How To Make Your Business Videos Look Great

Well, hello everybody. It is 1:30 Eastern time. Actually, no, sorry, it's 12:30. We've shifted 15 hours our time. Yes. And Happy Thanksgiving to those of us watching in the United States. I'd like to welcome you to— apparently this is just not my day. Welcome you to Create Great Business Videos. Not like the one I'm doing right now, but really better ones.

Ah, beautiful.

So this is a series of live webcasts that are going to allow you to create great videos filled with insightful content that look good and sound good. So before I ruin the entire show, why don't we get started?

That was funny, Jason. So cute.

All right, we're back, and I am here with my co-host Cheryl Plouffe and also our producer Karina St. Clair. Cheryl, what do you have for us today?

Ah, you know, we're already at episode 4 in our web series, and in episode 4, we really want to focus on some tech tips. You know, technology is one of the things I think that holds a lot of people back, and there really isn't any reason to. So we're going to demystify some of these, you know, technology pieces. And we're really going to focus on how to make business videos look great. So that's the focus for today. So let me, for those of you who are new to our web series, and please let your friends and family know or anyone you know in business who may be wanting to do videos, greatbusinessvideos.com is where they can register for the web series and they'll get all of the previous ones and all the future episodes too. So for those of you who are new, my name is Sheryl Plouffe. I'm a video marketing strategist. And I have more than 25 years experience as a broadcaster, as a trainer, even as a college professor, and as a news director. We also have Jason, who is a professional speaker and Speak to Sell expert. He also has more than 25 years of experience as a news writer, as a TV producer, storytelling trainer, and news director. And he is the winner of 3 international awards for writing and story editing for network TV news. And we have Karina Sinclair who's with us as well. And Karina is an amazing freelance video producer, manuscript editor. She has worked behind the scenes in TV and documentary production since the age of 13. So we've got a lot of experience behind us as we dive into today's topic, which is the tech tips, right, Jason?

Exactly. And today specifically, we're going to talk about how to make your videos look good. It's also important that they sound good, but we're going to talk about audio likely in a different program because there's a lot of stuff for both video and audio. So we're going to split it up. So let us start with looking at how people see. You may have noticed that we've got two eyes and they're side by side rather than one on top of the other.

So at least for most of us, I don't know, unless you're living near a nuclear power plant.

True. Because our eyes are side by side, it's important that when we shoot video we use the landscape mode, which is the rectangle kind of laying on its side, because that's what our natural field of vision is, which is why movie screens and television screens are all in that shape. Using the, the portrait mode, which makes your camera really skinny, just doesn't look very good at all. And for people who know video, they just look at that and they want to tear their hair out. You know, people really you really should be shooting in landscape. The other thing is we want to record high definition. One of the differences between high definition and standard definition is standard definition tends to be a square, where the high definition, not only does it look better, but it also has a different aspect ratio, which means it's wider. So there are advantages. Make sure you do high definition. Make sure you do landscape.

Yeah, whenever possible, absolutely.

And the other interesting thing is we don't want a shaky video. We want it to be stable. So we're gonna want to put the camera on something likely. So there's a lot of lightweight tripods out there. And when we get into the questions, I will show you a couple that you can actually put on a tabletop. You're gonna need a phone mount for the tripod too. So if you're shooting with your phone, Sometimes you actually need a specific gadget to actually put on that tripod so that your phone fits, but those are not very expensive, and we'll show you some examples of that too. And you'll also want to consider investing in a gimbal. And tell us what a gimbal is, Cheryl.

Well, a gimbal is basically like a— it's a stabilizing— it's a piece of equipment that helps to stabilize your camera or phone. Some cases. So it depends what kind of gimbal you get, but you will often see this type of technology and gear used in high-end video production. So do you know television, film, that sort of thing where there's action? You'll see the videographers and they'll have these huge sort of shoulder-mounted, um, gimbals and stabilizers across their bodies with the camera built into it. Cradled into it so that when the camera is, there's movement, it makes it really smooth and cinematic and it gives it that professional look. Karina obviously comes from a big background in TV production. Karina, what are your thoughts on gimbals and their usefulness in the type of videos that we're talking about here, business videos?

They've come a long way in being accessible to not just the big budgets, but people who want to do this on their own at home. When we play a video in a couple of minutes, you'll see that I'm actually using a gimbal in that. It's just a handheld device. It's not a whole body rig, but it's a simple thing that hooked into my iPhone and then I was able to remove the worry of the jitteriness and my bouncing steps from the video because I was using something that just took care of that for me. But it's really easy to use and I love mine.

