Transcripts
1. Introduction: We all have a very
special unique story in our own creativity, and there's so many ways that we can differentiate and stand out amongst the crowd beyond just our
technical capabilities. Let's lean into that. Let's figure out some
ways that we can leverage the power of
our own uniqueness. My name is Ryan Kao. I'm a freelance video editor and cinematographer based
here in Los Angeles. You guys may have seen some
of my work on YouTube, where I have a channel
talking all about my journey as a freelancer
in the video industry. You may have also seen some of my stuff on Instagram where I'm regularly posting work that I do for companies
like Nike, Adidas. As of more recently, I've been tapping into
the narrative space, doing some short films, and even some feature
length documentary work. I think that there's
a lot of people who are overlooking so many
ways that they can market themselves
as an editor and leveraging these powerful tools that we have available to us. If we strategize a bit
of what we share online, we can become pretty successful in the
freelance industry. In today's class, I want
to take you through marketing yourself
as a video editor. How we can better optimize our online presence to act more like a
digital business card, making our Instagram
profile and YouTube channel something that can
actually help us get clients, and also how to go
about expanding your portfolio to bring
in that new work. What I hope everyone
is able to walk away with after going
through this class is a strategy and a sense of
confidence about your brand and your online presence
that can work regardless of where you're at in your career or
current skill level. I'm incredibly excited to share this class
with everyone today, so let's dive into it.
2. Defining Your Digital Business Card: Nowadays, in the video industry, people want to work with
good people. Let's face it. There's so much incredible
talent out there, so many people who are so
amazing at what they do. But at the end of the day, sometimes the best work
doesn't always come from having the best skill set
or technical experience. In my experience
as a freelancer, some of the biggest projects and the best paying work come
from the strongest client to contractor relationships and a carefully strategized
brand image on behalf of yourself. It may seem a little
irrelevant to some folks having a tailored or
up to date Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube channel. At the end of the
day, all that matters is your website and
your portfolio. However, with social media, although it's a bit
overwhelming sometimes, it's one of the quickest
and simplest ways for a client to get a quick 22nd glimpse into
who we are and what we do. With that in mind,
how can we strategize our online presence
to better act as a Digital Business Card?
Think about it like this. Your digital business
card is in a way, anything that is
online with your name. Whether we like
it or not, you're going to come across
those projects and those clients who want to know everything that you've done and that you've worked on. So they get on Google,
they search your name. Anything that they
can find that has your name on it in a way, is your digital business card, the thing that people will
associate with your name. We're in an era where
traditionally speaking, a website used to be the place
that your work would live. But with social media growing so rapidly and providing
such great opportunities for freelance video editors to find new clientele and
reach new customers, it's important that we should
consider these a part of our digital business card
just like a website would be. Instagram is an amazing place to share with your video editor. The organic reach and
discoverability of this platform is truly unmatched
in the current market. YouTube is also another
very powerful platform. It is like literally the
video Google for many people. Sharing your work on there can also act as a great way for clients and new potential collaborators to
discover your work. Of course, a website is
very important, as well, and I absolutely think
it's something people should all consider and
strive to have at one point. But at a minimum, I would prioritize making sure that your digital
business card, things that people can search, your social media
is up to date and current with what you are
doing as a video editor. Now that we've kind
of established a bit about the importance of a digital business card
and what it is and how it can apply to you and how
clients can find you. Let's dive in to some
more specifics on optimizing your Instagram for
your digital business card.
