If you are a freelancer you most likely have your own website
where you showcase your wares. Whether it is a service you offer, a showcase of
your talents, or an actual product, video is a great way to engage your
clients.
Video allows you to
get more personal, it allows you to speak to us one-on-one, and is known to
hold the viewer’s attention a bit longer than a page full of text. And because
of the few barriers to entry, today producing your own video is easier and
cheaper than ever. So, you already have a camera and maybe you’ve started
making videos…but are they good videos?
Here are five of the
biggest mistakes newbies make with their videos and how to correct these
missteps.
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1. Not Knowing Your
Focus
Truly the most
important part of any video is the story. Do you have a focus? What is it?
Don’t feel like you have to tell us everything in one video. Each video you
produce should have one clear-cut message. If you can’t decide, then break it
down and make several different videos, each with its own focus.
2. Not Using an
External Mic
Perhaps more important
than good-looking video, is good-sounding video. Without sound, a video is a
lifeless bit of moving pictures. Audio brings us in, it makes us feel as if we
are there. And nothing says, amateurish video, like bad sound.
If you are doing
interviews, or just speaking into the camera yourself, please use an external
clip microphone and not the internal mic on the camera. When you just use the
camera’s mic, you are left with all the ambient sound of the room, whereas with
a clip-on mic, you get cleaner sound directly from your subject.
3. Not Using a
Tripod
Want your video to
remind us of dad’s home movies? Then don’t use a tripod. Intentional movement
is one thing, but overly shaky video screams unprofessional and distracts the
viewer from what you are trying to convey.
Invest in a video
tripod (one that can hold the weight of your video camera). If you don’t have
one yet, put your video camera on something sturdy and horizontal like a
bookshelf, or the ground (obviously not good for interviews), or, if you must,
hold it as still as you can.
4. Using Too Much
Camera Movement
So even if you have a
tripod, you might still be ‘camera move’ happy. Use pans, tilts, and zooms
sparingly. Our eyes don’t see real life this way, so you should mostly avoid
it. You should use action within your shots (moving subjects) to create
movement, not the camera itself.
5. Not Shooting for
‘the Edit’
To make life easier
for yourself, only press that red record button when your shot is locked down,
focused, and composed. Often times, amateur videographers start rolling and
then check their focus and start re-jiggering their shot.
Even though, 99% are
now shooting digitally, and therefore not ‘wasting film’ like the olden days,
it is still a waste of your time and memory space. Even more importantly, when
it comes time to edit, all of your shots are solid and will be useable. You
won’t spend hours sifting through shaky, out-of-focus clips and can get right
down to the business of being creative.
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