Yeah, I think the technology has come a long way with regard to, to gimbals and the ability to stabilize your shot. And again, it used to be reserved only for, again, you know, big-time production, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars productions and that sort of thing, commercials and what have you. And really now there is the ability to buy consumer-grade or prosumer gimbals that allow you to replicate that. So it's really exciting.

Yeah, it helps to set you apart from others who aren't going this extra step. It gives it a little bit of extra polish. It looks like you've spent a lot of money without necessarily having to have spent a lot of money.

Yeah. So as we look at the screen right now, Jason, we're seeing a couple of examples of items that help us to stabilize the shot.

Yeah, and we've got obviously the tripod on your right, the gimbal on your left. And again, when we come out, I've actually got an example of an inexpensive gimbal that you can actually get on the internet. I think I I got mine for $10 and it's kind of neat and we can actually show you how it works.

Do you want to show it right now, Jason, or do you want to wait till the end?

Okay, so I will put on my camera here.

Okay.

This is called a Slingshot. So what it is, is basically like a little camera mount here and it's on a spring so you can put any different type of phone in there and you put your phone in and then you can hold it out like this and it's much more stable than trying to hold it, you know, like with your hand.

Right.

It really is amazing the difference in stability when you use one of these. What I like about this particular model, and there's probably a couple other models that do this as well, it turns into a mini tripod. So there's like two little things that come up, and then you can put that if you want on a desk or a shelf or something else to give you again a bit more stability with that.

Yeah, I'm just gonna shut my— keep carrying on. I'm just gonna go grab my gimbal because I literally have it right here.

So let me grab something else that I can show you as well. I really like this. This is basically a small mount, and again, you can use any phone. The phone actually sort of goes like right in here, and then you can change the angle that the phone shoots at by moving this little thing. But what I really like about this is I use it a lot for my, for my clients when they're, when they're practicing their talks. Because it's obviously very easy to carry. It's extremely stable. You want to put it on a tabletop. Now the challenge is if you're putting it on a tabletop, you're going to be— obviously if you're standing, you're going to be above it. So that's going to look a little strange. You may want to sit down if you want to use this on a table, but you can also use it on a shelf too that's around eye level.

So this is the gimbal, you know, that we just showed a picture of. And how this works basically is you would take your phone. Now in this case, I'm using— I have an iPhone 7. Um, it— I might have to take it out of the case, you know, take the phone out of the case, and then you basically attach it into here. And on the back is basically a little knob that you tighten around the phone, and there you go. You've got your phone cradled inside of this, and you literally walk around with it like this. And you've got— it's like a joystick on the front, and you can pan, you can take pictures and hit record. It's really remarkable and it's a really great piece that you might want to consider investing in. All right, so let me go back to the screen.

So I think lighting is up next.

Oh, hang on a second.

Apparently we're in infinity. Infinity.

Okay, just a minute. What did I do wrong? I know what I did wrong there. Do you see it now?

I'm still seeing infinity. Oh, you're seeing infinity.

Reminds me of our television days, Cheryl, when we'd set up the button and we'd go into infinity. Just a minute.

So Jason, the nice thing with that little bracket that you had, if somebody were to use that, like you said, put it up on a shelf, the little folding one.

Yeah.

So somebody was to put that on a shelf or just slightly above eye line, that's always a little more flattering for people as well to be looking just up a little bit. It helps raise their chin, elongates their neck a touch, as opposed to looking down and creating a less flattering position for them. So that's something to keep in mind when you're using those little tabletop mounts. Because even right now, I like with my laptop, I have it mounted up higher so that it's— I'm not looking down at it. I have a better view.

Are you seeing the screen now without it being in infinity?

Yes, I am.

Good.

Okay, good.

So, so yeah, lots, lots to talk about there in terms of the stability, but it's important because the stability is, again, if it has that shakiness to it, it, you know, it's kind of it can scream amateur and we don't want that. So the stability and it's really inexpensive, it can be inexpensive to accomplish that. It's something worth striving for. When we talk about lighting, this is a place where we get a lot of questions about lighting. There's lots of different ways to utilize lighting and it largely has to do with, with the application and maybe looking at your own individual situation and looking at the strategy around how you what kind of videos you want to make, where you're going to make them, what is going to be the typical scenario in which you're going to be doing video. But when we talk about lighting, we've got soft boxes, which essentially are— and I'll show you some images in a second here— but Cowboy Studios does one. I think Neewer does one. I typically will buy equipment like this on Amazon, but you can also find these types of things from audiovisual shops. You know, locally where you live, but you can go in and ask, you know, for a softbox or a kit, a lighting kit. That's typically what they're going to provide to you or direct you toward. These are lights that have— oh, Karina, what's the word for that, like on the front to diffuse the light?

