Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi. I'm Nicole Farb from Darby Smart. I'm the founder. We started Darby Smart three years ago where a community for makers or people all over the world share how they made stuff. So three years ago when we started Darby, we started it out of a passion project of my own. I was trying to make thank you cards for my wedding. I was inspired by Pinterest and I had spent literally thousands of dollars at the craft store and had a failed project and I wanted to make making it easier. We began in decor and jewelry. So, people would share ideas about how to make a bracelet, how to make coasters for their home, and because we're an open platform, people started sharing whatever they wanted. Today, people share how they made hot sauce, how they made bidders for Jen, how they contoured makeup, how they garden succulents. It's kind of amazing, the amount of creativity we have coming in. So, about six months ago, one of our really active community members asked if she could share a video in Darby and we said yes and that video just exploded. In a day, it got 100,000 views, our community loved it. Since then, the specific style of video which we're going to teach you about today has just exploded. We now have hundreds of them on Darby. Our community is producing them and they're all over Facebook. So we think of creativity or DIY as ingredients, process, and outcome. The videos that we do which are called hyperlapse translate to putting ingredients, process, outcome together really, really quickly in that time span that people want, which is the 30-60-second time span. We get asked all the time, do these videos cost us 5,000, 10,000 to make? Do they take a whole day? The truth is, they cost us under 100 bucks, mostly it's the ingredients, and they take us about an hour. So today, I'm going to teach you how to make these videos in a super scrappy easy way. When we start to make a video, we generally have a plan, right? We're going to DIY something. The absolute best videos from our experience in creating hundreds of these are when your ingredients or your supplies aren't obvious as to what you're going to end up making. So for example, last week, we laid out a bunch of balloons and we turn them into a chandelier. So, the user isn't expecting when they see balloons that we're making the chandelier. Or we took a mason jar and we made it into a photo frame. So, when I start with that mason jar, you're like, "What's she going do," right? I end up with this photo frame. So today, we're going to start with a coffee cup and we are not making coffee.
2. Setting Up Your Video: Okay. So, we're going to start working on our video. I have five tips that I use in making these videos. The first we talked about, keep it short. Absolutely keep your video under 60 seconds, but if you can keep it under 30, you're doing a super job. To keep it short, the second tip is have a plan. So, I never just walk in and start DIYing. I actually sit down and think about it. It doesn't take a long time, but let's say, I'm going to turn balloons into a chandelier. I'll think about, what do I need? I need balloons, Mod Podge, a brush. How many balloons and how do I actually want to present those to someone as I'm DITing? So, do I want to lay them all out in the beginning? Is that the most catchy way to do things? Do I want to start with one balloon? How am I going to show that I'm blowing them up on camera? Things like this. So, just jot down a quick plan of how you're going to show your ingredients, and work through your steps. The third tip is use hand signals. So, the style of video we do, we shoot from tops-down, which means they actually can't see you, and often, we play music so you don't even talk. But what you can use is your hands to communicate to the user. So, a couple of hand signals I love are just a little love sign like I love this. The time sign, so if you need to time something, you can use numbers to say how long like wait five minutes. You can do the okay sign. Our users tell us that when we do two okay, it makes them feel more comfortable when they're crafting, like we've just told them it's all going to be okay. If I messed up, I'll do like the no, no, reverse this. Sometimes, I do the rock on. Sometimes, I do I love you as the sign out from the video. So, you can come up with your own hand signals, but they help a user kind of coach through. The fourth step is use your tools. So, I have three tools I love, the first is Hyperlapse, which is the app we're going to shoot this in. The second is Box which is where I store all the videos. The third is Darby Smart. You can email any of your videos to Darby and we edit for free. The last is you need a video stand. We actually have one that we've built at Darby, but today, we're going to DIY one in classic style. So, you'll see, we'll use a couple of just objects from the home to create a video stand. So, we wanted to make this super accessible for you so we decided to try to DIY our own stand. So, hopefully, you have an IKEA bookshelf, everyone does, and some books. So, let's grab a bunch of books and start building. You ultimately want to get to a stand about this high based on what you're filming and how big it is. So, I just took the whole stack of books from the first shelf, and this is going to be one side, and I'm going to take the whole stack over here and build the other side. Then, you need some sort of plank because essentially, what you're going to do is set your camera on top and film down. So, this is really handy. It's just a shelf from the bookshelf and there. Swap things around a little and you have your stand. Then I grab my iPhone. So, the last step of building your stand is to create a frame so you know where to film because we film tops-down, so generally, I'm actually sitting, so I can't see what's on the screen. So, what I do is I put my phone here and I just fire up my camera app. Now, I can see, okay, my hand's going to be here, and I know I don't want to go outside of the lines, so I use tape and just tape myself some lines to create kind of like my own stage. And what I'm doing with my hand is just testing that I can still see myself in the shot. There, okay. So, the reason I create this stage is, well, personally, I'm very expressive so my hands go everywhere. So a lot of times, my hands will go outside which means I lose the shot, and the lines remind me to keep my hands inside here, which is where the filming area is. So, the last step before we start filming is to get our ingredients ready. In this case, I've decided that I would like to bring my ingredients in one by one as I film because I think that's going to create a greater element of surprise. But in some cases, I'll lay out all my ingredients in my center stage here and just work with them as they go. So, what I'm going to do is actually stack all my ingredients off to the side here, and then as I'm filming, I'll bring them in one by one into my stage.
