Search Marketing Insomniac…The Blog of Adam Henige

Since I’ve been doing some video work lately, I figured it would be time to come back with another installment of the ever popular (at least by Google Analytics standards) HTMYVTDS series. The topic of today’s ridiculously acronymed segment? Post production. Thus far we’ve covered lighting, audio recording and framing, so once you’ve gotten those topics down, the last item to tackle is post production. There are some basic fundamentals that you’ll want to know as you begin any editing project, as it can be very easy to make editing mistakes that can ruin an otherwise worthy production.

• Jump cuts. Jump cuts are bad. Very bad. And nothing will make your video look more amateur than jump cuts. What are jump cuts, you ask?  Jump cuts are when a stationary camera cuts to the same shot with the subject(s) at a slightly different location.  Imagine if you cut out random sentences when someone was talking.  Their position would change and they would appear to twitch or “jump” around the screen.  This looks bad.  Very bad.  To avoid this, you can shoot with more than one camera and cut between them.  When this isn’t an option, it can help to change your camera shots frequently between tighter and looser shots.  This can provide the appearance of multiple cameras.Here’s a pretty good video covering these topics…although the guy is admittedly a bit weird, his points are nonetheless valid:

• Since that’s not always an option either, the best editing solution can be dip to color edits, or using b-roll.  If you have footage that covers the topic of conversation that you can briefly cut away to when the subject is talking, this works well, and is often what’s done in TV news.  When that’s not an option a simple dip to color dissolve of 1 second or less will give the viewer the impression of a change in time, but not jar them visually.  We do this regularly when we cut up talking head videos.
• Fix your audio.  Yes, you may have mic’d and mixed your footage well, but the very nature of the human voice will require you to do some fixing 99% of the time if you want quality audio.  Whether it’s the movement of the person or the peaks and valleys of their intensity, the audio will fluctuate, and it’s your job to even things out in editing to avoid highs becoming distortion and lows becoming inaudible.  Find a happy medium level that exports well and try to minimize the peaks and valleys where necessary.  I find that -6db works well as a midpoint for my work in Final Cut Pro.Music beds.  Be careful with them.  I know YOU may like the tune you have under the subject, but unless it’s more important than what they’re talking about, keep it to a dull roar.  -20 or less is probably safe, but give it a few listens to make sure you’re not muddying up the audio of a speaker.  For intro and outro music, make sure you drop to these levels while someone is talking and gently fade in and out.  Don’t be afraid to extend out those fades either.  Often the pre packaged transsitions are only one or two seconds, which is an awfully fast rise or fall in volume.  Stretch it out to 4 seconds or beyond for a nice smooth intro and outro.
• LAY OFF THE  CRAZY EFFECTS.  I know your fancy new editing program can do spins, slides and wipes and page peels and I’m sure your mother will be impressed.  But nothing will make a good production look worse than overdoing it with cheesy effects.  Quick question.  When was the last time you saw someone use one of the aforementioned effects in a movie?  A TV show?  Any professional video production?  Rarely to never.  Stick with the basics - cuts and dissolves (and don’t overdo these, either!)  Simpsons fans may remember Homer’s fascination with the star wipe, and you will also know that his producing career fizzled rather quickly.

Don't pull a Homer

We just made it past the one year mark.  The day in the office was pretty uneventful to be honest, but I couldn’t help but reflect on all of the things that happened in our first year of business, and the lessons I’ve learned.  To steal a cliche I used in my final weeks at Xerox, I’ll break things down Clint Eastwood style, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

