V-Bloggers a begginers guide

As I edit video clips all day I get sick of watching vlogs with bad sound and bad editing. There is no excuse for either these days with the technology available, so I will give you a few tips.

1. If you are recording a piece to camera set the camera on full wide or pull out. Then frame your shot this will get the camera as close to you as possible so the sound will be clear as possible. If you are doing this regularly I suggest you buy and external bug mike. It would be a good investment, this is one downside to the Flip range of products no ability to plug in an external microphone

2. Think about your shoot before you start filming. Plan what you want to say then think about what shots you need to cover the dialogue. Doesn't matter how pretty you are after 5mins talking about topic you will become boring. So plan those cutaways

3. Don't wave the camera around willy nilly! Either get a tripod, mono pod or a grip mount so you can get nice stable shots.

4. Edit edit edit. Please don't just clip the start and the end of the clip in Your flip software or iphone! You can tell so much more if you put in cut aways of what you are talking about and close up so the viewer can see the product detail for themselves. You can never explain anything 100% for everyone but if you show some detail you may answer some questions the viewer has. MOVAVI is a good edit tool for the home. In the more pro end is Avid, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier and Media 100

5. Good practice is to actually right your script down with an audio and video column

6. when record live audio think about your location small stark rooms cause alot of echo like a mobile phone in a toilet. Outside equates to no echo.

Well I had hoped to get to 10 pointer but I will do more later. Last comment is always enjoy your filming

Corporate Video

After many years of making corporate videos, which I think should be renamed to communication videos. I am beginning to think some skills are being lost. Videos used to be watchable, but these days with advent of digital cameras and computers anyone can publish a video. I don't really have a problem with this until the watch ability of the video is effected! Sorry I don't think you can make a retail training video on your iphone, with imovie or with final cut pro. Video editing is like writing a book and takes a certain talent and when you start you think you have the skills, but if you have the guts and you watch your efforts 5yrs later you will go oh my god did I do that! I think I was lucky I started editing in the analogue age and learnt the lesson to watch things multiple times. In this new digital age it is so simple to chuck things together and publish without ever watching your final product. This is what seems to create the problems. There are so many simple techniques from establishers to cutaways these things involve the viewer showing them the location and the environment. So when you visit these places you will feel familar with the environment. If you simply film a clip with no thought you can confuse the viewer and therefore lose your message. Also with more experience you can see mistakes before they happen a common mistake from the client side is to include too much information. Also with the new mediums like the net and social media there becomes more confusion as in video media is static and pricing data dynamic. Take for example http://www.powershop.co.nz This video clip claims 30% saving but the online data shows less than 5% saving. I have watched many video promotional clips and gone gee did the client really want that published on the web! My answer has always been I guess so but I am beginning to think no they haven't thought.