3. Optimizing Your Instagram: Here is my Instagram account. How I choose to treat my
Instagram and the things that I share is a balance
between my personal life, some of the things
that I'm doing. But also some of my work and a little bit here
and there in between. I like sharing BTS from projects that I'm actively
working on or shooting. Sometimes posting some
cinematic color grading frames from some things that I've shot or color graded in
post production. Occasionally, I'm posting
some reels that are on trend with some of the things in the video creation industry. But at the root of
everything here, my goal is to just create a fairly curated looking
page that shows that I have a certain level
of quality and aesthetic with the imagery
that I choose to show, whether or not it's video
or it's a still image. Again, clients that are
potentially looking or searching for your profile are going to pull up your page, and they'll probably look at the first nine or maybe
12 of your posts. They might not go
super into depth, but having a profile that looks curated at a
glance and shows that you're working on a
diverse amount of things is a really important
thing to consider. At the top of our page is probably the most
important factor, and it's your page information. The high level visibility of the information on your page. Things like your
profile picture, your name that you choose
as your username and just the bio information of
who you are and what you're doing are all things that people will look at at a glance. I think personally, you should always avoid a user name that has underscores or numbers,
or nicknames included. Keep it pretty close to
your authentic name, a clean profile picture, something that clearly shows your face that's not a selfie, ideally, a professional photo of yourself is always a
great thing to have. Then just clear
information and your bio. Here, we can see I have
a business branded page, and I'm listed as
a cinematographer. The description says DP or director of
photography/editor. I'm based in Los Angeles. I also have a link to
my secondary Instagram account in case
people are curious, and then I have a URL
to my YouTube channel, which we'll also be
talking about up next. Highlight stories,
I think are also a really interesting tool
that you can utilize. These can be anything. They're curated little
bubbles that you can use and place archive stories
into individually. I have one here that has some BTS clips from different stuff that
I've done in my career. This one 241 weeks ago. I might want to go through
and clean that up, make it a little more
current and up to date. But it's just a couple of stories from some past
interesting things, some funny moments
here and there. I think adding a little
bit of diversity and some touch to these
stories is a good thing. People like to know that you're a fun person to work with. I've also got another highlight
here for some of my work. This is usually stuff that I've reposted or shared on a story, or I reposted from
a client page. This one was for Adidasnyc. Here's another one for Adidasla. Here's a story from a project
I did with SLAM and CROCS. I think at the minimum, having a high light bubble at the top that clearly
shows some of your work that clients can immediately click on and just
tap through and see some of the finished
projects you've worked on is a really good
place to start. We've got a couple more here, and I definitely don't think you need to over complicate it. But at the minimum,
having at least one that maybe clearly has a
collection of some of your finished projects
that clients can tap on and quickly scan through
is a great place to start. I think we can all
relate when I say that Instagram has gone through a lot of different phases
in its trends and styles that people are
posting and sharing content. I find to me nowadays, what creates a very
attractive and engaging looking
freelancer profile is one that isn't always
super polished work. I talked about it earlier, but I think what you'll
come to find as you begin freelancing is clients they like working with good people. They like to be able
to have fun and make sure that even when a
project gets stressful, you can work with
somebody who will maintain a positive attitude and be enjoyable to work with on
a daily or consistent basis. Sharing a balance of some
of your finished projects, but also some stuff that's
maybe just a little more for fun or personal related to give people a
sense of who you are, what your characters
like is definitely a benefit to adding to your
digital business card. I get it. Some people
might not want to share the personal stuff and
that's totally fine. By all means, you can keep your Instagram page just
strictly about your work. There's really nothing
wrong to that. But if you're feeling like
you might be up for it, dropping a few things
here and there that give people a little
bit more of a sense of, this is me. This is Ryan. It's just one way that you can differentiate yourself
as an editor. A big piece of
advice that I have relative to maintaining
a social media presence, especially on Instagram is showing what you do
on a regular basis. Saying active and posting
frequently is definitely tough. But I think stories have become a really powerful tool for you to stay relevant
in people's heads. I feel like I can't be
the only one who has this weird assumption in my head that the people who
are following me, like, they know that I'm an
editor and a cinematographer. It's not like I need to
keep them up to date with every single thing
that I'm doing like, they probably know that
I'm working on a project. The simple fact of the
matter here though is that, everybody's busy all the time. To be honest, it's
pretty easy for you to slip out of people's
network in their general go to train of thought when
thinking of maybe hiring a new editor for a project if you're not actively
posting things. There's been plenty of times
that I've thought like, I need to hire an
editor that can help me out with
this YouTube video. There's been times
where I've completely overlooked some people's
names who would have been a great fit for the job
just simply because I hadn't seen them post
something in a few weeks. Staying relevant and posting on a regular basis and
showing what you do, it might seem like you're
annoying people to always be showing that you're
editing or working on a project or
shooting something, but this can just