Right, yeah, this is the softbox screen.

Yeah, on the front. We also have For lighting, you could also go with a ring light. And one of the companies I really like and I'm excited about is Stellar Lighting Systems. And I think it's just stellarlightingsystems.com. They do ring— you can get ring lights on Amazon too, but they're the ones that kind of come to mind. Ring lights are great for people who do a lot of Instagram or if you're doing videos for beauty or makeup and things like that. A ring light, let me just show you what I mean by that. This middle image here is a ring light, and that ring light allows you to, you know, you could have the camera inside the circle so that the light is enveloping the camera, and you can really get a nice effect. It also allows— if it's a, let's say it's a beauty tutorial or makeup tutorial, you have that circular light that reflects from the— in, in the eye, I guess it's in the iris of the eye, helps your eyes kind of sparkle, so it looks kind of cool. You could also go with a portable clip-on LED light like the one I just showed here. This is on the left. This is just a very simple, affordable light that you can use to clip onto your mobile device as an example, or use it in any capacity that you like. The only limitation is that it's a small clip, so you have to be able to clip it onto the item. And then my favorite is just using natural light. And natural light is obviously available to all of us unless you're in a situation where you are, maybe you're in the, you're in the side hustle, you've only got time at night to be creating videos, in which case you might want to look at the option on the right here, which is the soft boxes and using like an actual lighting kit. Karina, do you have anything to say about this?

Yeah, I think having access to those lights makes things very handy. It opens up doors for where you can shoot something creative, especially something that's light and portable like the newer LED kits. Those are really great. They're slim, they're lightweight, they last a long time, and they're really, really popular right now. So I'm sure there's probably some sales happening with them leading into the season. But I think those are pretty exciting because you can Velcro them to the wall, You can put them along your dashboard if you're shooting in the car or Velcro them to the ceiling. They don't necessarily have to be on a stand. They can go in water. They're very, very cool. So lots of options for people who want to get creative.

Now, when it comes to, um, with regard to natural light, which is my personal favorite because it's available, it's free, you know, it's less setup, There's so many advantages to natural light. But I know, Corinna, that you have created a video about how best to determine, you know, the best way to kind of take advantage of natural light, correct?

Right. The one caveat to natural light is we can't control it as much. The sun is just out of reach. So trying to find the way to work with it that makes it more flattering to you I've come up with a video that's proof that anybody can be on camera. So if you think that you're not a superstar, don't let that prevent you from getting in front of the camera. And here's how I show you how to find light that'll help you look better.

To feel more comfortable on camera, it really helps to find yourself some flattering light. But how do you do that? How do you find nice light? You might come across all sorts of mixed light situations— dark shade, high noon sun, dappled shade when you're walking amongst the trees. You want to find something that's smooth and even that will give just a nice cast across your face without causing deep shadows, especially in your eye sockets. I'm going to use the palm of my hand to find where that light falls. I'm going to put it out about the same distance away from where I hold the camera, and then I turn around. As I turn, I can see how the light falls on my hand, whether it's shadow, shade, brightness, mixed light, or something that's a happy medium in between. Once I find that happy spot, that's where I'm going to put my face. I hope this helps you find a comfortable space and a nice flattering light for you to appear on camera. Don't let bad lighting hold you back from getting on camera.

So to give you guys an example of how some of this stuff can work, obviously this is shot outside in natural light. And the other thing was Karina actually used a gimbal. So if you're curious as to how the gimbal can look, that is how it looks. So why don't we look at another aspect of video, which is branding? So Cheryl, I'm not sure if you've got the slide.

You're not seeing it. Sorry. Yeah, every time there's a video I have to go back.

