The video about using a lighter background worked OK for me when I just tried it. If you are still having problems viewing this video then please have a look at the SellToCamera YouTube channel, where all the videos are also available.

Thanks,

Andrew.

I just watched your video about using an external microphone, and I was looking forward to watching this one as well. However, the video does not seem to be available, unlike your video for the microphone.

Just checked my ATR3350: the flat side of the battery (+ve) is under the spring, consistent with the marking on the microphone body.

Regards,

Andrew.

I saw in a review of the ATR3350 that the markings on the battery case are incorrect. The markings on the case indicate that the positive side of the battery (flat side) goes toward the spring. The review says this is backwards and the negative should go toward the spring. It goes on to say that the microphone will work either way but the sound quality will be degraded if the batter is inserted positive to the spring.

Which way do you use yours? It sounds great in your video.

Thanks,
Brad
http://www.bradhadley.com

The cylindrical part you’re referring to is what I was looking for, but at first unable to find at a reasonable price online. Found lots of £100 Sony and Sennheiser power modules though…

I finally asked the ebay microphone seller if he knew of any places to source a power module, and it turned out he had them in stock – just not listed on ebay. So now I have one on the way for £10.

We’re hoping to have our business videos online in the next few months, and for other readers of this blog I cannot stress how much impact good sound has on the overall quality of the production.

- – - – -

By the way: from what I understand plug-in power and phantom power are two different things. Phantom power is found, as you said, in professional quality equipment and can be up to 48V. I have a Rode mic and a M-Audio home recorder that uses phantom power.

Plug-in power was introduced when consumer electronics such as minidisc recorders and computers needed low-power output for small microphones of not-so-professional quality. It typically operates at much lower voltages than phantom power.

(Yes, I’ve been reading up on the subject ;-) …)

Thanks for your comment.

The problem you could be having is that professional quality external microphones typically require what is called Phantom power.

As you have discovered, the Canon HF S10 camcorder does not supply phantom power. The mic connection on the camcorder is a 3.5mm socket that requires a self-powered mic.

At the 1:19 point in the video you will see the cylindrical part of the Audio-Technica ATR 3350 I am using. This contains a small button-type battery and the on-off switch. This is the only power the mic requires.

I bought the mic online from the Thomann music store here in Germany. Here is a link to the mic on the English version of their site. In the photo on that page you can also see the button battery I mentioned.

Hope this helps,

Best regards,

Andrew.

I have the same Canon camera as you, for which I recently bought a stereo lavalier microphone. The mic was supposed to work with a camcorder’s plug-in power, but as it turns out these Canon cameras do not have this power supply feature.

Could you possibly point me to a source of cheap, in-line mic power supplies like the one you are using here? I’ve been all over ebay and radioshack’s website and can’t seem to find them.

Or – alternatively tell me where you bought your mic and power supply combo so I can get a set too.

Thanks!

Thanks for your comment and welcome to SellToCamera.

It is not just beginners that want to read from a script.

Although they don’t think about it in this way, even experienced presenters have a tendency to bore their audience by reading long-form text from their slides.

In my experience this is often because they don’t spent enough (any?) time practicing their presentation to become familiar with the content. They are using the slides to remind them what they want to say.

Moving to web video will be more difficult for such presenters as they cannot read from a screen and present to camera at the same time. In this case some additional real-world presentation training would be a good idea, to bring their skills up to scratch before facing the camera.

Andrew.

Simon

Thanks for your comments and the links to example videos. I had a look at these videos and here are my first impressions and some suggestions:

The first video on the Success with Hypnosis blog is a welcome video from the home page of Sylvia Wohak’s natural health praxis website. Here are 3 simple steps to improve this video:

(1) 3:52 is too long for an introduction video; split it into 2, one to say hello and introduce yourself and then a second to introduce what you do. Videos longer than 2 minutes show a rapid drop in viewers. If viewers like the first video then they will also watch the second. This also gives some useful feedback by comparing the number of viewers of the first and second videos.

(2) The introduction title sequence is too long; we have to wait 18 seconds before hearing “hello”. 3 to 5 seconds is enough for a title sequence. Include a longer title sequence in the call to action with URL at the end.

