Note: This is a quick explainer for those who know nearly nothing when it comes to producing social media videos for products. As a producer, these are some of the things I wish folks would know when shooting quick video on the fly. I wrote this for a client and they suggested I share it with others:
We tend to believe, because nearly everyone has a good quality camera in our pockets all the time, we are all instantly ‘filmmakers’ and subsequently amazing marketers. The truth is that the Spielbergs and Don Drapers of the world are few and far between.
However, it doesn’t take much thought to become a proficient video communicator. I recognize that to somone starting from scratch it may feel a bit overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Once you have shot and produced a couple of videos yourself it’ll become second nature. All it takes is just a little bit of planning and vision to highly improve the look and feel of your videos to an audience.
This is about as ‘crash course’ as filmmaking education gets without actually putting our hands on a camera. Don’t let this information intimidate you, because in the age of digital technology we have plenty of time and ‘tape’ to make good content.
The Narrative
The general ‘narrative’ of any video should have a beginning, middle and end. Your beginning and end should be relatively consistent throughout a video series. Those beats should remain the same. Greeting, personal introduction, interesting thing about company, a setting, whatever — arranged in any order and said however you please. Try to make it somewhat consistent every time. Consistency breeds comfort and you can start to build on what you’re doing. Only once you establish your rules, can you start to break them.
Beginning
Perhaps a variation on this: “Hi, I’m [business owner] and I’m from [business] — [something about the company] — and today I’m going to tell you about [product].”
Middle:
[Three things about your product] — This section is going to be where the performer/talent is going to have to do his heaviest lifting. You do not need to remember what to say verbatim off of a script, but, get down succinctly what you’re going to say about the product and try to be as consistent as possible. It’ll be ok if they’re a little different from time to time, but consistently saying features, in order, will allow you as the performer to better tackle and deliver the content.
End:
Something along the lines of: “Those are the three things that make our mesh rider technology great. Like our video and smash that subscribe button (lol) to get the latest on our products.”
Directing
When tackling videos with new or inexperienced talent, have the director interview them — with one important caveat. When the interviewer/director asks a question, the interviewee/talent needs to repeat the question in the answer back to the director.
Director: “So what is the product?”
Talent: “The product is…”
Without repeating the question in the answer, there would be no context for what is being said. Throw your editor a bone here.
Performing is like patting your stomach and rubbing your head at the same time — you have to remember the information you’re going to recite and also give a performance (sales pitch) to the camera at the same time.
By asking questions we can remove the burden of remembering the information off of the talent. At that point the talent only needs to remember to repeat the question back in the answer to make narrative sense for the editing process. Even though we hear the interviewer’s voice in the take, we can cut it out in the final edit.
As long as the talent knows what the product is and stays on the video’s topic, they don’t need a script. Bottomline: alleviating pressure from the performer, will enhance the delivery during the performance.
Before shooting, I would suggest doing a little bit of physical activity while matching the level of energy you want to see in your performance. Jumping jacks, stretches, a walk – something. Not so vigorous that you’re out of breath, but enough to get your blood flowing. You’ll be able to see the difference from coming in completely cold to energetic conversation. Being relaxed on camera can lead to a more confident voice and conviction in what is being said.
Shooting for the Cameraman
If you’re going to be holding a shot for a substantial period of time, the camera will inevitably start to weigh down the cameraman… More often than not, in a lot of these quick social videos, that also happens to be the director (stomach patting, head rubbing and crossing your eyes). In these sort of static-talk-to-the-camera shots, I’d advise a tripod (or ‘sticks’ as we call them). Not only would this free up the camera person’s hands, but also allow them to ask questions and direct the talent.
The gimbal is a great tool that is best used in shots where there needs to be camera movement — think slow, sweeping shots of products. Depending on your product a particular lens might be better suited over another – for instance if you want product shots of small items, get a macro lens. If your product is large, (cars or furniture, consider experimenting with a wide angle lens. Luckily, there are all type of different lenses made for cell phone cameras that provide a variety of different looks and effects.
“Eye line” is also important when it comes to direct-to-camera shoots. When humans are talking to other humans we’re usually looking them right in the eye. If someone doesn’t make eye-contact with you during a conversation, it may result in you feeling a distrust with that person. While it may seem awkward, it’s crucial for the talent to look straight down the barrel of the lens, like it’s a human being. Look at this example:
In the above example, we can see the talent looking directly into the lens of the camera and in the other example he’s looking at the director next to the camera lens. Be aware of these two types of setups – they elicit different feelings. The direct to camera is an intimate appeal to the audience, however, the eyeline looking at the director, camera left, delivers a documentarian style appearance. Make sure you’re using the setup that’s best appropriate for the type of video you’re creating.
