Keep It Simple Stupid

'Keep It Simple Stupid' is something I heard a lot while in the military. Funny, as I've developed my video editing skills over the years, the tendency is to get the latest SW gadgets to make things look really 'cool' and create that wow factor. However, I have to remind myself to 'Keep It Simple Stupid'.

When developing a video, you need to keep certain things in mind, such as:

• Who's your target audience?
• What's your message?
• What information do you need to convey your message to your target audience?

Most of the time, you don't need a lot of special effects. As a matter of fact, too many special effects and your message gets lost. Sure, you may have created some great eye candy, but does your audience leave understanding your message? If not, then your video is nothing more then something great to look at but does nothing to help you convince your audience that they should be doing business with you!

Now, that's not to say that you shouldn't use any special effects. They just need to be used sparingly and only if they help you get your message across. One great place to use them is as an opening to your video. This is a great way to quickly capture someone's attention - then you just need to keep them engaged, while still getting your message out.

So, when planning your next video, remember 'Keep It Simple Stupid'! You and your audience will be glad you did!

Pocket Video Camcorders - Tips and Tricks

One of the newest tech gadgets to hit the market is the pocket video camcorder. One of the more popular brands is the Flip Video Camcorder. They're great for taking impromptu video and because of their size, they're very easy to carry with you.

The companies that designed these devices made sure they are easy to use for the consumer who doesn't want to take a lot of time reading manuals and/or getting into the technical stuff like adjusting white balance. They're also made so it's super easy to transfer the video you've taken onto your computer. Unfortunately, like digital still cameras, what ends up happening now is that most people have a hard drive full of videos because most people don't know how or don't want to edit what they have.

Now, if you're using the pocket video camera for your business it can be a real money saver because you don't have to pay someone to come out and shoot the video for you. The problem, though, is bad editing can ruin otherwise good footage and might not properly represent your company.

This is where companies that provide services to use what you've already taken (called post editing), can really help. My company, SJ Video Productions, is accustomed to working with video that has already been shot and turning it into something that looks great! We're able to combine your video and images into a commercial style video that helps you make more money, and at costs substantially less than having us do the video shoot and editing!

Now, we're not miracle workers, so we need to have something of fairly decent quality to start with. So, here are some tips and tricks for you to consider when shooting your own video using a pocket video camcorder:

• Consider your lighting: too much light on your subject can cause it to be over exposed - and this is hard to compensate for while editing. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on you perspective), the human eye is very good at compensating for this. So, you'll need to shoot some test video and review it to make sure you don't see see only white, with no color definition. If you have over exposure then there are three things to consider: camcorder positioning; lighting, or subject location. Make some changes to one or more of these areas, re-shoot the video until it's lit properly.

• Consider your lighting (seeing a trend?): too much light behind your subject can cause the camcorder to compensate for this by under exposing your subject. Because, pocket video camcorders are designed to be easy to use, they are almost completely automatic, so they will make their 'best guess' with the light coming through the lens. So, in this case it will try and reduce the amount of light coming in which will in turn make your subject appear darker. So, as with over exposure, you'll need to make adjustments to compensate.

• Moving the camcorder too quickly: moving the camcorder too quickly can cause a loss of subject detail. The technical term for this movement is 'panning'. Move to fast and things get blurry, move too slow and things can get shaky. Blurry video is nearly impossible to correct, shaky video, in a lot of cases, can be corrected. So, err on the side of going too slow. Do some test takes, and check your results.

• Consider your subject: is he/she properly dressed (clothing tucked in, hair combed, etc...)? Is the space your shooting clean and free of unexpected items (trash cans, pieces of paper, etc...)? The best suggestion here is to have someone else make some observations and be sure to review the video immediately and keep an eye open for things that are out of place. In some cases, these things can be corrected. I had an incident where I noticed a coat hanger in the space! Fortunately, I was able to convert the video into a still shot and the digitally remove the coat hanger and then use software panning and zooming to give the illusion of video.

• Check your ambient sound levels: are there refrigeration compressors turning on and off? Is the heating or cooling system turning on and off? If you have a bit of consistent and steady ambient noise(e.g., a blower motor running at the same speed and always on), this can usually be filtered out with software. In all cases, it's best to start your shoot with about 5 - 10 seconds of just recording the ambient sound. Simply turn on your camcorder, have everyone keep quite, hit the record button and stop after 5 - 10 seconds. This silent time can be used in the editing process for filter adjustment that will reduce or eliminate the ambient noise.

Those are a few of the more common things to consider; however, every environment is different. If you'd like to learn more, please visit SJ Video Productions and get in touch with us.

Can Video Help Your Visitors "Get It"?

I have a little experiment for you to try. Get a group of people together and tap a popular song using your fingernail or a pen. You can't sing, hum or tell them anything about the song and you have to use a popular song; e.g., Happy Birthday.

How many people figured it out? I'm pretty sure that you had some that did and some that did not (it's usually not 100% either way). I bet you felt frustrated because it was completely obvious to you what the song was - yet, not everyone could figure it out!

As business owners we're very close to our products and/or services and because of this, we often omit information assuming that the person we're addressing "gets it". The problem is that not everyone "gets it" and we therefore need to put our message together carefully.

Take a look at your website, better yet, have a friend or family member take a look at your website and ask them to tell you everything they learned about what you sell or the services you offer. You might be surprised to learn that they haven't picked up on some keys areas of your business. Or, maybe you have a product that has multiple uses, however, they haven't been able to figure out that they can use your product to do this or that!

This is where a video can help. A video allows you to show your visitor how to use your product or services. It shows it in action which not only gets the message across, but it also improves credibility by showing it actually being used!

Think of the services or products you offer - what comes to mind? Is it text or is it images? It's images, it's the way we humans think - we're visual and we like to turn text into images. So, am I saying that video is the only thing needed? No, you still need to use text because as much as I'd like everyone to only want video, the fact remains that people still like to read and the search engines need text so they can understand your website.

OK, what's my point? Well, you should be using a combination of text and video on your site. The video should be used to fill the gaps and add more value to the information your visitors are searching for that can't be explained with text so that your visitors "get it!"

For more information, goto: http://www.sjvideoproductions.com