(3) Sylvia does not blink for most of this video. It looks like she is reading a script placed somewhere behind the camera. This is fine, but towards the end of the video her gaze is a long way off-centre from the camera. This gives an odd impression, like a TV presenter who is talking to the wrong camera by mistake. If using a prompt then place it behind or below the camera. A good solution is to place a laptop below the camera and use one of the (free) teleprompter software products that scrolls your text as you read (remember to blink!)

However, having said all that, this is a good example of how a Hello video makes a difference; so congratulations to Sylvia Wohak for taking the step of including a welcome video on her website.

The Quick Tour Movie from Data Inherit is an example of a type of video I would argue against producing. The video starts well, but when the voiceover comes in the good first impression is lost for me.

I was expecting to have the person reading the voice over actually appear in the video. Instead, what they are showing is an animated presentation created from a series of still images (this is called the Ken Burns effect).

I think a real person telling their story to the camera would improve this video. Data Inherit’s value proposition is all about keeping your data safe and passing it on to your dependents. This is a great chance to putting a real person on camera to tell their story.

Still, a good first step so congratulations to Data Inherit.

Regards,

Andrew.

Here a few examples how other small companies / self-employed people do it:
http://www.hpz.com/hypnose-erfolgs-blog/
(German only)

And a professional example for product presentation:
http://www.datainherit.com/en/home.html
Click on “Quick Tour Movie” – in English and German

Regards,
Norbert

Thanks for your kind words about SellToCamera and your detailed comment.

I agree with your observation that 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.

Instead of hiding behind a “corporate veil”, companies need to recognize that we are entering a different mode of business, one that is far more social. Your potential customers want to know who you are.

On the one hand this reluctance is odd. Many companies are in the service business and what they are really selling is the skills of their people. It seems somewhat odd that they are holding back on putting their “goods” in their “shop window”. If you were buying services, you would want to know who was going to deliver it.

On the other hand, I fully accept that reluctance to show ourselves is a very normal and understandable reaction. I think this is partly because we are not used to seeing ourselves on screen as other people see us (we only see ourselves in a mirror, and that is very different, as I will cover in an up-coming post). Because we are personally uncomfortable seeing ourselves on screen, we hold back from taking this step.

It is this reluctance for the people behind companies to show their face on the screen that was a key driver for me to found SellToCamera. I want to encourage people to get out from behind their “About Us” page. That this is OK, and there is nothing difficult or strange about this. It is just the next step along the long road of making use of new media.

The sorts of videos that I am thinking about are more like what you see in a documentary or news report (talking direct to camera). I am not so much thinking about advertising in the sense of the Renault advert you linked to on YouTube.

That sort of video advertising is too complex, expensive and difficult to do well for most companies to consider. Just look at the number of advertisements on TV or video that are complete rubbish!

To be specific, here is some quick feedback on the points you raised:

- To be effective in a business context the videos must look professional. This does not mean, however, that we are talking about Hollywood production values. Professional “speaking to camera” videos are very achievable for normal business users like us. That is what I hope to show on this blog.

- Yes, you can produce these videos yourself, and I will be doing this with my own videos here on SellToCamera. I do not have any previous experience with creating video, so if I can do it so can anyone else. The tools are out there, and so is the experience. We just need to filter it and focus on what is really important to get started.

- You can show different videos to first time visitors and people coming back to the site, so that would not be an issue. The “Hello” type videos are more general, however, so I do not think you need to replace these.

- Once the “Hello” video is in place you can then start to add more content. I would recommend investing the time to create a number of short videos and not a few long ones. A good place to start is short (2 minute at most) videos where your colleagues introduce themselves. These tell your visitors much more than a standard headshot photo and a short bio. After that, I would go out into the field and do short (2 minute at most again) interviews with customers and partners. These are much more effective than written case studies for new visitors. You can support the video with a written case study for people interested in learning more, but I think most will look at the video first.

- I think that the most effective aspects to getting visitors to click on your hello video are (1) Where it is on the screen, (2) the opening graphic which is shown before the video starts, and (3) making it clear that this is a short video. Someone coming to the website wants to know who you are. If you make it clear that this information is readily available then they will click on it. A further point worth mentioning here is that you need to put the Hello video on every page on the site, not just the home page. The reason is that Google has exploded the traditional website structure and you cannot know where the user will enter your site. They are most likely coming from Google search, so you need to design your site on the basis that every page is a home page for that specific visitor. The top-down hierarchy we used to have in the past is no longer the only path into your site.