Talking directly to the camera can feel awkward for some. To help the talent achieve this eye-contact with the camera (and the audience) we usually have the director (interviewer) stand as close to the lens as possible. The difference can be almost negligible when done right and can help the talent/interviewee relax and feel at ease on camera.
When the performer is far from the phone/camera consider using a wireless lavalier mic for the iPhone. For all equipment, start with inexpensive versions before investing in more sophisticated equipment. Know that you’re going to do these videos consistently and make your dollar worth your while before upgrading.
The Shot List and Shooting for the Director
Now that you have an idea of the structure and beats of these kinds of videos, we can deploy a shot variation strategy, or a ‘shot list’. Watching one solid clip of 30 seconds talking directly to the camera will bore the your audience. However, we can build tension and dynamic scenes when we have a variation in camera shots or clips. Typically, we start with a wide shot to establish a setting and from there the camera is motivated by the narrative. In our case, for a direct-to-camera, product video, we’re probably also using a medium talent shot, a close-up talent shot, product close-ups and some “b-roll” (B-roll is any supplemental footage not part of the main interview, like products being made or used). Cutting, or editing these clips together, will keep the flow of the narrative moving forward without dragging your pace down.
Quick example of some shots:
The list of possible shots is endless. Today’s media has trained us to absorb lots of fast cuts, angles and plenty of different shots to keep up with how fast our brains process video content today. This is why most old movies are boring to us today — they don’t have many fast cuts or as many angles (an exception would be Psycho and it’s famous shower scene where there are 78 different shots (wide, close-up, etc..) and 52 cuts (links between clips) — something at the time was shocking to the public, but, today for us seems tame.
Now that we know why it’s important to have different shot variations, let’s talk about how we can efficiently get these shots. This is why being consistent to the script/narrative/format/beats is important. Because we want to cut between these different camera angles without losing a beat. Essentially, what you want to do is record the scene, as cleanly as possible (‘clean’ meaning without as many speaking flubs/mistakes as you can possibly do) in each angle. A wide. A medium. A close-up. A tall task, perhaps, but if we can think of the beginning, middle and end as separate scenes, we don’t have to remember the whole “script,” just each specific section we’re shooting. This can allow our performer to be a little more loose and flub a bit, because, we know that we got it cleanly on the close-up take (a single continuous recorded performance), so, in the edit we know we can use the close-up. Try to get between 3-5 clean(ish) takes on each camera angle/setup for maximum coverage (Pros will get 1 clean take per setup and ‘move on’!).
Because we know the camera is motivated by the content, we can plan a little better. For example, we know that we’re not going to use an insert shot (of a product) in the beginning act of the video because we’re not talking about that, so, we don’t need to shoot that for this act. We do know that we’re going to be establishing a setting (the room), which calls for a wide angle shot and meeting the performer which would call for a medium shot. But, in the middle act, if we want to emphasize a certain important aspect of the product, we may want to cut directly to an insert shot. Or, if our performer has a pivotal piece of information, we may want to cut to a close-up to see the important words coming out of their mouth. So, we shoot those and not necessarily a ‘wide’ shot for this middle act. Again, the shots vary on the motivation of the narrative.
Editing
All of these shot variations will eventually become options for the editor in the post-production of the videos. A good editor can make a feast out of whatever they have to work with, but giving them good ingredients to start with guarantees a better quality final product.
When you’re making any type of ‘sales’ videos I think it’s important to keep the length of the video to 2-5 minutes. There’s nothing more miserable when a video falls flat during a sales pitch. Less is always more (short conversations, make for long friendships). If a video is perceived as ‘slow’ you automatically lose your audience. So, let’s keep things moving along steadily by making shorter videos. If you think of your videos in these smaller bite-size pieces they’ll be much more manageable to produce. Once they’re on YouTube they just play back-to-back anyway.
Inexpensive, life savers for shooting cheaply:
– Tripod ($22 option at Amazon)
– Wireless Lavalier Mic ($25 option at Amazon)
– Macro Lens ($39 option at Amazon. Make sure it fits with your iphone model and also will have to consider if it’ll get in the way of the gimbal at all).
