices. …Brian had me on a tight deadline. He asked them to do it in four months. It was a big push to make an April 1 deadline.

Extra: Why was video so important to HarperCollins?
Allessi: … Consumers crave video. All the observation supports that. [Brian] thought that this is something we’re going to need. Harper is pretty good with figuring it out themselves and not outsourcing. … It was, “Let’s create a lot more video.” Another huge motivation is that we know how frequently authors are in the building. … If authors find themselves in New York City, we can very conveniently and in a timely, efficient way ask them to be part of our effort.