video tips Archives - Page 3 of 4

Steve Stockman In Tips and Tricks, Video Marketing, For Pros, Your Questions Answered

New Business Video Vocabulary Word: “Choddy”

I got a great question from blog fan “Jaye” which I’m saving for a bit later. But in his letter, he referred to a “choddy.” I try to stay up on film and video jargon, but this was a new one to me. Being a naturally curious and jargon-hating sort, I googled it–

And found stopthechoddy.org. It turns out “choddy” is a somewhat-used term to describe an immediately familiar style of testimonial video– the same ad copy read straight to camera by multiple actors, in a sincere tone of voice.

As for “stop the choddy”? I’ll let them … Read the rest

Steve Stockman In Tips and Tricks, Your Questions Answered

The Recital: Short Shots vs. Parental Love

Recently I was asked to shoot the piano recital of my friend’s seven-year-old. Her total performance time (including walking on stage, playing, and bowing and exiting) was just about 2 minutes.

I get your advice about short shots, but how can you tell parents that you’re only going to give them 10-second clips of their daughter’s performance? Is this a case where you have to bend the rules … what good is capturing a musical performance if you don’t get the entire song? Unfortunately I only had one camera (and one me) so I couldn’t get multiple shots from different

… Read the rest

Steve Stockman In 12 Tips to Improve Your Video NOW

A Good Video is Like a Sentence: 12 Tips to Un-Suck Your Video (#12)

Videos need to be about someone doing something.

The ideal video follows the classic “noun/verb” or maybe “noun/verb/object” sentence structure Mrs. Zellermyer taught you in third grade (note: the name of your third grade teacher may vary. Hopefully it was easier for you to spell when you were 8.)

“Our cute dog” is not a video because nothing happens. Random shots of your dog lying around the house are what we in the video business call “snapshots,” as in “take out your still camera and shoot snapshots because this is not a video.”

Video requires action to hold our attention. … Read the rest

Steve Stockman In Tips and Tricks, 12 Tips to Improve Your Video NOW

Use a Microphone: 12 Tips to Keep Your Video from Sucking (#11)

The microphones on most video cameras are programmed to adjust their own sound levels: they take whatever they hear and boost it to a constant, listenable level. Unfortunately, if they hear crowd noise around you, they boost that. Traffic noise, sirens—it all gets boosted.

In fact, if the camera mic hears nothing, it boosts that too. In an interview where the subject is too far from the mic, the camera will crank up every hint of sound between you and them, creating a big, echoey overlay of room noise.

If you’re as close to your subject as you should be … Read the rest

Steve Stockman In Tips and Tricks, For Pros

The Secret to Great Vacation Videos: Shoot the Quest

Vacation videos can be the most painful videos on the planet to watch. Want to make yours better? Shoot the Quest.

Every vacation is a quest, grasshopper– a journey in which a person or group travels in search of something– in this case something that involves a lot of sunscreen. The great thing about quests is that, unlike most vacation videos, they’re interesting!

Sometimes your quest is literally, your destination: Perhaps it’s a struggle to get to grandma’s house, the north rim of the Grand Canyon, or the top of the Eiffel Tower. But sometimes it’s not about a journey … Read the rest

Steve Stockman In Tips and Tricks, 12 Tips to Improve Your Video NOW

Keep Your Video Short: 12 Tips to Keep Your Video from Sucking (#10)

When it comes to video, the old show-business expression “Always leave them wanting more” applies. Anything worth saying in video is worth saying shorter. TV commercials tell a complete story, entertain us, and sell us—all in 30 seconds. Benjamin Button lives his entire life on screen, backward, in two hours and 46 minutes (not a long time for an entire life, but still some might suggest it could have been done in 2:20).

The record of your mother’s second birthday party probably exists as either a grainy two-minute silent home movie or six photographs stuck in an album. Yet if … Read the rest

Steve Stockman In Tips and Tricks, 12 Tips to Improve Your Video NOW

Easy on the Graphics: 12 Tips to Keep Your Video from Sucking (#9)

Unless you have a real design sense (you’ll know because everyone in middle school wanted to work with you on group projects involving posters), take it easy on the graphics and titles in your video unless they’re really necessary. Extraneous graphics and titles are like extraneous anything else in video. They just confuse the hell out of people, pulling our eye away from the point of the video to focus on zooming, sparkly words.

How do you know if titles are necessary? Two tests:

1) Is it impossible to figure out the information the title gives us without it? If … Read the rest

Steve Stockman In Tips and Tricks, 12 Tips to Improve Your Video NOW

Shoot What Interests You: 12 Tips to Keep Your Video from Sucking (#8)

I recently watched a video blog post that featured an orchestra whose only instruments were iPhones. The players—it looked like there were about 20 of them—had special gloves with speakers on their wrists. Pretty cool idea, no? And very visual—a big circle of musicians playing iPhones.

The problem was the video. It started with a very wide shot of the group and then wavered, as if unsure where to look. Occasionally it veered off to one part of the group, then another, with no apparent motivating goal. I felt adrift. There were things I wanted to see—like a close-up of … Read the rest