10 common mistakes entrepreneurs make when creating video

Posted on 18/05/2012 by Genna

I really wanted it to be 9 common mistakes.

But then I thought of one other thing and it made it 10.

Dammit. Let’s just say I prefer odd to even numbers. Maybe because I tend to veer toward odd. Who knows.

Anyway…

Are you a women entrepreneur? Do you have a YouTube channel? Are you worried that your videos might not ‘cut the mustard’?

You might be right. Especially if you are making one or more of the mistakes mentioned below. But never fear doll, I’ll tell you what you can do to make fab little videos of your own.

First, let’s talk about the fact that…

50% of videos you see on YouTube are crap

[that may be more or less depending on your tolerance for video based crap]

For the remaining 50% you’ll find at least 20% are videos of things you probably have no interest in [dudes trying to recreate Jackass stype stunts *yawn*, some cheesy guy in a cheap suit talking about real estate, someone trying to teach their kid how to ride a bike]

Another 20% are teenagers using the world wide web as a platform to bemoan their angst ridden lives [in fact we may want to add this the to the 50% of crap at the start of this post]

Perhaps I’m being harsh? Perhaps I should be more forgiving of those poorly thought out, poorly made, inane attempts at video entertainment?

Nope. Because making beautiful, funny, creative, informative and well presented videos is what we NEED to aim for my darlings.

Nothing Less

So what about the remaining 10%?

These marvelous videos tend to be an absolute pleasure to watch. They are well crafted, beautifully shot, skillfully edited and have a clear message, high impact or make you laugh.

And, believe it or not, there are many that are made on a small budget, without a videographer and with just a simple message to convey.

You want to be one of the 10% don’t you?

How to avoid the 90% crap pile

To avoid being lumped in the 90% crap pile, here are some common mistakes I see women entrepreneurs make and how you, as an online business woman, can lean more towards the glorious 10%

1.Forget about it becoming viral

Trying to make a video that will go viral is a fools errand. Videos, much like anything else in the world, are subjective and you can never hope to predict what people will love so much, that it will be shared by millions worldwide. Slate wrote about your chances of creating a viral video. Answer is, not very high. So stop trying to create the next ‘Charlie bit my finger’ video and concentrate on making something creative, funny, informative & valuable for your viewers.

2.Set it up.

This seems really obvious but a lot of women entrepreneurs appear to flip open their Macbook when the inspiration grabs them, record a rambling 15minute video and directly upload it to YouTube. This only really works for a select few so do yourself a favour and figure out a pleasing set up for your video, get a favourable composition [how you frame yourself on screen] and if at all possible, try not to do it in your jammies. [Dyana, you rocked it though!]

3. I can’t hear you!

In TV broadcasting, there is a a common thought that sound is in some ways more important than vision. This doesn’t mean terrible video with pristine quality sound, it just means viewers are more forgiving of a poor picture than they are of poor sound. You should of course be aiming for the best for both aspects of your video creation but try to keep your sound as clean, clear and audible as possible.

Get yourself a better microphone if needs be. Turn the radio, TV and washing machine off. Tell the kids to go outside & play and ask you husband/girlfriend/partner to not ask you questions from the other room every 5mins. You’ve got something to say dollface and we want to hear it.

4. Let there be light

I may already have mentioned in a previous post that videos made in a dark bedroom are NOT the kind of videos you should be aiming for so let me stress that light is important, very important, if you want your videos to look semi-professional. No need to go out and spend thousands on pro lighting kits, just utilise daylight the best you can.

Position yourself with daylight on your face, remembering to not do it in direct sunlight [the bleached out look is to be avoided] and don’t silhouette yourself by having the light behind you.[yes I know you love the halo/goddess look but we can't see your face missus!!]

5. Rambling is for walks with your dogs

I’d say this is the BIGGEST mistake most women entrepreneurs make when creating their videos. You’ll know yourself, you’ve clicked on a link to a video, started watching the ‘talking head’ and within 5mins your eyes have glazed over, you’ve drifted off into thinking about a shopping list and are no longer in any way engaged with the video you started watching.

KEEP IT SHORT darlins, 3mins at the MOST, 5mins if it’s especially riveting. There are some that can break this rule[this is generally with a promo or a instruction video] And they can do this because their content is stellar, they inter-cut their ‘talking head’ with graphics & a variety of shots and usually have hired a pro production team.

6. Do you own a record label?

If you do or are in fact a musician, then you can most likely use your music freely on your videos. Music copyright is something to take heed of when creating your videos. If it’s commercial music that you can buy on iTunes, then the chances are you do not have permission to use the track on your video.

