So you’re about to do a presentation…and it’s going to be filmed. So what are you going to wear, look, say, do — PANIC? Don’t worry, this quick checklist of do’s and don’ts has got you covered!

1. Sound

To get professional quality sound for the video you really need a radio microphone that clips on to your collar, tie or jacket. This microphone has a wire that is run under your shirt (to hide the cable) to a transmitter which clips onto the back of your belt. The audio signal is then sent wirelessly to a reciever on the video camera. For webcam or smart phone presentations the sound quality is often OK as long as you are quite close to the built in microphone on the device. This sound quality can however usually be improved (in some cases dramatically) by connecting a better quality radio or wired lapel (lavier) microphone to the recording device.

2. Clothes

The best type of clothes to wear are ones that have a button up shirt, blouse or jacket (for the clip on radio mic) as well as trousers or skirt with a waist belt or pocket (for the microphone transmitter). For a woman that is wearing a dress, the transmitter can also be clipped onto the back of the neck collar, if no other option is available. Don’t wear any noisy jewellery e.g. jangly necklaces and charm bracelets. Turn off your mobile phone (unless it is your recording device:) The best colours to wear are solid colours because thin stripes can sometimes strobe on camera. Dark colours are also good to hide the mic.The worst colour to wear on camera is bright white as this can over expose in certain lighting conditions. Green is also an essential colour to avoid on any part of your clothing if green screen background replacement is being used, even in video confence programs such as Zoom.

3. Lights 

Professional looking video is generally achieved by adding extra light to the subject. Lighting is not only used to control the camera’s exposure but also to give the subject more shape and to separate them from the background. A Three Point Lighting standard is often used with a Key, Fill and Back light combination. The Key light is placed higher and slightly to one side of the presenter and aimed directly at them. The key light usually represents where the main source of natural light will come from eg a window. The Fill light will then add a softer light to the other side of the person’s face to soften any harsh shadows created by the key light. A back light is then added from behind the subject to highlight their hair and shoulders. Sometimes a fourth light may also be added to highlight a feature in the background. The subject should not however have a strong light such as a window directly behind them otherwise they will look dark and backlit.

4. Structure

A good presentation has a well thought out start, middle and end. It’s also good to throw in some personal stories as well to engage your audience with something that they can relate to. For longer presentations where a lot of detailed information needs to be conveyed eg online training material, an auto cue (teleprompter) can be used to scroll the script in front of the camera. These are commonly used by TV presenters. A DIY autocue can also be setup with your smartphone controlling the text scrolling speed on an Ipad or tablet.

5. Slides

Presentation slides such as PowerPoint can help you to stay on topic and keep your story moving in the right direction. Even if you are doing a virtual screenshare of your presentation  there’s still no excuse to not use an on-brand template. Don’t overcrowd your slides with text either. You can find lots of high quality free images at unsplash.com to liven up your presentation. PowerPoint presentations that are set up as 16:9 widescreen are best for use in the video. If you need help in setting up a professionally branded PowerPoint template go to www.upsidedown.com.au

6. Practice

The number one tip for presenting is to rehearse your presentation. Practice your talk as much as possible. Test it out in front of a friend. You can also film yourself doing a rehearsal on your phone. Play it back to see how smooth it looks and sounds.

7. Getting Ready

If presenting at a live event you should arrive early so that you can have a good look at setup. Generally, you will be able to move around on stage but not very far. Be conscious of not walking in front of the projector screen. Make sure that your microphone is turned on and that you’ve got the PowewrPoint slide clicker. If you are presenting at a virtual event then check your computer settings in advance to ensure that you don’t have any last minute technical disasters. Of course if you do then keep calm and try not to get to flustered. Keep smiling and get back in control as quickly as you possibley can.

8. Passion 

Make a conscious effort to put as much energy and enthusiasm into your talk as possible. If you’re not excited about your story, then your audience won’t be either. Speak clearly and precisely. Make eye contact with the people in the audience and take them on an amazing journey.

9. Call to Action 

What’s the most important thing that you want people to do after they’ve watched your talk? Make this your clear call to action at the end.

10. Q&A 

It’s usually best to hold off from answering any audience questions until after you’ve finished your presentation. When you do answer questions you should rephrase the question back into your answer. E.g. How does X work? X works like this…

11. Editing 

If you make a mistake during your presentation it can usually be fixed in post (during the editing). So just relax, compose yourself and pick up again from where you left off. Remember that you are the expert on your particular topic. Enjoy sharing your knowledge with your new audience.

If you need help with the professional filming or editing of a live event or presentation, call Danny from All Angles Video Productions in Sydney on +61 (0)2 9411 4548.