simply help you to stay more relevant as a
freelancer in the market. Figuring out what to post and what to share, it's a challenge. Like I know we get all intimidated when you
finally work on a project, and you're like, is
this the one that I should post on Instagram? Maybe it didn't turn out
quite the way you wanted. Maybe the end result wasn't quite what you had hoped
for the client project. It was a great name but
just something about the song they chose wasn't
exactly the greatest. Posting your work, no
matter how big or small, whether it's a paid project
or a personal project, The beauty is that this isn't
your dedicated portfolio. It is an outlet that we can share just about as
much as we want. I think there's a
fine balance here, and I'll just caution
this and saying, certainly don't post anything that you don't think lives up to your standards of quality and character as a video editor. But don't be afraid to post
the small experiments. Maybe there's a trend or a
new reel that's going around about editing or color
grading using a popular song. Don't be afraid to
give those a try. I think you might
be surprised at just how much fun it can be to practice those things and get out there and post
some fresh content. Another huge benefit to all of this beyond just your digital
business card is that staying at least somewhat up
to date with the trends that are existing on the platform for Instagram, let's face it. There's a lot of
work that you've probably done or
you will probably end up doing that clients want to end up
living on Instagram. Being familiar with
the landscape, seeing the ads that are coming
across on your stories, seeing what other types
of editors are posting, what trends and reels and styles are circulating around
is just one way that you can help to utilize
that information and inform a client when they reach out to you
about a new project. For example, there's been a
lot of trends going around about the behind the scenes
of how somebody got the shot. I was working on a
short film recently, and we needed to
shoot a shower scene. I decided to edit together
a quick little reel showing behind the scenes of how we accomplished this shot. Here's how I filmed this shot. Since I couldn't fit a
soft box in the shower, I used the name light Forza 60B with the spotlight
attachment to help shape the light and
fire straight into the white ceiling to control
the spill from the walls. I gaft taped a black tube
dress to the ceiling. This helps make the
overhead light source feel much more
directional and dramatic, and this is the final shot. It's quick. It's simple. I think this edit took only like 30 or 45 minutes just slapping together some cool subtitles on the screen using a trending
sound that's going around. This reel has done
almost 7,000 likes, pretty substantial for what
my page normally does. When you do get a
chance to share one of the client projects
that you worked on, one way that we can
help ourselves to look the part as an editor
is in the caption, crediting yourself and also the crew behind the
project properly. When clients are
looking at your page and come across a
finished piece of work, but the caption
associated with it is just something random or
maybe a bunch of emojis, it definitely removes some of the professionalism and how
that piece presents itself. Taking some time to
thoroughly outline and credit everybody who was involved with the project in
their proper names. Usually, you can find this by maybe sending an
email to the person you worked with or your point
of contact for the project. People like the director,
the producer, the DP, the camera assistants,
the lighting, and yourself, of course, being the video editor. This project, in particular
is a director's cut from a project I shot for a athletic where a
company called Omorpo. I've credited the client, agency, creative director,
producer, myself, the director of
photography, sound editor, which was myself and also another one of
my collaborators. But just doing this in
a way that thoroughly outlines your involvement in
relationship to the project, it'll help clients to feel
more confident that you are working and collaborating with other people in your process. Beyond posting and
all of the content, it's just a good practice to be interacting with other
people on social media. It's called social media. Developing strong
creative circles and a network of people
you look up to follow, stay up to date
with what they're doing, what they're sharing. It goes such a long way to be a friendly face and be interacting and engaging
with other people. Staying relevant in those communities like
we had touched on before to keep yourself in the
loop with what's going on. You never know, sometimes you might find that there's
a job opportunity through an Instagram story with somebody that you're close
with in the industry, send them a message, interact
with them, ask them, hey, like, is that filled, could I maybe jump on that? I think nowadays,
potential brands and clients are also being more
active on social media. Just being in the loop
and staying up to date and engaging with other
people on the platform, it'll just help you to grow that stronger creative circle and better refine your
digital business card. We've gone over a lot of ways that we can optimize
our Instagram. But if I want to leave
you with one thing here, one real high level thought
to consider is if you are posting and sharing things about yourself and your
work, be authentic. Don't try and put on some
character or persona that isn't authentic to who you are and what type of work
you're aiming to bring in. At the end of the day, people want to work with good people, and I like to believe most
people are good people, so show that and give people
confidence that, hey, if I find Ryan and
I want to hire him for an edit,
I like his work. I like the way that he presents himself online, let's
reach out to him. Now that we've talked
through everything, and we understand a little
bit about optimizing our presence and how to share things on Instagram
as a freelancer, maybe take a moment to perform a little self audit on
your Instagram profile. Look over some of
these steps that we've outlined and maybe
pick three that you could use as your next actions to refining your
Instagram presence. We've now made it through
one platform that we can optimize for our
digital business card, our Instagram profile. Let's move on to our next
platform, which is YouTube.
