In Sean’s initial post from the BMAKC event last month, Video Content That Gets Results, he covered the different types of video KJO Media explained. I’m going to talk about some elements to consider during your pre-production and production phases. First of all, who is your audience? How will you communicate to them? When you talk to someone in person, you usually have their attention at least for a little while because it is difficult for them to turn away from you when you are face-to-face. In a group meeting or presentation, they likely won’t get up and walk away. It is more difficult to grab their attention and keep it when they are viewing your video on their own initiative. For example, a TV commercial is short and it comes during a time when a lot of us are ready for a short break from the show we are watching. That means the commercial needs to grab the audience’s attention quickly, before they leave the room or before they pick up their phone to check notifications. With a video on a…
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Video content that gets results
I attended a BMAKC event on Wednesday, Nov. 14. KJO Media gave a presentation on Video Content that gets Results. Over the course of an hour they walked from the the video production process from beginning to end. They managed to cram a ton of information into a short time. The single most important fact I took away from them was that they typically spend five to 10 times the amount of time in preproduction as they do shooting the video. If you are going to attempt to make any of the video types below, make sure you have a plan. Videos don’t just come together on their own. You will find the whole process easier if you plan. Consider everything from audience to lighting and budget to who will appear in the video. KJO showed six main types of videos. Most video content falls into at least one of these groups. About Us – Clockwork from KJO Media on Vimeo. About Us videos are basically an elevator pitch. Typically, these last 30-60 seconds. They can be great on social…
Explainer Videos Explained
At Word Camp KC 2018 I attended a session by Shane Purnell on explainer videos. The name really says it all. Explainer videos can be used for training, marketing, or education. Sometimes they are animated. Sometimes they are just a recording of a computer screen. You can include narration or simply have text. A music bed sets the tone and provides interest. You don’t need to be an animation professional to create a quality product. There are many sites out there with templates that make the process fast and easy. I made the video above in about 15 minutes. I think with a little creativity we could use them to make some standout content for our social accounts. There is a downside. Since I used the free version the video includes a watermark. The plans are kind of expensive, the cheapest I found was $20/month and the price goes up quickly from there. I think we would be hard pressed to get value for that price. View all of Shane’s slides here and you can find lists of sites to…
Put the MOVES on Your Work – KC DesignCore recap
One of the disciplines I like most in design is animation. My first job out of college was at a TV station. I designed mostly static images for the newscast, but I had the opportunity to learn 2-D animation and I loved it! Since then, I’ve had a few projects where I’ve been able to make my designs move. I was re-inspired at the latest event I attended to play around with the animation tools I have access to. At KC DesignCore’s meetup last month, “Put the MOVES on your work”, Kyle Hamrick and Jim Hinds demonstrated how to use Adobe applications to create motion. Hamrick is a trainer for Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Photoshop. At the event, he showed some examples of motion graphics and walked through how to make them in After Effects (AE). AE is a robust application that can be used in conjunction with other Adobe apps such as Illustrator and Premiere. Although it can create 2D animation, it is most widely used for 3D animation and special effects. I bet you’ve seen it used…
Live-stream recap of SMCKC breakfast on live-streaming
On Friday, June 2 Social Media Club Kansas City held its monthly breakfast. Jen Forrest, Director of Social Media at DEG, gave a presentation about live-streaming. It seemed appropriate we live stream our recap instead of a writing a traditional blog post. If you are interested you can view Forrest’s slides here.
Tweets from Word Camp Kansas City 2017
[View the story “Word Camp Kansas City 2017” on Storify]
D.O.A. (Death of Autoplay)
You have read all these posts and now have a non-shaky video with crystal clear audio you are ready to post it online. I am sure all the readers of this blog are committed workers and would never try use office hours to do things like…fantasy football research for example. I always want to be honest with you readers, and since my bosses don’t read this blog, I will admit I check out what is going on in the world of fantasy football. Like I have told you video is crucial and fantasy football sites have noticed this as well. They have started embedding videos into their posts. As a consumer I love the videos, but as someone covertly searching for for fantasy football info I hate how they play automatically. Auto-play is the dilemma that brings us here today. Many many companies have their videos start playing as soon as the page loads. They figure the audience will be happy to not have to tax themselves with clicking play. They have complete disregard for those of us trying to…
I’m a little unsteady: Eliminating shaky video
Movie aficionados will know that a secret Blair Witch sequel was unveiled at Comic-Con on July 25. Since this blog is nothing if not topical, the topic of shaky video seemed appropriate. For those unfamiliar with the 1999 cult-classic The Blair Witch Project, the movie is “found footage” from campers terrorized by some witch. I don’t know. To be honest, I have never seen it. But I have seen enough parodies and heard enough people talk about it to have a pretty good handle on things. The only thing you need to be concerned about is that most of the video is super shaky. Last month, I talked about how bad audio is the quickest way to ruin a video. Second on the list is having unsteady video. We all have been forced to sit through clips of soccer games filmed by parents who appear to be on the fifth espresso of the morning, or concert videos taken by people waving their hands around like they just do not care. Obviously, these videos are not to be confused with professional…
Audio killed the video star
It would be reasonable to assume that the most important element in video production is visual. This is a mistake most video beginners make. We have all been forced to watch friends’ Insta videos or Snapchats from concerts with completely over-modulated audio. For me, bad audio is neck and neck with shaky video as number one video killer. Part of the reason bad audio is so prevalent is that you don’t know it is happening while you are recording. The simplest way to fix this problem is wearing headphones. It is really easy in theory. However, smartphone recording does not allow for this, but I said in my first post your smartphone is plenty good enough. Unfortunately, this is one instance where you have to sacrifice some functionality for the price and convenience of smartphones. The following tips will help you get the best audio possible while recording on your smartphone. Use an external microphone – Your phone’s internal microphone works fine if only one sound can be detected. When was the last time you were in a setting with…
The five W’s and H of video production
Anyone who has taken a journalism class is no doubt familiar with the five W’s. For those of you who chose to make money instead of pursuing journalism the five W’s are who, what, where, when, why and how. I am adapting this idea for storytelling to video production. This post is meant as a follow up to my first post on why you should get into video, so check that out before reading on. Who – Before doing anything figure out who your audience is. Your final product will be radically different if you are making something for colleagues or customers. For me, deciding on an audience is the single biggest determining factor for what you will create. What – This seems obvious, what is the content of your video going to be. It absolutely is important to know what your content will look like. I mentioned storyboarding before. The planning will save you a lot of time. Draw out what each shot will look like. I won’t lie to you, this is going to seem very tedious. You…