1. Create entertaining, interesting & fun videos!

Content marketing videos are a great way to position yourself as the industry leader. Create a series of videos about business topics that you are knowledgeable about. (Make sure that they are things that your target audience will be interested in too!) Offer some tips, tricks and advice that will stand you out as the go-to expert in your market. Look for an interesting angle. Be professional but try not to act too serious (to the point of boring) and have some fun:)

What type of video style is right for your business? Check out our explainer video.

2. Make professionally branded videos.

Do you attend a business meeting in stylish clothes? Do you use professionally branded business cards and other presentation material? Why should your videos look any less loved and cared for? These videos are ambassadors for your organisation, working hard 24/7 in a global marketplace. Treat them with respect.

As a minimum your videos should have good camera composition, lighting and sound. Check your corporate brand guidelines for the correct use of logos, font, images and colours too. Shooting on green-screen lets you add a custom branded background in the editing. We provide a Mobile Green Screen Studio option in Sydney for many of our clients at All Angles Video.

Looking for ideas and inspiration? Check out our 2019 Video Showreel.

3. Set-up a business YouTube channel.

Think of YouTube as your corporate branded TV channel. YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine in the world, and is owned by Google (who we all know is No1), so spend some time on setting up your channel properly with your logo, branding and business description. Here’s a couple of other quick tips below about playlists and keyword;

(a) You can group your videos together into playlists to make them easier to find and share.
(b) Add strong keywords to your title and description to make them search engine friendly.
(c) Share your YouTube channel and video links on your website, social media and blogs.

Check out how we’ve set-up our YouTube channel for UpsideDownTV.

4. Embed videos on your website and landing pages.

Every business should have videos on their website and landing pages to promote and explain their brand. You can also put different videos on each section of your website to showcase the range of products and services that you provide. Host your videos on YouTube (great for SEO) or Vimeo (add free) and use the embed codes to showcase them on your website.

Case study videos and customer testimonials videos are very powerful ways to tell your story and provide social proof by letting your customers tell their story and recommend what they value most about your products and services.

According to Nielsen, 92% of people will trust a recommendation from their peers and 70% of people will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know.

5. Upload your videos to Facebook.

You can post your YouTube video links on Facebook to take people to your Youtube channel but you should also upload your videos directly to Facebook as well. The reason for this is that your Facebook videos will then autoplay in peoples facebook feeds where as the YouTube video link will only show up as a still image and link. Facebook also favours showing video more often than just text and images so your Facebook videos will reach more people too in both organic and also paid boosted posts. Facebook videos are however shown without audio as default until you click on them so it is also worthwhile to add subtitles or other key text to your videos too.

Of course you can post videos to your personal Facebook Page but you should also set up Facebook business pages too. You should also check out relevant Facebook groups or even start your own.

6. Create vertical videos for Insta.

Instagram TV (IGTV) has arrived and is already changing the video landscape. IGTV lets you upload your videos as widescreen (1920 x 1080 pixels) but the new trend for video now on Instagram TV is portrait (1080 x 1920 pixels) because that’s how we all hold out phones as standard. Of course this does create a challenge (from a video production point of view) when trying to make and re-purpose videos for use on multiple social channels. For this reason advance planning of your video shooting style in relation to social media channel distibution is now even more important than ever because different shots will work better in landscape than in portrait and you will also lose quality if trying to convert from one aspect ratio to the other in post production.

On the plus side Instagram TV now offers brands the chance to integrate text, images and longer videos together more seemlessly on the one platform. IGTV also lets you now upload video directly from your laptop or desktop rather than previously just from your phone or tablet. Hopefully this new upload feature will roll out across the whole of Instagram as this is definitely a game changer for us!

7. Add video to your Linkedin profile.

You can embed and upload video to your Linked in profile, posts and articles. You can also create Linkedin pages for company and services and add videos to your posts here as well. The potential to use video on Linked in is currently very under utilised by most companies and organisations so there is a big opportunity here to get ahead of your competition in this fast growing social media space. (See image below how I’ve embedded videos into the about section on my Linkedin profile).

8. Use video in your email signature, newsletters, blogs etc.

It’s not really rocket science that you can (and should) insert your video links everywhere you can. With so much social media going on these days it’s getting harder to cut through the static. The good news is that you can multi-purpose your videos in different ways including audio and text excerpts too.

This blog itself is also a good example of how you can easily link to different videos on your website, YouTube channel, Facebook pages, Vimeo, LinkedIn, Instagram and more. “Google my business” is an important one to check out too.

Of course you can also track and measure your video’s effectiveness on most social platforms. Mailchimp is a great free resource for sending custom branded newsletters. Not only that, it also shows you exactly who opens your email newsletter, how many times and what links they actually clicked on. Videos gets much higher click through rates than images and text alone however many people still won’t click on your video link regardless of how good you think it is. Test and measure with different copy and thumbnails (also try animated gifs) to improve the overall success of your online marketing campaigns.