4. Optimizing Your YouTube Channel: Long form video and YouTube is slowly taking on a new shape in the filmmaking and
video production world. It seems to me like
people are starting to lose a little bit of interest in seeing the perfectly polished, flashy videos and edits, and are more curious
about knowing and understanding how
a video was made. Behind the scenes content is offering a new perspective into the video production
industry that just really has never
existed before. Professionals of just about every type in the video industry are beginning to make their way onto YouTube and
sharing content, whether it's behind the
scenes of a video production, a breakdown of editing
or sound design, or even just sharing some of
that finished work itself. Beyond the opportunity of gaining a new audience
with the videos that you might share and even potentially generating
some extra side income, it gives you another
outlet to share just a little bit more of your work ethic and your
personal character. In a way, your YouTube
channel could almost be like an insider's look from a client perspective as to what it would be
like to work with you. Just like we cleaned up some of our page information on
our Instagram profile, we can do the same for
our YouTube channel. Your name, the user name, how people are actually
going to search you. I think, again, an important
rule to follow is keep it pretty similar to the name that you would be referred
to professionally. First and last name, usually
you can never go wrong. In my bio, I have
cinematographer and editor based in Los Angeles. Again, just a few ways that
I can identify myself, let people know where I am. We've got some links to my other social
media accounts and, of course, a clean profile
picture and a channel banner. This can be a big digital
billboard for your brand. I actually haven't updated
this particular banner since, I don't know, maybe 2019. I think I'm due
for my own little YouTube channel audit here soon. But again, just
making sure that all of the branding,
your profile image, and all of the information
is consistent with how you want to be referred to and
viewed as a freelancer. Once we scroll down,
we have a couple of really unique opportunities
for sharing our content. If somebody's clicking on your YouTube channel for
the first time, you can select this top video
that's presented to them. Here for the featured video, I would probably
suggest to maybe post your most popular or
most viewed video or if you're strictly just sharing your work on your YouTube channel and
you're not really posting content that's specific
to YouTube things, then maybe make it your reel. The beauty of the YouTube
channel customization is that you can place
videos in a specific order. If you have a bunch of work
that you want to show, you can put that
playlist near the top. If you want to sort by
your most popular videos, you can also do that. Now that we've broken down how to set up your
YouTube channel, the next step, go out and create some content and post it. If you want to be
creating things that are on trend with certain
filmmaking topics, being a regular consumer
of that type of content is a great way to spark some new ideas or
just post your work. Use it as a way to share a portfolio of some of your projects that you're
doing as a video editor. Maybe try your hand at sharing some breakdowns behind
your editing process. Maybe even some tutorials if you come up with a unique
way to do something. A great thing to think about
here is that if you're trying to share content on a variety of these
different platforms, oftentimes YouTube
videos can end up making their way onto
Instagram or even vice versa. Let's say maybe you did a reel for a current trend
on Instagram, and some people were curious
how you made that edit. Use that as an idea to fuel a YouTube video breaking
down that editing process. It can be an endless
cycle and beyond that, you can use it to just share
your work as a freelancer. The unique perspective about creating content on YouTube, long form of videos, is that unlike other
social media platforms where most people's
attention spans are inherently pretty short, they're tapping through
a ton of stories, they're scrolling on the feed. You have a bigger opportunity, more time that you can
potentially engage and interact or call to action some of the people who
are watching your videos. You can tell them, hey, I'm looking for this type of work or hey, I'm
working on this. Or if you're interested
in seeing more of my content or you have
some suggestions, leave a comment below. These seem obvious to some, but it is a pretty powerful tool of creating YouTube content. Another really
important thing that we have available
to us when we're creating these videos is the
analytics and the algorithm. I get that those
two terms can be an extremely intimidating part about creating a
YouTube channel, especially if you've
never done it before. If the numbers are
intimidating just in the same way that it is with posting on any other platform. But there's so much amazing
data that YouTube offers on the backend that
can help you to get some insight about
your audience, the type of people that
are consuming your videos. There's even ways that
we can see what types of videos people who are watching ours are watching
from other creators. This is like the
main dashboard here. This is just high level,
look at everything you see. A little bit of analytics, but it's also you see recent
