Do you need a video online to promote or market your business or a product and want to do it yourself?
This article is from the perspective of a video producer.
There are tons of products out there to help you to complete this possibly daunting task. Tons and tons of jargon, terminology, buzzwords, etc.
However, you are probably hearing the screams to utilize video to engage with your customers or potential customers!
If you are a DIY type, you may be prepared to endure a long and steep learning curve. You will need to buy video production equipment, web hosting, and or a platform subscription. You have to learn everything from writing, storyboarding, production planning, filming, lighting techniques, audio, post-production, encoding, and SEO and publishing.
So if you have a business to run, meetings to attend, a family, and meetings to attend. Where is the time?
Albeit, we have cameras in our phones, free services like youtube and many other free or very affordable platforms to get the message across. Let us assume you will start with youtube.
People don’t go to College or University to study film making if it was that easy. As a producer video guy, I would not want to attempt to run your business as a DIY project.
The time and money that is required to become a video producer quite the investment.
However, you need a video, but you do not want to hire an agency to create an ad and hire a production company. This will cost a lot of $$ and you don’t have the budget or wish to go that route.
There are also many platforms out there that offer you to create your own cookie cutter video that requires a subscription. These companies have to pay for thousands if not millions of video clips that are provided through a form of stock footage aggregation. In laymen terms, they make it pretty easy for you to create a cookie-cutter generic video with some form of commitment in the form of a subscription.
What I am suggesting is the hybrid approach. You do most of the planning footwork and get someone to help out with the rest or fill in the technical gaps that may surface.
You may be able to create your own video using your phone and possibly utilize one of these ad services.
There are many ways to go about this. The more engaged you are in the creative process the more control and the less you have to commit as an investment.
I think in the long run, you will find that the rinse and repeat concept should get you results and they should evolve into something quite effective.
What I will suggest are a few things to help you get this ball rolling and not cost you $$$50,000 dollars.
This easy exercise is to create a rough concept and get you thinking like a producer to help with creative planning and reduce the costs involved.
- Think of creating a really simple video ad.10 -15 seconds in duration for starters.
- Write down approx 10 seconds of text, that will be the narrative (voice-over) (start listening to the radio or Tv commercials for ideas) (1. address a problem 2. your company/product is the solution 3.follow with a benefit.)
- Take a few pictures or video of the product or business you wish to promote.
- Now create a storyboard with pictures (or just sketch, doodle cartoon-like) you have with the narrative that matches below each image. (basically, in a linear way, envision the timing of the images enhanced by the narration)
- Go through this exercise over and over and tweak it a bit as you go. Like a musician does to a song.
The next step:
Photography: Tips,
For small products or items:
You can use your phone for starters, (hoping it is a smartphone with a decent camera. You should get at least two small cheap desk lamps with flexible necks. Wallmart sells them for about 12 – 14 dollars.
Purchase 5k lumen led bulbs. They will create a lighting temperature that is strong enough to have realistic lighting for the item/s you are photographing.
Any light bulbs below that 5k lumen will not give you proper colors for your photography. You want your images to look clean, bright, and with the proper color.
Using the windows as natural lighting can help but clouds can change the brightness of the shot. Having control of the light with two 5k lights should be good enough.
Some cameras are better with lighting so experiment. Also some, older digital cameras are very affordable and still take great shots. If you have the time to plug them into your computer and download them and edit.
The mirrorless cameras, such as sony, are very good in low lighting, so these two light concepts can be very effective.
A simple alternative is just recording straight to video, but you will need to be really steady or get a mini tripod to mount your camera.
Another suggestion is to go to a dollar store or an art shop and get a few large bristle board sheets for a backdrop. (white)
Whit is a great color because it bounces lighting well and helps keep your videos bright.
The one tool that I think is necessary would be some sort of video editing software.
That way you can control your content and can manipulate it and possibly publish your videos directly to youtube. There are many ways to publish directly from your own computer.
Here is a great little free software package you can try out.
This should be enough to get you started. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me [email protected]
I will follow up with some more specific techniques to help you along the way.
Thank you,
Stephan Wiechmann April- 2020
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