What Makes a Video Worth Watching?

Story, characters and emotion are key elements in creating a video that's fun for the audience to watch.  You have to entertain people or they will be gone in a flash.  Even marketing videos have to be fun or they will not be effective because no one will bother to watch.

Especially in the world of online video where the average attention span is slightly less than .0002 seconds, presenting a story that appeals to human emotions is crucial.  Consider your storyline to be the core element in creating a video that viewers will agree to watch, which should be the #1 goal of any video. You can not sell people something if they will not even bother watching your video!

People love stories.  So draw viewers into your information by presenting it as a story.  Stories are based on characters that viewers can relate to emotionally.  Almost all fiction starts with the author conjuring up the characters first, then coming up with the plot second.  So first, create characters your audience can relate to.   That's not as hard as it sounds.

Characters are really nothing more than people who experience things and react in emotional ways.

The easiest character of all is the "every man," someone who is typical, and probably much like your average viewer. Place an "every man" character into a situation, have him react and there is your story.  The viewer will relate by saying, "Gee, I know how he feels!  The same weird stuff happens to me, too!"  Your product or service can be the "good guy" in the story that solves your every man's dilemma.

If you want more diversity with your characters, start by imagining the many different characteristics that make them up.

• Are they big or small?
• Nice or mean?
• Smart or dumb?
• Brave or timid?
• Funny or serious?
• Cheerful or gloomy?
• Outgoing or shy?

Characters become more interesting if you combine seemingly contradictory traits, like gloomy yet funny.

If you are making up multiple characters for one story, ensure conflict between them by having them be diverse people who would never agree on much of anything. Then, no mater what situation arises, there will be conflict, which drives your story.  It's much easier to write meaningful dialogue if you know your characters well and if all your characters are opinionated loud-mouths, then dialogue will flow like a river.

Telling a story visually is fun for the mischievous.   As you prepare your shots, be aware of creating first impressions with a LOOK.   Video is visual (no kidding!); so much of your storytelling relies on visuals, not words.   An exaggerated facial expression can replace the dialogue that says, "Oh, that's gross and disgusting!" and can immediately tell the viewer the character is squeamish.  The gal pictured below looks pretty durn excited about something!

Creating characters on video means relying on visual cues and visual information. How they look, dress, wear their hair.  What do their surroundings look like?  You can impart A LOT of information about your characters using visual information alone.   Don't worry about being stereotypical with your characterizations.

Use close-ups to show details.  Your character is gold-digging tramp?  Make sure and get a close-up of that pile of gift boxes thrown on the floor.   Can you see all the different name cards?  Good.  That tells the audience the gifts come from more than one guy, but she doesn't care too much since it's all tossed onto the floor.   Now THAT is visual characterization.

As a person who has taught video production to others, it's quite obvious to me that storytelling is usually the LAST thing people master. Newbies to video feel the need to get all the technical stuff down first.  What kind of camera to use and where to put the lights and microphones? Understandably, newcomers focus on such technical matters long before they contemplate storyline.

While technical stuff s important, in the end, it is not nearly as important as your storyline and your characters.   So get those creative juices flowing and come up with a story for your video.  Make it as emotional as possible, because that's what makes your video interesting to watch.

Technorati Tags: online video, video production

Many web video gurus insist that video production is so easy a monkey could do it.  OK, I'm here to tell you the honest TRUTH. Video production is NOT that easy.   I think many of those "gurus" tell you it's easy because they want to sell you their video production course.  If their sales letter said, "Video Production, a Really Complicated Task that will Drive You Insane," they wouldn't make too many sales, now would they?

I have worked in video production for 30 years.  I have discussed this very subject with colleagues and most of us agreed that it took us FIVE YEARS of working in video production day in and day out to truly become proficient.   There's a lot to know.

Now, if all you want to do is make a simple talking head video using a web cam, that IS fairly easy.  You can probably figure that out all by yourself and do not need to by any overpriced video production course.   The bar for internet video is still fairly low and no doubt the kids putting up popular viral videos don't spend a lot of time learning high quality video production values.

BUT, a quality web video marketing campaign for a business is a different story. For that, you need to present a professional image.  Shaky, grainy video with crummy audio will not do.  You need professional quality and that is not as easy to achieve.

If you want to promote your business with quality videos that are well produced, your best bet is to outsource the job. Hire some professionals who know what they are doing.  You will save yourself tons of time and end up with a better product.   You can act as the executive producer, which means you oversee and manage the video but you do not do any hands-on video production work.

The trick is to find some video production professionals who will not charge you a Hollywood Movie budget.

I discovered a high quality video production company on the web you should check out, Stream City.  Their quality was magnificent and their prices were reasonable.

