Advice

When it comes to the post production stage of making your video, it can become quite stressful. You’re sat in front of a computer screen with hours worth of footage and are expected to not only condense your content into a couple of minutes but to also make it coherent, capturing and creative. Oh and not to forget it has to hit the brief you gave your client perfectly. It’s hard not to get stressed when you consider all of these aspects, essentially the whole video is riding on you, because no matter how cinematically it was shot or how well conducted your interviews were, it all boils down to your construction.

Daunting right? But don’t worry there’s some easy ways to avoid stress when editing! Here are a few of my favourites –

1. Organising your footage into bins – Having a clean project space to work within makes the world of difference, especially if there are a number of aspects to your video. For example, if you’re editing your typical promotional video, you’d have a bin for your interviews, a bin for your cutaway footage, a bin for any additional audio or add ons like a logo. Basically if you can give it a bin, give it a bin!
2. Duplicating your sequences – This one is a must do no matter what your project is. It’s a great habit to get into especially when editing interviews, keeping your original interview structure means that our always have easy access to revisit it if needed. (Trust me, it’s always needed!)
3. Create a to do list – Making a to do list will enable you to work through your project more effectively. Try to break your list up into segments and don’t concentrate on one aspect for too long, mix it up. That way you won’t get hung up on a certain section and you’re less likely to get distracted.
4. Take a break – Its easy to get sucked into your project and not peel yourself off of your chair until your project is done but it’s important, for a number of reasons, to take a break during the editing process. When I say take a break I mean get up and actually leave your computer for 10 minutes, it’s good for the brain to stop itself from overthinking and stressing about things you wouldn’t normally worry about.
5. Utilise your editing softwares organisation features – These may vary depending on the software but with Premiere features like markers and labels are a great way to keep your editing stress free. Use the markers to note any key content you may want to go back to later, this is especially useful to know when cutting interviews. The labelling feature is also great if you have a wide range of topics to be covered or a variety of different cutaways that you’d like to group together. By labelling these groups with a colour you’re able to access the stuff you want at a much quicker pace which inevitably stops the stress of sifting through mountains of footage.

Hopefully these steps will help you like they help me during the editing process because editing should be anything but stressful!

So you’ve gone through the process of getting a video made, all changes have been done, your final video has been delivered and you’re happy. Now the next step – utilizing the video.

We see it happen all too often, a promotional video is made but then never heard of again because the client does not know how to push their video and obtain maximum engagement from their audience. It can be difficult to market a video made to market your business or idea, but there are some basic tips and tricks out there to really help push your video and ultimately, your business.

One of the key ways to promote your video is using the thing we’re all guilty of using most. Social media. These days everybody is on their phone, tablet or laptop for the most part of their day, aimlessly scrolling through a variety of timelines waiting for something to catch their eye. That may sound a little sad to think that people are so engrossed in their technology that they can’t pay attention to anything else, but it’s great exposure for you. Chances are you already have a Facebook or Twitter account, and if you’re really fancy, an Instagram. These are all easy platforms to really push your video to your audience.

Facebook in particular is a great way to promote your video, it really is as simple as uploading a video to your page! If you include a short catchy caption and good video thumbnail, people will inevitably click on it. Don’t forget that if a video is directly uploaded to Facebook you also have the ‘auto-play’ option meaning you wouldn’t even need people to directly choose to watch your video, it would just have to appear on their timeline!

(Another thing to consider when sharing your video online is to use ‘tags’, the more tags you use the more likely you are to appear in search engines such as Google – and therefore are more likely to reach a wider audience)

You may have noticed that Facebook have introduced a ‘Boost Post’ option to your pages’ posts. This means that for a small and variable fee (depending on the amount of exposure you want), Facebook will allow you to choose a variety of options to target a specific audience, and your video will start to appear on their timeline. Just remember, it doesn’t have to go viral to be successful.

Facebook is also a great platform to promote your video on because of it’s accessibility, as I’m sure you know, commenting on, liking and sharing a post on Facebook is done with one click of a button. It’s mobile friendly and on the go and if you’re consistent with your posting and use things like the ‘boost post’ options, your audience engagement will rocket and your overall page will likely do better.

It’s important to remember to share your content across all of your accounts including your website if you have one, even if it’s just a snippet of the video followed by a link to the full content. (As you would have to do with Twitter or Instagram in some cases) Be consistent with your posting, finding ways to incorporate your video into a new post, you could even include things like a blog post or other previous content you may have that’s related to this new video.

Being as active as you can with your online presence, as time consuming as it may seem, does pay off.

The most important thing to remember when preparing to be interviewed is to relax. We are here to help you convey your key messages and put across any key information you may want to include in your video. The more relaxed you are, the easier this is. People often remember and convey information more clearly when they aren’t in a panicked frame of mind.

