Archive
- SellToCamera.com blog [RETIRED]: Speaking to camera
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Welcome to Sell to Camera, my blog for strategy consultancy ISV Focus to help business professionals with presentation experience make the move to web video, addressing the concerns many feel when first asked to speak directly into a video camera’s unblinking eye. I’ve now retired this blog, but if you’ve any questions then please add your comment to the relevant article, or get in touch with me direct.
- Great sound: Use a lapel microphone
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If your audience can’t clearly hear what you have to say then your video is a waste of everyone’s time. Use a lapel microphone instead of your camera’s built-in microphone and get a massive boost in audio quality for a minimal investment.
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Before you say a single word the background in your video is already speaking for you. A dark background that looked like a stage curtain didn’t set the business tone I wanted. Choosing a lighter, structured, background now sends the right message from the very first frame. It also turned out they are easier to work with.
- Video monitors: Speak to yourself and relax
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You know to look around your audience when presenting; web video demands you do the exact opposite. Put a large monitor at eye-level right behind your camera to get accustomed to looking directly at your camera. You also get to speak to a real person (yourself!) and not just the camera’s unblinking eye.
- Video monitors: Avoid frustrating wasted takes
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While Hollywood can afford a high ratio of footage shot to used, you cannot. Don’t waste time editing your web videos; know what you’ll get before pressing record. Save time and reduce frustrating wasted takes with a Full HD monitor that shows clearly (in real time) every pixel your camera sees.
- Tripods: Shoot above your office furniture
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Unless you have the luxury of a separate recording space, you will have to record in your existing office environment. Present standing up and you can shoot over the top of desks and other office furniture. Putting your tripod on a desk saves space and keeps your camera stable and safe from knocks.
- Teleprompters: Read your presentation from a script?
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Reading from a script is the very last thing you would consider doing when giving a presentation. Why is it then, that as soon as people start making web videos they think they are playing a newsreader on TV and want to read a script from a teleprompter? Just say no to teleprompters for your business videos!
- Sell to Camera: First video delivers key points in 93s
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Here’s the first real video for Sell to Camera. This is a simple example of a typical “Hello” video where I introduce my blog, identify my target audience and what you can expect to get out of it. In other words, to answer your question: “what’s in it for me?”
- Video quality: Webcams simply not up to job
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This first video on Sell to Camera is a short test I recorded to show you the difference in quality between a good webcam and a HD camcorder. This gives a first taste of the quality we can achieve with our business videos.
- Video clichés: Just say no to clip art
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This is the first in a regular series on business video clichés, starting with something we have all been guilty of: needless clip art.
Creating slides by hand we had enough trouble writing legibly with marker pens; few had the skills for illustration. With the arrival of PCs in the early 1980s we could add simple line art and everything changed.
- Neutral backgrounds: Focus attention on you
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TV and the web are very different mediums. While TV viewers lean-back and passively entertained or informed, the web is interactive; we lean-forward, actively looking for new information, searching for the next button to click.
One way TV productions set the tone for a scene or interview is by consciously adding objects into the background. While the work of set dressers is important on TV, you face different challenges.
- Video length: Half are gone in 60 seconds
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Unlike text, we can’t (yet?) scan video; we must decide whether to invest our time and attention to watch a video.
Length is key to this decision. However, we are not creating appointment TV, so if visitors don’t watch right now, the chances are they never will.
We need visitors to click the play button now and watch to the end, but how much of a typical online video are people actually ready to sit and watch?
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In yesterday’s post I suggested you work with your webcam on. But what, exactly, do you see? Well, we have a lifetime’s experience of seeing ourselves in a mirror, which is very different from how others see us.
Normally we don’t care; it is only when we see ourselves on screen that we wonder why we look so strange?
- See yourself: Turn your webcam on
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I won screen-time by having my face on the screen while working. I became more relaxed on camera and used to seeing myself on screen.
To try this trick you will need to find the option that forces your webcam’s video window to stay on top. If your webcam window keeps disappearing behind the active application window (or you work full screen a lot, as I do), then the de-sensitizing effect is lost.
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While you will have seen video on hosting services such as YouTube, Vimeo, Brightcove and others, Sell to Camera focuses on videos embedded in your website or blog. So, this post gives you a high level overview of how video embedding works.
It is therefore important for you to have a clear understanding of the concepts behind video embedding. You will need to understand how the different parts of the software stack work together to display your video.
I will not go into low level technical details here, just cover the core issues you need to know. So, let’s get started and what better than with a video from Pink Floyd.
- 9 questions: A colleague considers web video
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Many (most?) companies are making too little use of video in their sales and marketing activities. I think the reason (to a large extent) is that video is a new medium for mainstream business, and anything new is always scary.
Putting screencasts up on a website is often a first step. In the software business, of course, this is more widespread and common practice for a while. Where I see a real reluctance and companies holding back is showing real people on screen.
- Stop hiding: Short hello videos make all the difference
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“This does not apply to us”, I hear you say. “We are B2B and our buyers make purely objective purchase decisions. They do not care who we are.” I have seen this way of thinking a lot in the enterprise software business. Just look at supplier websites and it is clear that they think their people do not matter to prospects.
As Seth Godin says, B2B buyers are just consumers spending other people’s money. People are people and B2B buyers also are also making emotional and subjective decisions. ROI studies, technical evaluations and the rest are often just cover stories.
- Apple Mac: No need to switch for professional videos
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There are some excellent tools for Windows that are easily capable of creating the professional quality videos we need for our business.
Sell to Camera is here to give practical tips to business professionals learning to present on video. The majority of business organizations around the world are using Windows (sorry Apple fans!). So…
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I gave my first presentation aged 13; the subject was my favourite record, and the audience was my school class.
Today, 35+ years later, I can still recall my choice was Elton John’s Indian Sunset from his Madman Across the Water album released in 1971. A track that turned up again in 2005 as a sample in the Eminem-produced Tupac Shakur song “Ghetto Gospel”.
Since that first event at school, I have given hundreds of business presentations in many situations, from small one-on-one sales meetings, to large trade conferences and company-wide meetings.
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The Sell to Camera blog is about helping business professionals with presentation experience make the move to web video, addressing the concerns many feel when first asked to speak directly into a video camera’s unblinking eye.
- SellToCamera.com blog: Hello world!
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