Stream City has been making web videos for about 8 years. They got into web video when it was still in the embryonic stages so they have the right to claim the title of LEADER.  Stream City specializes in streaming videos for the web, which means they have expertise that a company making music videos simply would not have.  Many of their staff have expertise way beyond 8 years; they were producing videos long before the web came along.  (Just like me!  I wonder if they ever used a 50 lb. Ikegami.  Ugh, I am glad those dinosaurs are obsolete.)

Stream City is masterful at encoding.   I was AMAZED at the great resolution of their web videos.  Actually, I was a tad jealous.  Their videos have such good resolution that no doubt they have something to teach me!

Stream City can also help you with setting up and maintaining your own online video broadband channel.  They know the ins and outs of getting traffic and wide viewership, which is so essential for an online video marketing campaign.  If you just upload your video to You Tube, chances are high that it will get swamped by the 60,000 other videos uploaded to You Tube daily.

In short, Stream City is a video production company especially for web video and online video marketing campaigns. So if that is what you need, check them out.  The price is not peanuts, but it's doable, even for small and medium businesses.  The benefits would far outweigh the cost, but it would be a somewhat substantial upfront cost.

If you are serious about competing in the world of online video marketing, becoming familiar with a company like Stream City might be a really good idea.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

Technorati Tags: internet video, Internet Video Gal, Lorraine Grula, online video broadband channel, online video marketing, online video marketing campaign, quality web videos, Stream City, streaming videos, web cam, web video, web videos

One of the biggest complaints you hear about TV news is that it is overly pessimistic and negative.  TV news is depressing!  Stress relief gurus actually tell their followers to turn off the TV news because it just leads to negative emotional energy.

TV Newscasters claim EVERYTHING is a crisis.  They love to point out how wicked and deadly the word is.  BE AFRAID!!!! BE VERY AFRAID!!!!! always seems to be the underlying message.

Having worked in the field of TV news for a quarter of a century, I have tons of opinions on this subject.  TV News sucks for a lot of different reasons.  I got so tired of the garbage I got out of the business entirely.  It wasn't just that so many stories were hyped to the point of absurdity, but also because show biz considerations completely ruled.  No one cared about journalism, especially top management.  All that mattered was how fancy, spectacular and entertaining we presented our "news."

There's a great thread about this very subject going on right now at The Friday Traffic Report, Jack Humphrey's blog about all things traffic.  Jack is one of my main mentors on the Internet and the Friday Traffic Report contains tons of incredible information, all for free.

Since debating the quality of TV news is one of my personal favorite subjects, I thought I'd do this quick blog post in order to expand the debate over at the Friday Traffic Report.  Here's the link.  Go put your two cents in!

TV News Debate at the Friday Traffic Report

Technorati Tags: tv news sucks, video production

Digital video camera technology has now brought us the remarkable FLIP camera, a tiny handy little video camera that makes shooting video so simple my grandmother could do it!

These remarkable cameras have quickly caught on and now make up an incredible 13% of all new cameras sold.  People are going crazy over the Flip!

A Flip camera is the equivalent to a point and shoot still camera.  You don’t have to know beans about video camera in order to operate one.  Plus, it’s small enough to fit into your pocket.   When you want to transfer your video to your computer, a little USB connector pops out and you attach the camera directly to your computer, no cables required.

The video is internet ready right out of the camera….no conversion necessary.  So how much easier could it get?

Flip is a brand name, and other companies are producing similar cameras under a variety of names.  My guess is that Flip will continue to dominate the market and the word FLIP will become synonymous with this format of camera, tiny convenient and gets an amazingly good picture.

As cool as they are, Flip cameras do have some drawbacks but I would consider them very minor.

One is that you have limited recording capacity, most cameras can hold about an hour of video.  Once your camera is full, you have to dump it to your computer before you can shoot anymore.  My advice is to be a little conservative in what you choose to actually record and one hour should be plenty under most circumstances.

Another perceived drawback is that they eat double AA batteries like a pig eats slop.  Give me more!!!  Well, that can be a pain and certainly batteries can become expensive.  HOWEVER, the mere fact that they run on double AA batteries is actually a PLUS, since AA’s are common and easy to find.  Most video cameras require specialty batteries which might be hard to find.

Another perceived drawback is that the Flip camera has limited zooming capacity compared to a standard digital camera.  A Flip will only give you a 2X zoom, whereas a 10X is common with standard cameras.  Well, perhaps this is a case of, “well, ya can‘t have everything!”   Perhaps someday they will be able to pack a better zoom onto these tiny cameras, but in the meantime this is such a minor drawback I wouldn’t worry about it if the other features of the Flip appeal to you.

