Discover expert advice and practical tips for shooting and editing high-quality videos without breaking the bank. From equipment choices to editing techniques, learn how to produce professional-looking content on a budget.
Understanding Lighting
How is the lighting on your videos? Do you need more information on which type of lighting is efficient for your production? Understand which lighting is cost-effective, energy-efficient, and flexible for your video creation needs. In this clip from our video content course, we dive deep into the uses of these types of lighting: Tungsten, HMI, Fluorescent, and our recommended LED lights.
Read This First Before Creating a Video Marketing Strategy
Technology continues to rise, with marketers implementing strategies that work best for their company. One of these strategies is video marketing. About 76% of businesses who use this strategy recorded an increase in traffic due to video and 78% of people watch online videos every week, according to Report42. So what can you do with video marketing? Well, if you’ve got an idea in mind for a video for your company, then you’re one step closer to your video marketing strategy.
As you create a video marketing strategy, focus on the purpose of the video, who it’s going to, and how you’ll measure the success of the video. For starters, your target audience plays a special role in your videos. Create a buyer persona that specifies what the audience needs, wants, and has questions about. Not only will this help you create content that is catered to them but will also give you plenty of ideas. The next step is to define your video marketing goals. Setting measurable clear goals such as increasing brand awareness or an email list, will guide you and hold you accountable when reviewing the video outcomes.
During the planning stage of your strategy, you need to think about if you plan on spending any money on video creation. Your budget depends greatly on the type of videos you want to create and your video schedule frequency. It’s important to consider whether the video and the content fall in line with your customer buyer journey, whether you choose to create a demo, how-to, animated, or combination video. Consider the ultimate reason why you’re creating videos. If you’re creating videos as part of a campaign or as part of a regular content strategy, then decide if hiring a video production team, freelancing, or creating videos yourself is ideal for your strategy. Overall, choose a video type that aligns with your budget, business, and target audience.
Once the video is uploaded, it’s time to measure your video’s performance. Keep these metrics in mind as you review your own metrics:engagement rate, view count, likes and comments, and conversion growth.Reviewing these key metrics will help you determine if you need to adjust your strategy to meet your business goals. For more useful statistics on how video marketing is essential for your business,view the article below. The cats out of the bag when it comes to this video marketing strategy. Now it’s up to you to d’s out of the bag when it comes to this video marketing strategy. Now it’s up to you to decide what you want to do with it.
Credit: Written by Mila Bera 6 key tips to consider when creating a video marketing strategy [Infographic]
Lesser-Known Video Production Costs
As a filmmaker, knowing what expenses you may incur along your production process; can financially prepare you for any emergencies you may have. Overlooking these costs can affect your cast, crew, and your overall production. Do you know that these costs have just the same amount of importance as costs directly related to your video production? If you didn’t know, we have a list of the 6 lesser-known video production costs you should be aware of.
Just about everyone knows that video production is expensive. Of course, there is a huge range, from Hollywood movies with hundreds of millions of dollars to indie films with just several thousand or even hundred dollars. But no matter what it is, a high-quality production’s expenses will add up fast. For brand new filmmakers, it can be overwhelming when unexpected expenses grind their production to a screeching halt. We’re here to help you learn some of those lesser-known video production costs.
1. Food Costs. It may seem simple that people need to eat, but food costs for the cast and crew are very often overlooked. Especially for shoots that may take all day and be physically demanding, the cost of food can take up a substantial part of a production’s budget. People should get breaks to eat every few hours so everyone is able to work to their full potential.
2. Transportation. Transportation may be almost a non-factor for a skeleton crew with little equipment. But if you have a fair amount of people and equipment, transportation will not just take up time, but money as well. You may even have to get rental vehicles or trailers to transport equipment from set to set.
3. Post-Production. If you edit your production yourself, post costs will be virtually non-existent. But if you don’t edit it yourself, you’ll need to hire an editor. If you want special effects, you’ll need to hire someone for that. You may also have to hire other people that specialize in areas such as audio editing and colour grading.
4. Re-Shoots. Sometimes in the process of post-production, you find a continuity error, or don’t like how a line was delivered, or something along those lines. If that happens, you may decide you want to re-shoot a shot, multiple shots, or even whole scenes. This means hiring the cast and crew needed for the re-shoot, as well as acquiring the necessary shooting location and equipment.
5. Marketing. Of course you want people to see your production after it’s finally completed. But if you aren’t well known, or even if you are, you’ll have to make sure people know about your production. This will require marketing it. For smaller indie films, marketing consists largely of word-of-mouth marketing, but for Hollywood movies, marketing costs often match that of the actual production costs.
6. Copyright. While it’s not exactly the most fun part of production, establishing a copyright for you film is crucial to protect it from people stealing it and using it for their own profit. Perhaps the most infamous example of a movie without copyright is Night of the Living Dead. George Romero’s classic zombie flick didn’t hold a copyright for decades, and so showed up in countless other movies. It’s very important to make sure the same doesn’t happen to your production.
6 Tips to Lower Video Production Costs in 2019
Are your videos costing you more money than you can afford? Do you feel restricted to the videos you can make due to your budget? Do you feel excited by a video idea but realize you may go over budget? Your videos don’t have to be expensive to produce. Follow our six simple tips to help you lessen your video production costs!
#1 - Know what type of video you are making. Before you even start producing, or even writing the script for your video, know exactly what feel you want to go for, based on your target audience and what message you are trying to get across. If you want a sleek, high quality video, you will have to raise your expectations for costs. But, if you want a more personal, folksy video, then you can certainly get away with lower production costs.
#2 - Plan, plan, plan. The saying: “Time is money” has never been more true than with video production. If you are renting equipment or hiring any actors, crew, etc., the longer you take to produce your video, the more expensive the final product will be. Try to shave off time with actual filming by making sure your actors are practiced and familiar with the material before you get any footage. Make sure you have a fairly strict schedule so no unexpected costs will sneak up on you.
#3 - Shoot locally. Many Hollywood films nowadays are shot in studios that increase the costs of production. Unless you actually need to film in a studio or specific location, shooting locally could lower transportation and location renting costs. Before filming, however, make sure you are actually able to film in the locations you want, to avoid any legal trouble.
#4 - Hire amateur talent. Professional actors and actresses can ramp up production costs, and are not always needed for lower budget videos. Use advertisements online to find someone locally or even someone within your own company who is familiar with your product or service.
#5 - Do things yourself. But only if you feel comfortable doing so. Especially if you are doing a more amateur video, you do not need to hire professional writers, camera operators, editors, etc. This point really only applies if you feel you can do a good job at any of the aspects of filmmaking. If your video requires only basic camera work and editing, do it yourself. Hire only crew in areas that you feel you are not component enough in.
#6 - Rent Equipment. Buying equipment takes a lot of money and isn’t always necessary. Unless you are going to be using the equipment consistently for video production, renting equipment is a more viable option for one-time productions. Rent locally if possible, as this can also lower costs.