In some instances you will have had the opportunity to see the list of questions we aim to ask, don’t worry if not, we often adapt our questions based on your previous answers. The key thing to remember in this instance is to not over prepare. This may sound silly, as you may ask can you really be over prepared for an interview? But trust us when we say that writing scripted answers for the set of questions we have sent makes for a very awkward and stiff interview.

People don’t convey emotion when reading off of a piece of paper and often become flustered when they trip on their words that they have so carefully prepared. They’ll often lose their camera eye line and to the audience, that can make you seem unconfident and unsure of your own thoughtfully constructed answers. People respond better to a conversational interview, and we as interviewers can recognize areas that could be elaborated on further, rephrased or condensed. Our advice to you would be to read our questions and just note some of the key messages and points you’d like to get across, you can elaborate on these during the conversation and often new things will come to mind when the conversation is flowing with us.

Another important thing to remember is not to worry about being ‘perfect’. You will inevitably stumble on words, overelaborate a point, repeat yourself, mispronounce a simple word, muddle the order of your sentence and be faced with a whole lot of ‘umm’. It doesn’t matter. This is the reason we have the editing process, any little snags can be cut out and your points can be condensed and reconstructed for better structure, anything that wouldn’t be able to be fixed in post we’ll ask you to redo. Don’t be afraid to stop and take a moment, or to restart your sentence when you lose your train of thought, it happens to the best of us! Have patience with yourself and take your time, and if you get stuck our job is to help you.

Overall, the most important thing to remember is to just be natural. When natural, all of the above will just settle in and it’ll make for a great interview. Think of us as friends that you’re explaining the topic that you’re passionate about to, you wouldn’t worry about tripping on your words or losing your train of thought. Having a camera pointed at you shouldn’t change that. You have been chosen to convey the key messages for your video for a reason, you know the topic and the answers! All you need to do is relax.

Being a video production company based in Wales has quite a few advantages. Though sometimes we’re asked whether we’d be better off being based somewhere like London. But with Wales’ film and video industries growing, not to mention the incredible diversity of locations, why would we go anywhere else?

Here’s a list of what we think are the best reasons to be filming in Wales.

Read more…

Our blogs are all about opening up our process and showing exactly how our industry works. Making your first video can seem like an endless road of misdirection, confusion, technical rubbish and unexplained costs. It’s important you receive a quality product and service from a company you can trust.

Most of our work is done in-house. If you are looking to find out more information about make a promotional, corporate or training video please get in touch or check out our work.

We are proudly based in Wales but film all over the UK.  We know you want the best video production company you can get and it’s important you find the right fit for you.

We understand because when we need to call on our family of crew and suppliers for larger projects, we want the best too. But we also want people and companies we can trust and get on with.

So here is a list of suppliers in South Wales we use if the project requires it.

Firebug Lighting

When it comes to film lighting there is only one company we turn to. Previously Hayes studios and now rebranded as Firebug, Mark is the king Gaffer in Wales. They have an impressive CV of work but it only takes 20 seconds of meeting Mark to know he is your gaffer for life. They also have a very cool studio in Barry.

Films@59

Films supply most of the big TV productions in Wales. But they also supply us with some great specialised kit when we need it. The best thing about Films@59 is their technical knowledge. Chris has spent hours talking about the latest kit and cameras to come out. It makes hiring gear a real pleasure.

Spartan Audio

When it comes to live event filming or streaming we always turn to our friends at Spartan Audio. When a supplier feels as strongly and passionately about sound as we do about video there is no turning back. Working in a live environment is 80% problem solving. It’s in those moments where these guys thrive. They’re great to have on your team.

Long Row Audio

We used to be based opposite this recording studio. It can be quite daunting entering the world of recording studios but not with Dan at Long Row Audio. It’s where we do all our voice overs. No fuss, no egos, no messing. Great prices, great service.

photo by Tom Sparey

This trump card is played all to often primarily by our B2B clients. It makes sense if you’re selling to a wider customer base but what if you’re a business that sells to other businesses? Businesses don’t watch videos so what is the point?

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As we mentioned in a previous post, it is more important that your videos engage your audience than trying to make them go viral. But understanding how people view videos online is vital to engaging the right audiences. Just as our viewing habits of Film and TV are evolving in the age of online streaming, its fair to say the way we consume natively online video is shifting too. Where online videos were once confined to the computer screen, they can now be viewed on our phones and tablets, while waiting for a bus or sat on top of a mountain. Once the only way to upload video also involved a computer, now people can capture a moment on their phones and share it in seconds.

There has never been a better time to use video to engage people. But to figure out how to retain the attention of your intended audience, we first need to learn and understand the ways they consume their online media.

Read more…