- Use the same language for the Hello video and the text on your web page. If you have multiple language versions of your site then you should consider having multiple versions of the video. You can either do this by swapping out the soundtrack in the video editing software, or you could overlay subtitles. I think this is a nice problem to have, however, and would start with your main language and not worry too much about the others for the time being.

These were some first thoughts on the excellent points you raised. I will be going into these issues in coming posts on SellToCamera.

Thanks again for your comment.

Andrew.

Update: A longer version of this reply appears as 9 important questions from a business professional thinking about creating web video.

I would very much like at least a “say hello video” on our website, but my partners and colleagues are not keen on supporting me. Obviously it needs also arguments and explanations to convince the employee behind the company, because they must also like it.

By the way, the best video I have seen on web was on Renault’s website. It was a short overview on the Laguna presented by the footballer Eric Cantona. There was an English version were Cantona has a very strong French accent. One of the subtleties is that the sentences are in good English despite the accent. He says things like: “I was about to forget the most important”. Not many Frenchmen would express themselves like this in English. The person on that video is not somebody of the company, as you suggested. But he is neither a PR person. He is a special person. I fully agree with your opinion on that subject. We should show our own faces and not be afraid of people discovering your body language. OK, may be that I just like it because I am a Frenchman and I like Cantona. By the way I did not by a Laguna.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLV8sCawBug

In the last few weeks some questions came up:
- how professional must the video be?
- can we produce the video by ourselves?
- should the video(s) be renewed from time to time? At which frequency?
- should we present a list of videos with different subjects?
- what written text would encourage the website visitor to start the video?
- should we have the same video in different languages?
- an many more which do not come into my mind just yet.
May some answer will come up soon.

I look forward reading the blog.

Best regards,
Claude

Thanks for your comment.

I think it is OK to suggest business professionals can start the the process of learning to create business video with their existing Windows systems.

While many consider the Mac as the best platform for video, it is not the platform that most business people have available to them today. In most cases their business is Windows-based and a change of platform is not something that can happen overnight. Inertia is a serious barrier to change in the business world; we see this very well with the continued survival of IE6.

I do not want to imply that business professionals should never switch to Mac, only that it is not a pre-requisite to getting started.

Andrew.

ps: All content here on Sell to Camera is free, and will remain free in the future.

That’s why I have to respectfully reject your argument. You’re saying to business, “don’t buy a calculator because I make wonderful pencils.” It’s true, with a pencil you can do everything that can be done with a calculator. However, the calculator does it more quickly, efficiently, and accurately. Those functions make it more cost effective to get a calculator rather than a super-duper pencil.

What you’re doing is selling pencils that will result in higher expenses. In a capitalist market, not making clear what you’re doing is commonplace. However, considering the number of people and businesses that will be financially harmed by this, I find your argument somewhat unethical.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t market your product. Indeed, do it as best as you can. I’m just saying don’t try to con people with dubious arguments supporting their predisposed beliefs. Just because a marketer takes the word “sugar” off of “Sugar Pops” doesn’t make the cereal any more healthy.

Thanks for the update on Camtasia.

Dave Kaminski from Web Video University recently did a video review of Camtasia for Mac. Seems that the Mac version of Camtasia is a lot cheaper than the Windows version, but does not have as many features.

The low price is also no doubt because TechSmith have to compete against the large installed base for ScreenFlow, a leading screencasting product on the Mac. (Dave’s review was captured using ScreenFlow.)

Andrew.

Thanks for your comment, the very first comment posted on Sell to Camera!

Creating content on the Mac might be easier than on Windows, but most business professionals do not have Macs. My goal with Sell to Camera is to help people make the first step to presenting on video for their business — using the Windows platform they already have.

Once the basic skills are in place, and their organizations recognize the value of business video, then a switch to Mac for specific applications (such as video) might be easier to justify.

The point I wanted to make was that it is not necessary to switch from Windows to Mac before starting with video.

Thanks again for your comment,

Andrew.