The Good

• My business partner is a brilliant guy, and a lot of fun to work with.  I couldn’t imagine taking this plunge with anyone else, and Joe has been critical in our success thus far, his networking and presentation skills have been on display all over Michigan.  There’s a reason I call him the mayor, after all.
• Our interns.  It started out with a lone intern last summer, and we’ve had a stream of them come through since then and they’ve been eager learners and a real asset to our output.
• Our partners.  Another huge reason for our success thus far has been our partners.  They’ve fueled our growth by partnering on projects (and in the case of GreenLite, they even built our new site!)  This past Thursday we invited everyone out to Claddagh’s for food and drink, and we had a good showing, and more importantly, a good time!
• Getting involved.  We’ve been very fortunate to be able to join so many great associations and organizations locally, which has allowed us to share our input and get some positive exposure.  We’ve taken part in presentations everywhere from Mason High School to Lansing Rotary, and enjoyed working with organizations like the South Lansing Business Association, Meridian Area Business Association, Capitol Area IT Council, Mid Michigan Red Cross, and the Creative Alliance (I’m sure I’m forgetting some, sorry in advance!)
• Our clients.  We wouldn’t have made it very far without them, and some of our earliest clients have continued referring even more business to us.  It took a bit of a leap of faith to climb on board with a new company, and our clients have been wonderful partners working with us to make our services succeed for them.
• Our new digs.  We moved from a tiny office in Okemos to 1,800 square feet next door to Capitol Research Services in East Lansing, which will allow us plenty of room to grow.
• The media.  Just today Spotlight Michigan stopped by to do a feature on us, and we’ve also received great press from the Great Lakes IT Report, Capital Gains, the Lansing State Journal and more.  The coverage has helped create awareness for our business, and the back links have been a big help to our SEO efforts (so if you want to feature us more often, just ask!)

The Bad

• The economy.  While the economy wasn’t on an upswing last May when we started Netvantage, we just didn’t foresee what started in late 2008.  Many a sleepless night happened late into 2008 as we wondered if we’d get undercut by the floundering economy.
• Learning as you go.  Truth be told, we have been pretty lucky in that we haven’t made any catastrophically stupid mistakes.  Thanks to some advice from our accounting consultant Andy Azelton, as well as some sage advice from friends and colleagues, we’ve steered clear of tragedy when it could have been all too easy to sink our ship.  That said, we definitely would change some things if we started over - client acquisition strategy and streamlining our early advertising amongst others.

The Ugly

• Perhaps the best part of this post is that there really hasn’t been an ugly stage to this past year.  Leaving a great job to start my own company in the teeth of a recession still sounds insane, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  You only live once (depending on your religion, I suppose) and this was something that I just had to do.  2009 has been exceptional to Netvantage so far, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

For anyone who’s been involved in our successes thus far, my most sincere thanks.  If it weren’t for all of you, we really wouldn’t be where we are today.

Well, today I had the honor of being co-emcee of the PACE Awards and it was truly a wonderful experience.  The CMPRSA honored the best public relations campaigns and tactics from the many great agencies in Mid-Michigan.  There was a great turnout, and it was my first chance to meet a lot of these people who have put in such time and effort in promoting causes that improve the lives of so many of us in Mid-Michigan.  The agencies behind Prop 2, a variety of enforcement acts, the City Market and so many more were honored for their fine work in community relations, crisis communications and B2B campaigns among others.

There was a definite air of excitement, and it was made that much more fun by my co-emcee Julielyn Gibbons, who was having fun with the event from the moment I walked in and seemed to know everyone in the room.  That was a big help for a relative newcomer such as myself.  Being co-emcee also got me a great seat up front and I had a chance to sit with some of the day’s big winners, including Anne Readette and Kendall Wingrove.  Also at my table were members of the Michigan State PRSSA team that made the finals of the Bateman competition.

To say I was surrounded by talented people would be a major understatement.  It was a lot of fun to be a part of, and as if to prove the 2.0 theme of the event, @netvantage had added a bevy of followers before I even left the parking garage at the Kellogg Center.  The award for the quickest add?   The Rossman Group’s own Kelly Rossman McKinney!  One more award to add to the collection the Rossman Group pulled in.