 

9. Show videos on your phone, tablet or laptop.

Do you show videos on your phone to family and friends? You can do the same In a business environment with your promotional videos. The main thing to consider (apart from keeping your videos short, entertaining and relevant) is that the sound may not be as easy to hear in a noisy environment like a cafe. For this reason showing edited videos that have strong visual elements and supportive text or subtitles may help keep your audience more interested and entertained. The strength of your video to maintain an audience without sound is worth considering anyway because Facebook and Instagram play videos without sound as the default before you click.

Perhaps the best thing though about showing people your videos face to face is that you can get instant feedback plus you get the chance to ask questions and provide extra information about your products and services. With a bit of luck you may even close the deal:)

10. Turn short videos into animated gifs.

We love animated gifs but they only work for short videos without sound eg a video screen recording of an online process. Something visual (can include animated text) that will work well in a loop. We use animated gifs on our website to attract attention because they automatically play in a loop on all browsers including mobiles.

11. Solve people’s problems with your videos!

As a general rule talk about the main business problems that you solve and how your service helps your customers achieve this. Don’t forget to put a call to action at the end of your videos. There’s no point in telling people that you can solve their problem if they don’t know where to find you.

If you would like help in creating professional on-brand videos for your organisation please email us or visit www.upsidedown.com.au

This article was written by Danny Vandine who is a Director at All Angles Video in Sydney, Australia.

Here’s something I hear a lot – it’s only for YouTube so quality doesn’t matter, people are used to watching poor quality videos on YouTube now anyway.

Yes, it’s true – for animals and kids caught in funniest home video style moments. If something is funny, unusual or interesting enough then people will generally put up with poor quality sound and a shaky camera to have a good laugh. Does this mean that we should represent ourselves and our business in this amateur way too? Of course not.

If you are a business and you want a video to represent your brand, then the video should:   a) be an enjoyable professional looking experience for your customers to watch;   b) have a clear and concise purpose and reason for being.

Professionalism, after all, is what we aim for in every area of business – from logo design through to all other levels of business marketing and customer & staff communications.

Video is one of the most powerful branding, marketing and communication tools available today. In some cases it is even better than being there in person because it can deliver a scripted, structured, emotional and targeted message – perfect every time, 24/7 and essentially for free via the internet.

But there is no such thing as a free lunch. You get what you pay for. At the end of the day you must invest either time or money to get worthwhile results.

Video production like any other trade is a skill that is learned over time. As a professional TV cameraman and editor for over 20 years, I am amazed by how much there still is to learn. If you have the time then I encourage you to immerse yourself in it – it’s an interesting and fun industry. If you don’t have the time to invest to get the job done right, then hire a professional.

This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money to get a high quality production. Videos come in all shapes and sizes and production companies are generally pretty versatile in finding creative ways to suit most styles of filming, editing and budgets accordingly. We know our own limitations, too – for some elements like motion graphics, voice-over or music composition, for example, I turn to other experts from our team to work on these elements of the overall production if required.

If you need help in producing a custom branded video for your business, call Danny from All Angles Video on +61 2 9411 4548.

There are many variables depending on the type of message, style and complexity of production that you are wanting to create.

Amazing images can be filmed on your iphone these days but their is so much more to the art of film making than simply pushing the record button to point and shoot.

You can save money of course by writing the basic script and presenting it to camera yourself. In some cases we recommend this as a good starting point, however most corporate videos also require a number of different setups, points of view, workplace cutaways, motion graphics, music, etc. In this case an experienced production company, that can oversee the entire production process from script to screen, will generally be invaluable – but these costs all need to be factored into the budget.

To keep costs down for many web videos we often work with a streamlined crew of just 2 video professionals who are versatile in the skills of directing, camera, lighting and sound. Sometimes however other specialist people and equipment are also needed, e.g. multi-camera or steadycam, make-up artists, autocue.

Don’t underestimate editing time, too – it often takes longer than you might expect. For every day of actual filming it can sometimes take 2 or more days to fine tune and complete the editing process. Motion graphics and animation (if required) can also have an impact on the overall time and budget.

As a general rule, web video is becoming more and more affordable due to advances in technology, but you still need experienced people to get the job done right. As a ball park guide you can expect to pay from around $900 per edited minute for short promotional style videos. Of course this changes for longer form projects and we will quote you an exact cost once we have your specific brief.

Video is probably the most effective on-line marketing tools available today. It rates extremely highly in Google. It can represent your on-line brand and personality as your virtual sales force 24/7. Video will increase your conversion rates dramatically if created with the right targeted messages and call to action in mind.

How much is it worth to have a professionally branded video on your website? Only you can put a true value on that. If you need help in producing a custom branded video for your business, call Danny from All Angles Video on +61 2 9411 4548.