PART 8
CAMCORDER BASICS - DIGITAL VIDEO CABLES

If I were a songwriter,  no doubt I’d have written one by now called, “I Got The Tangled Cord Blues…”

Video production requires lots of cables and I’ve tripped over more than one in my long career.  I tend to view cables as a necessary evil.  Wireless is great, but sometimes lacks reliability.  Besides, not everything can be wireless. 

Video data transfer is one of those things.  

To transfer data from a digital camera to a computer, you need a cable unless the camera operates on a memory card or DVD disc which can be physically placed into the computer.

There are two types of digital cables used in digital video production.

Firewire and USB-2 Cables 
Firewire and USB-2 cables  are both high-speed data transfer cables that make digital video possible.  A standard co-ax cable or S-video cable simply can’t handle enough data to make transferring huge video files feasible.  If it were not for firewire, digital editing would still be science fiction. 

(You don’t want to know how excited video engineers got when firewire was invented.  God loves nerds and so do I.) When you connect your camcorder to your computer, you use either a fire wire cable or a USB-2 cable.  The two look and act a lot alike.  The way to tell the difference is to look closely at the actual connection.  The connection on a firewire is slightly curved on one side whereas a USB is straight on all sides.

These cables are, in a sense, idiot proof.  (Good thing!)

By that, I mean if the camera requires a 6 pin firewire, a larger one will not fit.  Never try to force a firewire or USB.  If it doesn’t fit, you’ve got the wrong cable.   BE GENTLE!  They break easily. 

Another hint is to always have your camera turned OFF when you connect it.  You don’t want a sudden electric jolt hitting either your computer or camera.  So always go slow.  Plug it in, then turn it on and open your program. 

Usually, if you try to plug a camera into an edit program while the program is already open, it’ll have a hard time “recognizing”  the camera. One of the biggest pains in digital video editing! 

Both firewire and USB-2 cable are capable of quickly transferring large amounts of data, which is essential for huge video files.   Both are extremely common on brand new equipment.  Most computers and camera have both.  Higher quality models have multiples of both. 

Firewire was originally a Mac-only thing, but today it’s common on PCs and most digital cameras. 

Firewire is also referred to as IEEE1394.

Be aware that USB-2 and USB-1 are not the same.  All new computers should have USB-2, but older ones have USB 1.0 which is too slow to transfer video.

If you do not have fire wire or USB 2.0, don’t panic.  You can buy an inexpensive USB 2.0 or firewire card and install it on your computer.   The card will include the jack, so make sure it matches with the rest of your equipment.

Happy editing!

PART 7
CAMCORDER BASICS - USEFUL CAMCORDER FEATURES

The home theater experience has spoiled lots of folks with high quality audio. Isn’t it fantastic to sit in your house blasting out the movie and enjoy theater- quality sound? Meets my definition of a good time.

Hollywood does an awesome job with home movie audio. Rent any DVD and blow your ears out. But what about your own personal home movies?

Can your birthday party video impress them with quality audio?

Yup!

It’s no longer good enough to have home movies with garbled audio. With today’s marvelous camcorders, there’s no reason to.

Here are three features to look for if you need to get high quality audio with your video. If you read my stuff regularly, you know that I firmly believe that 90% of viewers won’t bother watching a video with crummy sound. Crummy video doesn’t bother them so much and you can get away with it.

Microphone Jack/ Headphone Jack – Quality audio for video production sometimes requires a better microphone that what comes built onto most camcorders. But in order to use a supplemental mic, you need a camera that has a microphone jack where you can plug it in.

Inexpensive cameras don’t allow you to plug in another mic. Your only choice is the on-board mic. You can make that work if you stay within a few feet of the camera and keep down the background noise. Any one speaking too far away from the camera will be drown out.

For quality sound of talking and dialogue, you need to use a microphone that can be placed close to whomever is speaking. More expensive camera have optional mic jacks and this feature is definitely something to consider if you have plans that include quality sound.

A jack for an external microphone will allow you to plug in a second microphone and your on-board mic automatically shuts off. The supplemental mic doesn’t have to be expensive. I bought a cheap lavalier for $25 bucks at Radio shack for my high school class and it worked great.

The type of jack on less expensive cameras will be similar to a small stereo plug. Low-end microphones will fit these jacks.

Professional camera will have an XLR audio input and require professional XLR mic cables.

If you’re going to go with a camera that accepts external mics, look for a camera that has the right kind of jack to match your microphone.

Also, look for a headphone jack. A headphone jack is essential to see if you are getting good sound from your mic to your camcorder. Unfortunately, you can’t just count on it to work perfectly every time without checking it! Sometimes you’ll forget to do something easy…like turn the mic on. Headphones are critical but cheap camcorders won’t have a plug-in for them.