Sorry. I will, I will come back here. So see, I've actually branded here. I've got my little Power Story Master logo, and it's basically just on a little magnetic board behind me, so I can sort of sit here and have it almost look like a little studio that's branded. But here's some other things you can do. You can create a watermark. Now, a watermark is basically a little logo that you're going to have of your company or your name, and the reason it's called a watermark is you can usually see through it. And that means you need— yeah, there we go. So if you see up at the top and in the corner there, Cheryl's got watermarks with her name. And for those of you who don't have a watermark made, you can get your designer, whoever designed your logo, to do the watermark. Or the other thing that you can do that I just found out recently, if you have Apple Keynote, which is basically the Apple version of PowerPoint, there actually is a little tool there so that if you have a picture of your logo, depending on how that picture is, if it's got like a white box around it, Keynote can actually take that out and almost make it look like a watermark. So that might be something that's inexpensive that you can look at. Also, you need to know what your official colors are. So obviously as a brand, you've got brand colors, and you're gonna want to make sure that those colors are are, you know, part of the watermark, part of how you're— part of your slides, and even sometimes for some people how they dress as well. You want to pick up the rest, Cheryl?

Yeah, I mean, I just have a couple more things I want to say about the watermark too. Another sort of hack, you know, to create a watermark, and this is more applicable to someone who may not already have a logo. You can use— there's some really awesome apps that you can use. Let's say Word Swag as an example. You create— now you're limited because you can only use what's available through the app, but you can create like a name logo and then have it save it as a transparent background if you're in a pinch, right? So there's a couple of things that you can do there. But from the color standpoint, yeah, knowing that hex code and knowing your color code so that there's consistency across your branding is a really important thing. Um, when it comes to branding though too in video, You know, you can add some other elements to your videos. You can add photos. You can add other B-roll. In other words, other scene setting video footage within your video, whether you're editing that on your phone or whether you're editing that on your desktop. But these are ways again to, you know, make your videos look great because you're giving more visual interest to the video through photos or other video footage. Couple of places to get photos for free. Unsplash is a really great one, and then on a paid subscription, you can go to Shutterstock. Using text, in other words, you know, lower thirds or keys, you might also hear it referred to as titles. Let me give you an example what we're talking about here. On this screenshot of a video I did in my living room, you can see my name, and then underneath it says Video Marketing Strategist. That's an example of a key or a title that you can put on your videos. So this really helps to elevate the branding aspect of your video and elevate the perceived value of your video, but it also lets people know who you are. It actually serves a practical purpose. What's your name again? Uh, yeah. So, you know, you really want to look at ways to incorporate the branding because that is something that really can help you really help your videos look great. Back to the first one, I talk— we're talking about the watermark. In this case, I actually have a watermark on both. I have two of them because this was a video that was on YouTube, and I had it set up so that my watermark is automatically included on all my videos that I upload on YouTube. But I also, through the process of doing this video, I also had the ability to brand it at the top. So there's different ways that you can do that, but the branding elements in and of themselves are are important and really great way to make your videos look great. So we can take questions. How are we doing for time, guys? We have about 7 minutes. 7 minutes, yeah. So we're, we're in a position here where we can take some questions. I'm going to bring us back out on screen.

While we're waiting, I actually have one more thing to show people. So we're talking about lighting And I'm actually being lit with a softbox right now. I've actually got a place that doesn't really have a lot of natural light in a strategic way that I can use. So right now I'm pretty much all lit up just with a softbox. And the type of light that I'm using are these, which are basically CFL photography type bulbs. I think these ones are 85 watts. They have the standard bulb thread on them, so depending on the, the fixture you're using. It could be 2 lights. I think I've got 5 or 6 lights here and then a softbox over it just to kind of make it a little less, less harsh. But it actually does a pretty good job as long as you've got it, you know, close enough and it's powerful enough. And obviously if you can supplement it with natural light, sometimes that helps too.

Yeah, I mean, I have, I have a softbox. I have 3 of them as part of a kit that I purchased, but The truth is I rarely use 3, maybe never actually. I, uh, sometimes use 2 and more often just use 1, you know. Even for my Facebook Live videos, I do them from my kitchen. I have 1 softbox pretty much behind the camera or close to the camera, and it's, it's really plenty because there are the 5— mine has, I think, 5 or 6 bulbs in it that you can choose to trigger individually or as a whole. It's a lot of light. You're It's blind, right? So you can really get away with one light if you really wanted to.

It is, and then with the fabric that comes over it, it smooths the light out nicely so you don't get a lot of harsh shadows. What are your thoughts on this, Karina? You're sort of the lighting expert.

