Professional Video

Filming at home vs. filming a professional video are 2 very different things. When you're at home filming whatever, you don't worry about the lighting, spacing, or what the environment looks like because it's your home and you're comfortable in it. In a professional video, you do have to care about the lighting and spacing. A professional video is neat, clean, and organized. You have to worry about every single detail, like the lighting, spacing, and backgrounds. In creating a professional video, you must have a plan. Creating a storyboard is a very good way in organizing a professional video. A storyboard is a good way to let you spill out ideas and come up with different ways to create a video.

A big difference between a home video and a professional video is that in a professional video, you bring in experts on whatever you're filming about. For example, we are creating a professional video about DeKalb Reads. We were able to bring in experts about the program. Susan Whittington and Judy Sorg came to our class and provided us with valuable information about the DeKalb Reads program. When bringing in an expert for your video, you want to make sure that you have provided questions ahead of time so that you don't get information that you don't actually need. You might have the information, but without putting it in a video format, all that data is worthless. We were able to get advice from Marty Dunham, a professional video editor, and he was able to help us with figuring out how to produce a professional video.

Another big difference about home produced videos and a professional video is bringing in experts on a topic that you're filming about. But in order to bring in experts, you must contact them first. You must script out what you're going to say ahead of time so you're not scrambling for words when you contact them. A script can be very simple, but it has to be to the point. An example may be that you greet them, you say who you are, then what you're doing, and then finally, you ask them if they could come in and do whatever your asking them to do. The same goes for when you're asking someone to come in so you can interview them. You state who you are, what you're doing, what you want them for, and an estimate time you want them to come in. A thing that you may want to consider is the possibility for the person to pick out times that work best for them, and then you pick the one that would fit best with you schedule. This will give the person assurance that you actually want them their helping you.

Bringing in the experts is a form of researching. When you create a promotional video, you first have to know what you're creating the video for. An excellent idea is to search for logos, mission statements, and participants that have a personal connection with the program. When you find an old participant, you can invite them to come in and share their testimonial with you. When you invite someone to come and share their story, you must have questions to ask them ahead of time. When you prepare professional questions, they must have a positive connotation. When you're questions are constructed around the person your interviewing, you get them to be more comfortable and you get more beneficial answers to your questions. When someone comes in to get interviewed, it's very important to create a good rapport with whoever you're interviewing. When you get a good rapport with the person, you get them to open up; it calms not only their nerves, but yours as well. When you create a good rapport and good questions for the person you're interviewing, you will get a phenomenal product.

When creating a professional question to ask interviewees, it must have a positive connotation. A positive connotation will help the person you are interviewing. It will help in the aspect of not offending the person. For example, if you ask; why didn't you do it, the person might feel offended because your focusing on what he/she didn't do instead of what he/she did do. So when you're generating questions, make sure that when you ask the person that particular question, that it carries a positive connotation. When you do this, I promise that you will get better answers to your questions.

A professional video takes a lot of preparation and staging. In a home video, you just turn on the lights and push the button to start filming. That is not a professional video. In a professional video, you make sure that the lighting is even. The light can't be overpowering so that it blinds somebody, and it can't be too dull for the fear of not seeing the person in the video. The lighting has to be just right to bring out the potential of the video. Alongside with lighting, there's spacing. When creating our video, we made the mistake of putting a person we were interviewing in a corner with white walls. The video was still good, but we definitely learned from that experience. We started putting the people we were interviewing in just the right spot so that there was an interesting background, and plenty of room. From each interview, we learned something new to include in our next one.

Once you have the questions written and the staging done, an excellent idea is to take test shots. Test shots are very important. They give the people who staged the interview a perspective of what it will look like when you take they film the actual person. Test shots can valuable information such as; the lighting is too bright or too dark or it looks too crammed and unorganized. Test shots not only recognize the things that need changed, they also highlight the qualities to include in the next interview. Without test shots, you will be walking blind into an obstacle course. You need test shots; they let you take a step away from failure and towards success.

The next phase in producing a professional video is editing. When you're editing, ever detail matters. During the editing process, you will be cutting out parts of the video;