comments, things like that. But then here's our direct
analytics dashboard, where we're going
to see a variety of different things from views, to some of our subscriber and audience trends, monetization. We're seeing a real
time look at our views. But if we dive in a little bit deeper into some of
these audience metrics, we can see some
really specific data, we can see when people
are watching our videos, what other content your
audience is watching, literal videos that
people who are clicking on my video are also
watching here on YouTube. We can see geographics, we can see the age range, what type of language people
are watching in subtitles. Some of this stuff
might seem pretty broad and certainly if you're starting
a channel from scratch, it's going to take some time
to build up these metrics. This data is still super useful to you if you're
trying to be an editor, especially in the
remote industry. Understanding where
your content is reaching is an incredibly
valuable resource to tailoring some of
your services and the content that
you choose to put out in freelance video editing. Maybe take some time to think
about how you could get a YouTube channel
going or maybe even beef up one that you've
had existing in the past. It's an intimidating platform, but the reality is here, you have a unique story and your perspective
as a video editor, I'm sure would resonate with a lot more people than
you would really expect. That's how my channel started in this whole filmmaking genre. I was just interested in doing some of my own little vlogs, recaps of some of my
projects that I was doing in the early days of being a freelance photographer
and Lo and behold, the evolution of just posting YouTube content led me
into video and filmmaking, and now to the point
that I'm here getting to teach you guys about being
a freelance video editor. You never really know what
can happen out of it. If it's something that you feel passionate about
trying, give it a shot. Now that we've talked
a bit about expanding a couple of our social platforms
and our YouTube channel, let's talk about expanding our portfolio as a video editor.
5. Expanding Your Portfolio: In today's market
of video editing, it's not as easy as just
saying you can do the job. As a video editor, clients
want to be able to see direct references for the work that they're potentially
going to hire you for. The hard truth is that no one
from a reputable brand or a big production company is
going to reach out to you if you've never created anything like what
they're looking for. When it comes down to
it, time is money. A client needs to be able to
determine at a quick glance, if you're someone
who's capable of delivering what they
need for their project. So if we're thinking about how we can expand our portfolio, let's talk about spec work. What is it? How do we
go about creating it? What's the point of it to
us as a freelance editor, think of it like
a way to work for your dream client without ever working for
your dream client. Spec work is essentially a
project created solely for the intention of attracting a new client or a
new type of work. What's the catch then. Well, it's generally done on your own time and
your own budget. But why would anyone want
to use their own money to create work for a brand?
Think about it this way. Let's say one day one of your big professional
goalposts is to land a gig editing
a commercial for Nike. Well, the first thing I would
ask you is, that's amazing. Do you think you can do it? I think most people's response would probably be,
yeah, of course. I'm determined I'm driven. My next question
though would be, have you ever created
something for Nike or have you ever done a similar type of
work for a similar brand? If the answer is no, well, this is exactly why
spec work can be a secret weapon for freelance editors looking
to break into the industry. Let's break down a few steps on how we can create spec
work as video editors. Our first step here
would be to find an ideal client or brand that you want to
create something for. If it's your portfolio
and what you're hoping to do is bring in
a certain type of work. Make sure to be conscious of the fact that if you're
creating a spec piece, it's actually a project
you want to work on. I know some of us might get a little excited and think, yeah, I remember I worked on a piece that was a product commercial, maybe it was some
studio footage. I could probably re edit that. Well, that's great, but
is that a type of work that you're interested in
getting hired for again? I think we should
prioritize spec work in our portfolio being
our ideal or dream. Remember what you
show is what you get. Spec work as video editors can sometimes be a little
bit more challenging. I mean, hey, we're the ones
who are behind the computer, so it's not like we have
full creative ability to go out and create
a whole commercial. But, maybe you have
some existing footage from a project that you
could utilize in repurpose. Or maybe you're
somebody who does shoot something or you have a close circle of people
that also shoot video. Maybe consider reaching
out and bringing them into the fold
and see if they're interested in joining
you in creating some spec work that could live
for everybody's portfolio. So once you've chosen a brand or a project to work on
for the spec piece, do a deep dive into
that brands content. Check out their