Well, I'm sitting in front of a large window, so my light today is totally natural light, and I find I like it because the color balance of that light just seems to work really well with the camera on my laptop. Now I think if somebody was planning to do their keynote video, you know, like a cornerstone piece of video to go on their website that would have evergreen content, that's when you bring out all the stops. And if you don't have that gear, work with somebody who has the gear and knows how to use it. So when you have a key light, which is your main light coming in, a little bit of a fill light to take the shadows off the other side, Something that's really nice, the hair light. So it's something that comes in behind and gives the little rim, a little glow to set your shoulders and your hair apart from the background. Those are things that elevate a video to go from, you know, done at home to done well. And that can make people really sit up and take notice that it looks like you've invested in your messaging. So I think if you wanted to do something that had longevity, go for that. And then certainly when you're doing the Facebook Lives and you're doing something impromptu, just get the content out there. It doesn't always have to be so perfect, but using a couple of those little tips that we showed today, it'll really elevate you from everybody else trying to do the same thing.

You know, it actually ties back to, I think, episode 1 where we were talking about, you know, the signature video and how, you know, a signature video is an example of what you were just talking about, Karina, where you may want to invest in that. You really want to pull out all the stops and go that extra mile because of the ability to have more longevity and it's more evergreen and a lot of people are going to see it. So we really want to maybe invest in the time and energy it would take to do those things. But when it comes to personality videos and other types of words like fast and quick that kind of thing, you know, setting up a 3-point, 5-point lighting system is not going to work. So it's again using some of the other tools that we've talked about to really help facilitate that.

So yeah, Jason, I think you'll all agree too that there's something about the production value, having good production values, having good light, even if it's not— people aren't conscious of why they like it, subconsciously they're taking in all of this information that either suggests that you are professional or maybe you're less professional. So it's not just about your content. You want to make that content look good because that's the mark of someone who's professional. If you're going to do that signature video again, if you're doing a Facebook Live or something like that, you have a little bit more leeway.

Yeah, and it's You know, it's the thing like I often talk about perceived value, right? And doing things like what we've talked about here, the branding, the lighting, just, you know, having a watermark. They're simple things, but they add up. And they add up to a higher perceived value of the video. And then of course, we talk about the content. So it's really a powerhouse type of strategy. If you've got a really powerful message that's completely on target with your audience and you're really resonating with them, and then you layer on top of that a higher video production quality, you've got yourself a winning combination. Don't you guys agree?

Absolutely.

Yeah, it definitely becomes something that people will want to share with somebody else too. Look at this great video. And there's, there are those things that you just can't put your finger on. Why do I like this so much? And you're right. But it's nice and clean, and I think when we do get to the point where we're talking about audio, that's another component where people just can't figure out what it is, whether they like it or not, and sometimes it comes down to the audio. So I look forward to our conversations about that.

Yeah, and that's a good point. I mean, we really tried to— and again, this is something that we were trying to do with every one of our— my son's poking around here— with every one of our webinars. Our web series trainings is that we want to keep— stay super focused. And this was a super focus on the video, but we are going to be— the look of it. Then there's the sound of it. That's a whole other thing. And we intend to do another training on that as well. So let me bring back my screen and then we will— let's see, do we have something for people to do as well?

Take action.

There we go. Yeah, there we go. So episode 5 is going to focus on how to overcome stage fright.

Woo!

Woo!

It's very scary. How to overcome stage fright and be powerful and authentic on camera. And we're gonna bring that training to you on December 28th. You can go to Great Business Videos. Well, you're already registered, but if you have friends or family or someone in business who you think could really benefit from this free training, please send them to greatbusinessvideos.com. There's a simple sign-up page there where they can sign up and get all of the previous episodes of our series as well as the future ones too. So you'll get the entirety of the series. So we want you to take action, right, Jason?

Absolutely. We always have to make sure we're in some sort of action. Knowing stuff really doesn't really do anything for us unless we do it. So here's what we want you to do. We would love for you to record and publish a video using natural light. And think about the video that Corinna did in finding the best natural light for you. You can also use the hashtag #greatbusinessvideos when you post it online and email us a link. Let us know that you've used us, that you have used this, and tag us on social media as well. And we might even feature you in an upcoming show.

Exactly. And feel free In the interim, to contact us, we reply to all emails and we would love to be of service to you if you have any questions about storytelling, about video, the technology, the messaging, marketing, you want to talk about production, you want to talk about what have you. We're here to answer those questions for you. Here are the emails: jason@powerstorymaster.com, cheryl@cherylplouffe.com, and Karina at linebystudio.com. Karina is with a K. And we really appreciate the time you've spent with us watching this training today. And be sure to join us on the next one on December 28th, where we're gonna be really kind of diving into, again, more about stage fright and how to become powerful and authentic on camera. Thank you so much for watching today and have a fantastic day.

Thank you.

Bye! Bye!

Bye!

That was a bye from Brody under the desk.