Category Archives: Video

How to Use Pre-Production to Make Killer Videos for Half the Price

Video content has become a must-have for any good marketing departments. Over 80% of all consumer internet traffic is online video. Youtube is one of the most visited websites on the internet, second only to Google. Why? Because video is the most dynamic way to convey information and tell a story. Light, sound and timing all work together to engage the viewer. When produced at the highest level of execution, video can even be an art form.

And like any other art form, the creation process varies from project to project. But there are still best practices and general rules of thumb that one should follow when producing a video. They will save you time while ensuring that you get the most out of your project.

Among these steps, pre-production is the most important one in the workflow. Novice video producers will try to skip it to save time and money. But in reality, that’s how they will likely make the project more expensive and longer to finish. So our biggest advice from a video production standpoint is this: don’t skip pre-production. Follow these guidelines instead.

Storyboarding Step by Step: How to Do it Like a Pro

What’s the one pre-production step that most video creators want to skip? Storyboarding, without a doubt. We all want to move to production right away once we have the script. We have our vision for the video and can’t wait to bring it to life. But here is the problem: one’s vision can be very different whether you are the director, producer or customer. Conflicts between different visions will arise on shoot day, and can become even worse during post-production..

Storyboarding will ensure that every crew member “sees” the same video in their head. It provides a common vision they will work towards. It also sets expectations with the customer. That way if someone is unhappy with a shot during post-production, you can refer to the storyboards for discussion. So unless your video is a simple talking head with b-roll, you should always take the time to storyboard. Here’s how.

Scriptwriting Step by Step: How to Write a Script like a Pro

Video has become the most effective marketing medium online. You can communicate a lot of information and context in a short clip on your website. But a good video often requires a good script first. Yet, so few marketers know how to write a script. That’s because scriptwriting is hard, at least in the professional sense of the word. Many script tutorials out there focus on the storytelling aspect of a script, but the technical part is as important. A good professional script should be both creative and technical. So today let’s tackle both, and make sure you have all the tools you need to write the perfect script.

Podcasting Basics – Things to Know Before You Start

We are in no way close to peak podcast. In fact, from a listener’s perspective, we are only getting started. There are over 500 million blogs worldwide compared to only 1 million active podcasts. Half of the United States population has yet to even listen to their first podcast. There are still underserved categories waiting to learn from your unique perspective. I’d like to spend some time sharing some lessons I’ve learned from producing over 600 episodes in the last 7 years. My goal is to help set you up for success both from a technical and storytelling standpoint.