3. Shooting Your Video: So, I'm not much of a cook, but I love watching the cooking how-to's that people share on Darby Smart. The one that finally got me to say go to the grocery and buy the ingredients is what we're going to make today which is something you can make in your microwave. It's called the one-minute Nutella microwave mug cake. Okay. We're ready to push play. So, I put Hyperlapse on my iPhone and once I hit play, I just kind of sit down and start working and so I've set up a mixing bowl in the center, and this how I'm going to start. Here we go. So, you can edit out a lot of the stuff that takes time, so you don't have to worry about it. Remember, this is tops down, so they can see what I'm doing. So, things I thought about when I'm making this video are, first of all, there's lots of steps, so you have to add Nutella five times. People don't like repetitive steps and so, how do I communicate that? So I use my hand signals like five for five skips of Nutella. This Nutella looks amazing. Making is never perfect and it's okay to make a mess. So, you saw that I threw flour on the counter and I just use a hand signal to be like "No, no. Oops, I messed up." Then last is, this one actually required me to use a microwave. So, how do I communicate that to people? I like to use just paper and pen. So, I just grab a sharpie or a pen and I write down what I'm about to do. You could also edit that in if you want to get a little fancier. Okay. So I filmed everything except the final cake. What I do is I review my Hyperlapse and then you can actually pick your display speed. So, while it filmed in real time, what it'll display could be 2X, 4X, 6X the speed, 8X or 10X. 6X tends to be the most popular. So, what I do is I look at my film and I make sure that I like 6X and then I just hit "OK" and it's done. I popped out and put the mug in the microwave for 60 seconds which I communicated on film just by writing it down, so people can understand. Then, I'm going to take a second clip which is just, my cake is back and I'm going to add powdered sugar and take a bite because that's kind of fun. So, I hit play again and we are rolling. Okay, so a lot of times, I like to sign out of my video. It's like a signature thing. So, I do my heart symbol and then like all done, but you'll come up with your own thing. I told you I'm not a cook but I think this will actually will taste good. I'm going to try it for proof. So, let's see. Well, it's awesome. Yay. So, the final step for our video is editing. You can do two things. You can either send it to Darby and we'll edit for free or you can do it yourself. I like to use iMovie. As I'm thinking about editing, I'll replay my video a couple times and I'll think about areas that I can cut back to the point that you want to make the snappiest, punchiest, shortest video possible. So, as I'm looking at the video we just created, the first thing I see is there's a lot of repetition. For example, we scooped Nutella five times or we scooped flour twice, and I can probably cut four of those Nutella scoops and add supporting text that just says, "Add five spoonfuls," and the same thing with flour. So, I would show one spoonful and then I'm going to edit in supporting text that says, "Add two spoonfuls." The other thing I think about is my intro and my outro for my film. So do I like the way we started with the mixing bowl and the egg? Does that pop and grab the reader or the viewer? Or is there some other intro shot that I'd like to use? The same with the outro. Do I want to finish with a very stylized looking thing? Or do I like the spoon with the powdered sugar on top of the cup? So I think about those two clips. A really good intro, that's the first image that they'll see if you're a video is something that, as we found, either something that looks very, very hard to make and so it compels people to understand how you did it. That works really well in food, right? Think of a very layered cake or a cake that looks like a shoe or a purse, right? So, right away, someone's like, "Wow, how did they do that?" Otherwise, it's something that's not obvious. So, maybe it's me cracking an egg and so, what are we about to do? So, you either use something difficult or you use something like not obvious to the end result. The last thing I think about is just how did the lighting look and where do I need to add or adjust color. So, this one was a little bit blown out and so I'll adjust the lighting. You notice that when I was writing the microwave 70 seconds, you can't really see that and so, we'll go over that and edit that so that really pops for the viewer. There will be other things in this particular video, these didn't come up, but other things might be, did your hands go out of the camera? Is that okay? Can they see all the supplies? Do you want to add supporting text that shows the recipe or do you actually want a link back to somewhere on your website that has the recipe? So, you think about other ways that you want to communicate information to your viewers.
4. Finalizing & Sharing Your Video: I got my edited video back from Darby Smart, and it is time to share, share, share. This is how you'll grow your brand. So, the places that we find are most valuable to share are absolutely post your video on Facebook. You can use a CTA on Facebook called "Watch more" when you upload your video, and then you can drive traffic back to your website or wherever is important to you. Share your video on YouTube, we all know that. We share our video in the project gallery on Skillshare so everyone can see our work. Lastly, we share it on Darby Smart because you get access to a very large creative community.
5. Final DIY Video:
Nicole Farb, Founder, Darby Smart