social media pages. Check out their website. See what types of content that they're putting out
and that they're showing. Are they leaning into short
form social media content? Are they doing longer
form branded work? Are they trying to tell
more of a narrative? Is it shorter things with a little bit more trend
associated with it? Take note of everything
you see here and utilize your
own experience and your own perspectives of these platforms to
help generate and fuel some ideas that could align with the brand's
current marketing direction. Think big and small in the current market with everything going on in
the video industry, social media
content, and staying up to date with these
current trends is something that every
brand is considering and trying to figure out how
to do just a bit better. Get outside of the
box here and flex your understanding of
the video industry. Next, consider your resources. Here's a few points that I
like to think about when I begin the process of coming
up with a new spec idea. First and most important, how much time do you
have to put into this? Do you have a week or
do you have a month? Maybe you only have a day
to actually try and come up and push out a new idea
for this little project. How much money do you
have to put into this? Do you only have $100? Maybe you don't have any, or maybe you're really passionate about the idea and want
to invest a little bit. Maybe it might be
worth considering hiring some people into
the project to help you, maybe a director or
a video shooter, to really create the
best quality piece. In some cases, you could
potentially utilize footage from a previous project and you really might not need
to invest anything. Maybe there was a
client project or even a personal
project that you shot, you edited the footage
and it's been sitting on hard drives just collecting
dust for some time. There's no reason why that content can't
see a new light in a new edit and potentially edited for a different
overall purpose. Of course, if it was a
past client project, I would certainly
caution you to make sure that if you
want to post it in your portfolio to
reach out to them and ask for permission
before moving forward. So to give you guys a
real world example here, this was a project that I shot and edited for a
company called Amorpho. They make athletic
weighted sportswear, and back when I originally shot this well over a year ago, I wasn't honestly
all that happy with the final deliverables that went out on behalf of the brand. So I decided to do
my own spec version. It would refer to this as a director's cut and take all
of that original footage, work with a new editor, come up with an entirely new
creative brief in treatment, and really bring this
footage to life that meets my current standards as an
editor and a cinematographer. This really didn't cost
me anything extra. But it's one way that we can continue to grow our
body of work and make sure that we're presenting the best type of content
for our potential clients. But now that we have
an idea and we have a plan for how to approach
this edit, get editing. The beauty of spec work is that you essentially have
full creative control. We talked a bit about
finding new inspiration and experimenting to help evolve your style so don't
hold back here. Utilize all of those tools. Try those new ideas, those things that were a
little bit interesting or maybe intimidating for
you to experiment with. It's not a client project
per se, but it is. So leverage that and do
something different. Try and do something
that's going to get you out of your
comfort zone and maybe in that process you may even
discover a new found sense of confidence or editing
style or workflow altogether. Once you've completed
your spec piece, it's time to share your work. Now, it doesn't necessarily have to go out like it's
some grand commercial. Maybe it's just a
piece that you add to your portfolio or upload
to your YouTube channel. But there is the opportunity to potentially share
it with a brand. So if you decide to share
it on social media, maybe tag them or send them a message talking about
the work, you never know. If it sparks a
good conversation, there could be an opportunity to discuss doing something paid
for them in the future. Now we've found ways to
expand our portfolio. As a next step for you guys, maybe come up with three
ideal clients or brands that you would love to work with or create a spec piece
for in the workbook. I'm going to leave you
guys with a few prompts to maybe get your
brains turning. If you've created
a spec piece in the past as a shooter
or as a video editor, I'd love for you guys to share them in the
project gallery. I like checking out
what people are doing and pushing their
narratives as creatives. So share yours or maybe
share your ideal clients. I think we'd all
love to see them.
6. Final Thoughts: Marketing ourselves
as video editors is definitely a bit of
a challenging thing. But I hope that some of what
we've talked about today, optimizing your
digital business card, your social media outlets
like Instagram and YouTube, and also how to go about
expanding that portfolio, and really attracting
new clients through the work that you're
showing to the world. Hopefully, this
can give you guys a little bit more
confidence about marketing yourself
amongst the crowd, and how to stand
out, and attract more people to your brand as
a freelance video editor.
Ryan Kao, Cinematographer, Video Editor