And don’t think because everyone else has done it, that it’ll be ok for you to do it. If you upload your video to YouTube, then the track will be recognised & highlighted anyway, so there is no hiding it.

I have used commercial music on some of my creative videos and am looking to replace it with local musicians and artists that would be willing to either let me use their music for a credit or to pay them for a single use license. Think about it. It’s only fair that the person who created the track should get paid or credited. You want the same for your own work don’t you?

7. This is about you, not the adorable Mister Floofy kittykins

Unless you are a vet, pet groomer, pet whisperer or any kind of animal related business, then it’s usually best if your pets don’t feature in your videos. I’m not saying you can’t use some shots of you with your pets [these kind of shots are best used as general shots to inter-cut an intro video or promo video with] and you can’t argue against the fact that cats RULE the internet.

However, if you are doing a piece to camera and trying to convey a message or teach your peeps something, it’s generally best if your kitty doesn’t keep walking past the screen or mr barky pants isn’t singing you a howling lullaby in the background. You’ll know what your audience expects from you and if it aint pets, then keep your videos animal free.

8. Leave it to Tina Fey

Be wary of the silly, goofy, funny videos. These can be used to great effect but you need to really ask yourself if it fits with your brand, your personality and what your audience expects and will tolerate from you. I’m not saying your videos need to be deadpan, serious and humourless but if you are trying TOO hard to be funny or zany in your videos, it will come across as a bit desperate and a teeny bit uncomfortable for your viewers.

Just be yourself at all times, if being silly/funny comes natural to you, then go for it but if not, that’s cool too. Not everyone needs to be the clown [I simply HAVE to be the clown, let's just say "jester' is an innate part of my personality, business or otherwise.]

9.Chop. Chop. Chop.

When you get to the edit stage [the stage that makes you want to tear your hair out] of creating your video, try to remember two things:

1.Tell a frikkin Story.

2. Inter-cut the talking head with other images.

When I say tell a story, I don’t mean ramble on and on for 20mins in a mini Harry Potter-esque story-teling session, about every little thing that could be relevant to the point you are making. I mean structure your video the same way you would a story. Start, middle and end. The best way to do this is by introducing your subject matter [start] explaining how it is done and/or why it is important to your viewer [middle] and then a call to action or something for them to think about [end]

Inter-cutting the footage – if your 3 min video is all about, let’s say green juicing and the benefits to your health, then you would inter-cut your piece to camera with shots of lots of lovely green veg, perhaps you washing the veg under a tap, chopping the veg up, feeding the juicer, the iced glass with the juice being poured into it, you drinking the green juice etc etc etc.

By including other shots in between your piece to camera, this will keep your viewer engaged with your video and less inclined to click away.

10. You didn’t check it did you?

I see this sometimes. A women entrepreneur takes the time to shoot and edit a film, then uploads it to YouTube without checking it back, then posts the link to Twitter, FB & G+ without realising it’s either A. The wrong video or B. there are glitches in it.

Do yourself a favour dollface and ALWAYS check your video back before sharing it. You’ll save yourself the embarrasment and having to apologise to everyone.

Need some extra help with video creation?

Glad you asked dollface as I can totally help you out! Please do leave a comment for me here on this page, tweet me or leave a comment on my FB page – will be more than happy to answer any quick questions you have

Or if you feel like you need a little more one on one time, head on over to my services page and book a consultation.

And if you’d rather just learn a little more by yourself, you can always pick up my handy guidebook!

Is creating video right for you and your business?

Posted on 11/05/2012 by Genna

If you are a woman entrepreneur and neither have the time or the inclination to create video, then guess what dollface, it’s

not for you

And before you say “But but, so and so internet video sensation says my business is DOOMED without it and so and so internet marketer says I could make MILLIONS from video” hear me out.

Hands up how many of you think that you should be creating video for your business? And how many of you are not even sure what kind of videos you want to create?

I’m thinking that at least 50% of you are still holding your hand in the air while you read this. Right?

Well, let’s get this one thing outta the way first

‘should’ = utter bollocks

Remember when you were a kid and all the grown ups ever told you was how you should be doing this and should be doing that and if you didn’t you’d never be ‘insert whatever role model they expected you to be like here‘? And remember how you’d make a face & grumble when they turned their back?

Well I invite you to make that face right now. Go on, you know you wanna.

Now you’ve exorcised the ‘should’ demon I feel we should address one more BIG FAT ‘should’ that you may be currently facing, namely the

‘YOU SHOULD BE DOING VIDEO’

thang.

I can just see some of you pulling more faces. It’s alright, carry on, I’ll wait.