Microphone and headphones jacks are a great feature if you’re concerned with high quality audio.

Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound – If you really want to get fancy, camcorders today can record remarkable sound that more simulates real life. Recording in 5.1-channel surround sound can enhance your home movies with active sounds coming from all directions.

Talk about a Hollywood feature in a home movie experience! Optional microphones can be purchased to enhance this feature but even just out of the box it’s a cool feature.

This feature is available primarily on Sony camcorders, such as the Sony DVD408, Sony SR200, Sony DVD505, Sony HDR-SR1, and the Sony HDR-UX1.

Active Interface Accessory Shoe – One thing that makes it worth buying a more expensive camcorder is the fact that expensive cameras are going to let you attach accessories, like microphones. Inexpensive cameras don’t. Enter the Active Interface Accessory Shoe feature!

Since most inexpensive camcorders DON’T have such accessory attachments, Sony and other manufacturers have what is called an accessory shoe. This generic connection plate is used to attach any one of multiple accessories such as microphones and video lights. This is a very handy feature since you can use it in multiple ways.

Many accessory shoes are phantom powered, which means that the accessory draws power from the camcorder and does not have its own power supply. If it’s not phantom power, you’ll need a separate battery for your microphone or light. This will give you longer-lasting power overall, but extra batteries are always somewhat of a pain. So it’s a trade-off.

The accessory shoe is very useful, as it gives you many options and more flexibility when you’re shooting.

After learning all that, aren’t you just itching to go camera shopping?

PART 6
CAMCORDER BASICS - USEFUL CAMCORDER FEATURES

Walk into any digital camera department and you will see modern technological marvels begging to be held.

If you love video cameras like I do, there’s nothing more fun than fondling what’s for sale at Best Buy. Every single camcorder on the market today will do an excellent job. Don’t be afraid to pick the best one…you really can’t go wrong. Technology has come such a long way that these beauties have every bell and whistle imaginable and they still weigh less than a pound.

BUT…

Some features are more useful than others. And it depends on how you want to use the thing. Here’s a list of some common features and you decide what’s important to you.

IT SLICES AND DICES!
Well, not quite. No camcorder can chop tomatoes like a ginzoo.

But camcorders today do multiple things. Sometimes that can be convenient, but be aware that it can also decrease the quality of it’s main function…get decent video.

Still images and mega pixels - Many video camcorders have the ability to record both video and still images. Some cameras produce very low resolution results, and some are as high as 4 mega pixels. (A megapixel is a unit of graphic resolution and looks like a dot when seen up close.)

The more mega pixels, the better the picture quality. On a practical level, this means you’ll have more room to crop your pictures and do digital zooms if they have a higher mega pixel count. If you look at your video on a big screen, it’s easy to notice a low pixel count. If your goal is internet video, it doesn’t matter as much. Compressing video down to a file size suitable for the internet chops your resolution anyway.

However if high quality resolution is important to you, here’s a reality check… Don’t expect the still pictures produced by a video camcorder to be up to a high end digital camera, but they can provide decent quality and it sure is convenient to be able to do both with one camera.

Super Night Shot Infrared System – Are you going to constantly be shooting in low light situations? Then look for a feature like the NightShot Infrared System by Sony. Sony claims you can “capture natural looking video even extremely low light.” I beg to differ with the use of the phrase “natural looking” but it’s remarkably good compared to getting grainy shadows.

Sony’s system records subjects up to 20 feet away using the built-in infrared system.

Sony’s system says it gets natural color and it is, relatively speaking. Many of these systems make your video look green and grainy but even so, it enables you to get pictures where it wasn’t possible before.

Wireless Remote - A wireless remote is included with most camcorders in case you want to operate it from afar. This can be an incredibly handy feature if you take advantage of it.

Using a remote allows you to stick a camera in an out of the way place and then start it at the proper time. A friend of mine got a great high angle shot of his church’s Easter play by remotely controlling a tiny camera logged in the ceiling.

Remote also lets you control the playback of the camera when it’s hooked up to a TV set. Different models allow different levels of control, especially in record mode.

Cinema/Cinematic Mode – Most professionals always felt like film looked superior to video. So…the video engineers have tried to make video look like film. In my opinion, they haven’t had much luck with this feature in the low-budget side of the market. The Cinematic mode is meant to simulate the look of film. Some modes will adjust the tape speed in frames/second to further make the video look like film. Sometimes, this feature can cause unintended compatibility issues so personally, I never mess with it. Some folks think it’s a “must have” feature but in my humble opinion, 95% of your audience won’t be able to tell the difference. So save your money!

I hope this information on video camcorders was helpful to you. Happy shopping!