For me, a creative video isn’t simply about recording something that happens. They are about telling a story with purpose. It might seem the same, but no, it’s not at all.
A video can show an action, a moment or a situation. A creative video, on the other hand, aims to give that meaning, personality and emotion. It doesn’t stop at ‘look at this’, but goes a step further and says: ‘look at this… but look at it this way’.
The difference isn’t just in the camera, or the editing, or the effects. It’s in the idea. In deciding what you want to tell, who you want to tell it to, and how you’re going to make that person connect with what they’re seeing.
I like to explain it with a very simple example: a video is showing a door opening, whereas a creative video is making that door mean something. It’s about making the viewer feel curiosity, tension, surprise or even tenderness. It’s not just a door opening, but a story beginning.
That’s why a creative video isn’t born when you start filming. It’s born much earlier. When you think about the approach, the tone, the pace and the intention. When you decide what to show, how to show it and, often, what you’d rather not show so that the viewer can fill in the rest. That’s where the real magic begins.
What are its key characteristics?
For me, a creative video has several key elements, but the first and most important is that it doesn’t just show you something: it draws you in. It has a narrative intent. In other words, it doesn’t just string images together ‘to see what happens’, but knows what it wants to tell and how it wants you to experience it. And that’s where everything comes in: the tone, the pace, the lighting, the sound, the silences, the framing, the colour… including, as I said before, what you decide not to show. Because yes, in audiovisual media, sometimes what you don’t show works harder than what you do show.
The second key is coherence. Everything must make sense within the same concept. Because you can have a beautiful shot, spectacular music and very neat editing, but if each element goes its own way, the video ends up looking like a “flea market of images”: lots of lovely things… but each on its own. And creativity isn’t about dressing up a weak idea. It’s about making sure everything pulls in the same direction.
And then there’s a third characteristic that I consider fundamental: the ability to leave a lasting impression. A creative video has to leave you with something. An emotion, an image, a pang, a reflection, a discomfort of the kind that isn’t pleasant, but is necessary. Something that stays with you once the video has finished.
That, for example, is something I tried to work on in my short film “Un segundo”. The story is about the danger of using a mobile phone at the wheel, but the important thing wasn’t just to deliver a message, but to make the viewer feel it. Not just a “yeah, yeah, that’s wrong” and then move on to something else, but for there to be an emotional impact, a little lump in the throat, a feeling of “phew”. Because when a story achieves that, it stops being content you simply watch and becomes something that stays with you afterwards.
What are the main formats?
First of all, we need to get our terms straight, because when we say “formats” we sometimes mean lots of things at once, and that ends up being a bit of an audiovisual mess – well-intentioned, but a mess nonetheless.
I would distinguish between two main categories.
On the one hand, there are narrative formats, that is, the type of video you’re creating based on what you want to tell. This would include emotional videos, explainer videos, testimonials, corporate videos, tutorials, or pieces designed for social media. Each has a different function: some aim to move you, others to inform, others to build rapport, others to teach, and others to grab your attention in a very short time.
On the other hand, there are technical or platform formats, which depend on the channel where the content will be published. For example, landscape works very well for YouTube, websites or more traditional content; portrait is king on TikTok, Reels, Stories or Shorts; and square has also made, and in some cases still makes, a lot of sense on social media.
To put it simply: the narrative format is the story you want to tell, and the technical format is the outfit you dress it in so it works well in every setting… Because you wouldn’t wear flip-flops to the Goya Awards, nor sequins to buy bread. Well… you could, of course. But perhaps it’s not the most effective approach.
Now, just because the format changes doesn’t mean the essence disappears. That is, for me, one of the most common mistakes. Thinking that because a piece is short, vertical or intended for social media, you no longer need to put as much thought into it. And in reality, the opposite is true. The shorter the format, the clearer the idea needs to be. The less time you have, the more important it is to have intention, structure and a central theme.
Because ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether the video is horizontal, vertical, long, short, testimonial or explanatory: if it lacks an underlying idea, a clear focus and details that reinforce the message, it remains mere fast consumption and is forgotten even faster. And when you get the format right, you don’t just make the piece work on screen: you make the message get through, connect and, with any luck, last a little longer than those three seconds of attention that nowadays seem like an extreme sport.
What different types of creative videos are there?
If we get theoretical, there are many types of video: corporate, testimonial, promotional, documentary, tutorial, explainer, social media clips, motion graphics… In short, there are names galore. The industry, in that respect, is very generous.
But, honestly, I’d make an important distinction here: I don’t believe there are different types of creative videos as such. What do exist are different types of video. The label “creative” isn’t determined by the format, the subject matter, or the category you put it in.
- A corporate video can be creative.
- A testimonial can be creative.
- A tutorial can be creative.
- Even a video on occupational health and safety can be creative, even if the subject matter is far from creative…
Ultimately, that label is applied by the perspective of the person who creates it and the person who executes it. Creativity isn’t in the label; it’s in the approach. In how you decide to tell that story. In whether you simply provide information or manage to build a piece that has purpose, personality and the ability to connect with the viewer.
For me, that’s where the real difference lies. Not in the type of video you make, but in what you do with it. Because you can take a seemingly very common format and turn it into something powerful, exciting and memorable. Or you can have a topic that seemed promising and handle it in such a flat way that it leaves no echo at all.
So, rather than talking about different types of creative videos, I’d talk about different types of video that may, or may not, be told in a creative way. And that no longer depends on the name of the piece. It depends on the vision, the sensitivity and the intelligence with which it is crafted.
To what extent does the development of new technologies affect creative videos?
Enormously. But not in a ‘catastrophic’ way where ‘it’s all over, a machine is replacing us and we’re retiring to grow bonsai trees’. No. They affect us enormously because they give us more possibilities, streamline our processes and allow us to do things that used to cost a fortune or were simply unfeasible.
Today, AI can help you at certain stages: organising ideas, testing approaches, supporting a storyboard, cleaning up audio, generating resources or handling part of the post-production. And that’s brilliant. Just as brilliant as everything that has come with the evolution of cameras, drones, stabilisers and software becoming increasingly accessible. Technologically, we’ve made huge strides, and that has meant we can create much more powerful productions on a smaller budget.
But be careful: it’s one thing to make execution easier and quite another to generate creativity. Because technology helps, yes, but it doesn’t think for you. It doesn’t decide which story is worth telling, nor which approach will make it work, nor how to give a piece its soul. I really like to compare it to drones. Before, an aerial shot was expensive, complicated and limited. Now it’s much more accessible, and that’s fantastic. But owning a drone doesn’t automatically make you a visual storyteller, just as buying the frying pans promoted by Jordi Cruz doesn’t turn you into a Michelin-starred chef.
And here’s something I think is important to say: there are still plenty of people who believe that making a video is just a matter of pressing F11 and that the clips will start rolling out like hotcakes. And no. That might happen with any old video. But not with a creative one.
Creativity takes time. It requires imagining, thinking, dreaming, writing, drawing, testing, tweaking things and finding the best way to tell a story. It often happens to me that, whilst they’re explaining what they need, a first idea already comes to me. But that idea is just the seed. Then you have to work on it a lot to make it really work, to make it impactful and to leave a mark. And other times that idea doesn’t come so quickly, and you have to go looking for it with a bit more patience.
That’s why, when someone asks you for a creative video from one week to the next, well… a video might be possible. But a creative one? Not always. Because creativity needs something that, even today, cannot be fully rushed: time to simmer.
