Transcripts
1. Class Promo: Are you passionate about what you do yet you spend most your time looking for a new clients instead of working on your craft? Hi, I'm [inaudible] and I've been helping businesses grow their audience and share their message using video for over a decade. I've noticed firsthand how promo video can attract ideal clients, build brand awareness, and help grow any business. You don't need any fancy equipment to film your first promo video. All you need is your phone and a few accessories. In this class, I'm going to show you how to prepare a promo video from start to finish. We will start with a script and then break down all the accessories you'll be using. Next, you will learn how to film yourself and get any additional shots you need. Once you're done filming, you'll learn how to edit your video. Finally, we'll create a thumbnail that will help you stand out from the rest. The hardest part is to get started. So let's get started.
2. Project Introduction: You've talked about creating a promo video for how long? In this class you will learn how to boost your brand using video. I will walk you through the process of creating your first one-minute promo video using only your phone. It's easy to get caught up in excuses and not create videos. Be it you don't have equipment, you don't know what to make your videos about. Or you just feel so overwhelmed, that you never actually start. That's why I created this class, so I can guide you through the process of creating your first promo video from start to finish. If you want to be successful in this class, you have to do the work. I will show you how to make the video possible, but it's up to you to create it. Make a commitment to yourself that yes, you will make this video. If you need someone to be accountable to, I'd love to help, send me a message. Your first promo video will probably be the hardest one you make, because you're not used to filming yourself, talking to camera. You're not sure how to script, but it does get easier. The more you do it, the more comfortable you'll be, the more you'll see what works and what doesn't, and the better your videos will be. The first step is starting with a script. Let's get started with the scripts.
3. Scripting: When Googling script templates, you'll probably find a bunch. But which kind of script template should you use? What is good, what isn't good? In this video, I'm going to walk you through the most basic script template that you can use to help attract new clients. The simplest way to start with your script is just to get a blank piece of paper and a couple of sharpies. First, we're going to create the outline for your script. You want to write A and V on top of your script. Your A represents your audio and V represents your video. We're going to start by giving you a little bit of an outline. We're going to start with the problem. What is the problem that your product or service is solving? The solution, which is you, so introduce yourself. Next, what is the process of working with you? Finally, you end with a call to action. Make sure that your call to action is relevant to the problem itself. So it all links back into one specific problem that you're solving. If your business sells multiple problems, then you need multiple videos. Only solve one problem per video. Now draw a line down your paper and you're ready to get started. Once you're done with the audio portion of your script, then you're ready to move on to the video. Fill in exactly what you're going to show. Which parts of your video are you going to be talking to camera? Which parts are you going to have graphics? The more you know, the easier it is for filming. That way you don't have to deliver all your lines through the camera, if you're not going to be using them later. Now that you know what you're going to be scripting, let's move on to the equipment.
4. Equipment: Now that you have your plan, what equipment do you need to make it a reality? There's a lot of tutorials out there showing you how to spend thousands of dollars, filming using newest best equipment. However, you don't need fancy equipment to get started in video. All you need to know is the basics. Once you know the basics, you can use anything that you can afford to help film your video. Let's start with stabilization. For stabilization, first thing you need is a phone bracket. Your phone bracket goes on your phone, and then you have multiple options and holes that you can fit onto different tripods. You can get a little phone tripod, but I suggest getting a gorilla tripod. This is by Joby. Thing I love about the gorilla tripod is that the legs are very flexible, so you can attach this to almost anything, a tree branch, a bike, anything you want to put this on to help you create a more creative shot. You can also put the legs all together and one hand hold it. If you're walking, it doesn't fully give you a stable shot, but it does start and it's much better than if you will be holding your phone. If you want to use it as a tripod, all you going to do is pull out the legs, put it down and it's all set and ready to film. Thing I like about it, is it's really easy to adjust the height. You can just move the legs and it's higher, separate them a little bit and it's lower. Next, you're going to need some audio care. The simplest and easiest thing to use for audio is your headphones. You can plug in your headphones to your phone, put your headphones on, and you instantly have a mic that is close to your mouth. If you want to step it up from the headphones, then your next bet is to get a microphone. I suggest getting a Lav mic. Well, with the mic, you'll notice that most of them do come with an audio jack, so you need to get an adapter that plugs in and it will go into your phone. The adapters do have a tendency of breaking, so I suggest getting a backup just in case it breaks while you're filming so you're still ready to go. Now that we have audio sorted out, the last thing we got to cover is lighting. With lighting, you want your light source in front of you. As long as your light is in front of you, you're good to go. The thing to avoid is any overhead light. If you have a light source that's above you, you want to turn that off because that's going to portray a really unflattering look. One thing you can get for your phone is a little ring light. The ring light has different intensities of light, and what you do is you just stick it onto your phone right in front of you and it's going to create a light that's coming from in front of you and illuminate your face nicely. The only thing that might be a concern with one of these ring lights is the intensity of it. You will start to see circles after staring at this for long enough. So just be warned of that, and if that's something that you won't be able to handle, do not get a ring light. See, you don't need all the fancy gear. You just need to get the right stuff and you can start filming today. Now that you know the equipment we can use, in the next video, we're going to talk about how to film yourself.