Anyhow, I just felt like summing up the day’s events, as it really was a pleasure to take part in it.  In particular, thanks to Amber Shinn for approaching us to get involved with the event.  I’m already expanding the Netvantage Twitter circle, and if anyone feels like following me directly, you can find me on my personal account @AdamHenige.

So far we have covered the importance of audio and proper framing techniques in our HTMYVTDS series (I really need to work on that acronym), and today we’re going to tackle what is often the most difficult issue for aspiring videographers - lighting.  Many an otherwise acceptable video has been ruined by shoddy lighting, and today’s aim is to arm you with enough practical lighting knowledge to keep things looking sharp.

First thing’s first, you’re going to need to invest in some lights.  Yes, I know most of us are on a budget right now, but there’s really no way around it.  However, most of us aren’t aiming to recreate the dramatic lighting of Hollywood’s finer moments here, we just want people properly lit so they appear to have some depth to them, and no hideous shadows.

For our purposes, we’ll assume we’re shooting a stationary subject, and here we’ll try to cover two basic approaches to lighting.  First, the ideal for a one person shoot is three point lighting.  Three point lighting has three basic components, a key light, a fill light and a hair light (or back light).  The image below demonstrates this basic setup.

Your key light should be the most intense, providing the most brightly lit component of your subject’s face.  Ideally, your camera will have zebra stripes on it, which should have only the most brightly lit areas on your subjects face (oftentimes on the forehead) showing some slight zebra stripes.  If there is a significant amount of zebra stripes, you’ll need to close the iris a bit or tone down the lights, and the opposite if there are no zebra stripes.

If you’re dealing with a more rudimentary camcorder, you’ll have to use your LCD or viewfinder and just eyeball it.  Basically, you want to make sure the key light is providing a bit of “pop” to the subject’s face, but not blowing it out to a glowing white.

The fill light should do just what it says, fill in the other side of the subject’s face, at a slightly lesser intensity than the key light.  This provides some depth to the image, as video often appears flat.  Overdoing the contrast might make your subject look like a bad horror flick, so beware of that.

The hair light has one primary purpose, and that is to separate the subject from the backdrop.  Hitting the back of the head with a pretty direct and focused light will help clearly define your subject as the focus of the shot.

For a visual example of three point lighting, here’s a short video on the subject:

With one light you will not have the option of a fill or hair light, so you need to do the best you can.  Ideally, you’ll want to soften the light as much as possible, so if your lighting kit comes with a softbox, an umbrella, or some other tool that will help diffuse the light, you’ll want to use it.  You’ll have to set your light up offset to one side of the camera or the other, so by softening the light you’ll reduce the hard shadows on your subject’s face, and by experimenting with their positioning relative to the light and camera, you can still get a bit of that key/fill look to the shot.

While a hair light is out of the question here, you’ll want to worry about the shadow in a one light set up.  Nothing is worse than a large silhouetted head bobbing around behind your subject that you don’t notice until you go to edit.  Be very aware of shadows, and do your best to keep your subject a reasonable distance from any walls.  If you have a soft light, simply pulling them away from the wall behind them will often remove any problems you may have with shadows.

If you’re looking for some real bargain basement lighting, check out products by Smith Victor.  Not all of their stuff is professional quality lighting (I’ve only used their low end products personally), but they will provide you with a couple of soft lights and a light you can use as a hair light, and with a little configuring can provide a nicely lit shot.

Good deals can be found on ebay here.

First off, it needs a new name.  I’m taking suggestions.  As an SEO, I have to put my ego away and finally realize that using my own name in the title isn’t an optimal way to bring in traffic.  My mother is going to be crushed.  Send me your suggestions…even if they’re crazy.

Secondly, I went dofollow a while back, and haven’t publicized it until now.  So yes, as long as you don’t do anything gratuitously spammy you can benefit with a little link juice from my recently minted PR4 blog.

Yep, that’s right.  Last week was the latest PageRank update and I’ve officially returned to my previous PR4 status, making my blog’s home page the most important property we own.  Everyone in the office is going to hear about this…a lot.