5. Filming Yourself: I think one of the hardest things for video recording yourself, is talking to a camera. It's intimidating and strange and weird to be looking at a lens. Until you get used to looking at a lens and talking to a lens as though it's your best friend, it's your ideal client, it's one specific person that you're talking to, it can feel like you're just in a room talking to an object, and weird and awkward and you don't know what to say. When I first started recording myself, I would turn on the camera and start filming and just stop. I had no idea what to say, or how to say it. Even if I had my lines, I would say them, and they didn't turn out that well. Now I try to do an outline of what I'm going to say. It allows me to know the topic and just go for it. Other times, I fully script. When I fully script, I just have to go through the lines enough times that they start to sound natural. For example, if I script a one-minute video, it'll probably take me at least 20 minutes of saying it a few times, before I can nail it and get a good version of it. So yeah, it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of work, but you just have to start practicing. You have your gear, now we're ready to start filming. Here are some tips for filming yourself. When filming yourself, the first thing you want to pay attention to, is which camera you're going to be using. What you want to do, is you want to flip that camera, so the outside camera is facing you rather than the inside camera. By using the outside camera, you're getting a more powerful camera shooting at you. However, when you're filming like this, it's hard to see what's in the shot, and what's not in the shot. So you have two options of what you can do; you can place a mirror in front of you. But that could get tricky depending on where you would put the mirror, and how stable the mirrors is. Instead, I start off by setting up my shot. I make sure that the camera is straight and the way you can tell if a camera is straight or not, is by looking at the lines in the wall. If the lines are straight, then you know, the camera is straight. So you set up the camera, you start recording and you put yourself in this spot, you see, test it out a little bit. Make sure you move around, so that you know, in case you move if you're going to be in the shot or not, and then stop recording. Review it. In here, you can see the top of my head is a little cut-off. You want to make sure you have a little bit of room above your head, but not too much and you want to make sure that you're in the center of the shot. Once your mic is ready and you're ready to talk, press, record, and you're ready to start filming. Make sure, you deliver your lines looking directly into the camera. A couple of things you want to keep in mind with your body position, is to never lean back. You want to be leaning towards the camera. Leaning towards the camera creates a more flattering look, that's going to make you feel better when you review the footage later. You want to make sure you're leaning into the camera, your mic wire is tucked away, and your mic is close to your mouth and then can start to go through your script. Know that you won't get your script right away. Practice it a few times. Say it a few times. Remember, start with the problem, introduce yourself as the solution, talk about the process or steps of working with you and end with their call to action. For makeup, I suggest using some powder, can dull down the shininess. Don't over do the makeup, whatever you feel comfortable with, is best. I find that I need to do multiple takes of the script. I usually don't end up using the first few takes that do, because my words are all muffled. But the more I rehearse and the more I deliver my lines to camera, the smoother it is, and the more authentic I can be my voice, because I'm no longer worrying about the words that I'm trying to express, instead I'm trying to express them, I can remember I have them memorized. So make sure you know your lines. You looking at your video is really easy to pick out the weird things about you, like your voice, how you look, how you come off. But the thing is, most people don't notice the same things you do. I remember sharing a video and thinking, I look horrible and awkward, yet nobody noticed, only me. The thing about being on video, is you notice more about yourself than anybody else will notice. So just get out of your head and accept the fact that it's going to be weird, but you will get used to It.
6. Additional Shots: Saying isn't enough, you need to show what is happening. In this video, I'm going to show you how to get the fun shots that will help elevate your video. Go back to your script and if there's anything that you wanted a close-up shot of, it's time to get that now. I'm going to a shot of these three cameras and am going to show you, walk you through the process of how I would go about getting the shots. Remember, I'm using the back part of my camera so I can adjust these legs, let's adjust this little bit more. So let's start video. Now I can move and get a shot of all the cameras. I also suggest stopping and starting between each different shot because that way you can see your shot right away and you don't have to watch a full video to get to see your shot. So let's get a shot of each of the cameras individually. The simplest way to get creative with your shots is through angles. Think about perspectives that you typically don't see. The more unique you can get with your angles, the more appealing it's going to be. You don't want to show the same angle for everything. Instead, you want to move it around. I suggest when you're filming, try to get at least three different angles with each of the shots that you want to get because that way you'll have variety and once you're putting it together, you can see what looks best and get another shot there. That looks really cool. You want to hold each shot for at least 15 to 20 seconds. That way you have extra footage that you can play around with in case you want a longer shot or you like a certain part of the shot. Once you're done shooting, look back at your video, which angles seem most appealing to you. Now that you have all the elements for the video, how are you going to put it together?
7. Editing: Now they have all the elements for your video, how do you put it together? In this class, I'm going to show you how to edit on your phone using InShot. We're going to use Inshot, yeah, that's the app. First of all, I'd like you to go through your clips and pick the ones you want so that you're not going through all the clips when you're putting it into Inshot. But to start with video, you can click on Video, New Video, and then you want to select the clips you want to do. Going through your timeline and selecting all the clips can be tedious, especially if a lot of the thumbnails look similar. It is best if you can pick them beforehand. Let's pick a couple of the Bureau shots and you can see the durations, so let's pick one of the longer. It does give you an option to trim the clip, so you can either trim the clip if you like, or you can import the entire thing. We're going to import the entire thing. Once you're done, just click the check mark, and all your clips are going to import into your timeline. When we're going to get started, we're going to decide on the canvas. With the canvas, you can change the canvas depending on how you want to export. Let's keep it horizontal. You can zoom the footage, zoom it out if you want to add a border to it. You can even change the background. You can change the colors, you can add a blurred version of the image into it. It's not at any of that, and let's zoom it out so that there's nothing in it. Here, you have two options when you're selecting what to do. This one means that you're going to do it just to that singular clip, and this means it applies to every clip. You can also add text. I can change the duration of the text or shorten it like that. There we go. I can also adjust the filters. This is the part that I liked the most because you can really adjust what the video looks like. You can increase the lightness, to increase the contrast, decrease the waterfont here, and then apply it. You can already see that the video looks better. Then once your video is edited, you just export it, save it, and it's ready to go. You have your video edited and it's ready to go. What's next? Find out in the next class.
8. Creating a Thumbnail: How do you stand out in a sea of videos, pulls all about the thumb now. In this class, I'm going to show you how to make your own thumbnail using Canvas. To start off, you're going to put in some nail into the search bar. It's going to give you many options of different thumbnails that you could use. I suggest getting something that, catches your attention. What do you like that's unique, that would work for your video. Then select it. You can either use images from your camera roll already they have millions of free stock images that you can [inaudible]. Can even search. Look for a camera and change your colors, change that image because that image no longer goes, how about this one. There we go. Then change the writing. Change this to way that can look better. You can make that bigger and then you can even insert additional things that you'd want. Maybe more images, illustrations, text. Once you're ready to save image as, and you can upload it with your video.
9. Conclusion: Congratulations, you are ready to start filming. You want additional resources, I invite you to join my Facebook group, Video 101 with wonderful [inaudible]. You can share your video and get some support from a loving community. If after watching this, you feel like you still want someone else to help you fill your video, then I got you. Visit my website, wonderfulwriter.ca. Until next time, peace.
Ida Adamowicz, Social Impact Storyteller