So, as someone who’s business pivots around teaching and consulting with women entrepreneurs on how to create video, you’re probably thinking ‘well that’s rich coming from you, video pusher’

I get it. But here’s the thing, I know lot of women entrepreneurs who really SHOULD NOT be making video.

And this is not because I think they’re incapable, stupid, ugly, lacking charisma or any other equally discriminatory thing. Making video is daunting and even if you have managed to master some of the basics of creating video, it’s possible that it’s STILL not for you. And It’s usually because of one or all off the following reasons:

They do not have the time to commit to doing it themselves [and also do not have the budget to pay someone else]

They are technophobes with no interest in learning camera or editing skills

They don’t really enjoy it

They DO NOT HAVE THE TIME.

“I don’t really enjoy it” should be the 1st red flag in telling you to forget about it.

However the second and more important factor is the TIME factor.

And that’s because it’s really, really important to consider how long it’s going take you to create something of beauty, something you can be proud of and something you want to share with 20 gazillion people on the interwebulator.

Video production takes a LOT OF TIME. [at least anything that is any good does. Midnight videos shot on your webcam, in your jammies, while ruminating on the relative merits of Miley Cyrus do not = quality video]

I don’t want to scare the bejeebus outta you but you do need to know this shiz, so here is a little run down of the time considerations when creating your own videos.

Pre-Production and scripting – this is when you have a think about what you want to make a video about, what you are going to say, where you will shoot it, what you need to prepare[charts, graphics etc] – this could take a day or two or a few hours depending on how clear you are

The shoot itself – given that you’re probably not that used to setting up, getting the camera frame right, setting yourself up in front of the camera AND the amount of takes and re-takes you’ll need, I’d hazard a guess and say this is going to take you the best part of a day to do

Importing footage to edit – you might be an old hand at this, so this part may be super quick. But the more you shoot, the more you’ll have to wrangle and import to the edit. Give or take a good couple of hours for this depending on your level of importing wizardry

The rough cut – this is the biggest time consideration of the whole process, when for the most part you’ll spend hours just watching the footage back and making faces at, well, your face. Once you get over your face, you start to slowly put together the basic sequence. This could take you a full day or days, again depending on your affinity with editing software.

The fine cut – so you’ve managed to get it edited into some semblance of an acceptable video. Now you’ll want to add images, titles, music, graphics and all the fancy pants stuff that you think your video needs. This will be the part that makes you want to throw your computer out of the window and create marvelous new swear words. Unless, again you’re some high priestess of the edit.

Exporting and uploading – if you know your formats, know what size & length of video your video hosting platform accepts and could do this bit in your sleep, you’ll be fine. If not, add at least another few curse word enhanced hours for this part of the process

See what I mean? It’s a BIG time commitment.

When I’m not spending an inordinate amount of time on the internet, or helping talented and amazing women realise their video vision, I work in Broadcast Television and let me tell you, if years of experience and shit hot skills from really talented people can’t manage to reduce the time it takes to complete a programme for broadcast, then I don’t fancy your chances in getting this done super fast.

So before you throw your flipcam in the bin and resolve to only write blog posts from here on in, here are a few tips on how you could still create videos without the headache inducing prospect of it taking up ALL your precious time:

Hire someone to do it for you. Seriously, even if you can only afford the camera operator OR the video editor, one or both will bring skills, experience and efficiency to a process that could take you years to master.

Keep it simple. Forget trying to recreate some epic video series with just your Macbook and a rudimentary understanding of iMovie. The more simplicity you bring to your video making, the easier it is to produce and the more likely your message will be understood. You can get more complex once you really get comfortable [and quick] with the process.

Stop trying to do what everyone else is doing. Chances are the fabulous, funny, slick and professional videos you see all the time are NOT within your budget or skill level [I'm looking at you, the wannabe MarieTV video maker - Mz Forleo is super clear on her message, has a crystal clear brand and a shit hot video production team. You don't get THAT kind of video on a $30 per hour budget dollface]

Get really clear on your brand, your message and the ‘look’ of your videos before you ever pick up a video camera. For serious, Do it for us. Don’t be yet another person on YouTube doing lame ass videos just because you think you’re missing out on this ‘video thang’

To finish up, if you reeaaaallly want to create video and need a helping hand, well guess what, I’ve got a handy little guide for ya

Finally and to make you laugh [mostly because I probably just burst your video creating bubble - sorry *sadface*] watch this…

Why I’ve packed ‘Biz Building’ a suitcase and sent it off for a little holiday.

Posted on 12/04/2012 by Genna

It’s not about building a business. It’s about doing the damn work.

That was one of many wake up calls I had yesterday. It’s from my wonderful friend Andrea Lewicki and it could not have been more serendipitous when she tweeted it.

About an hour earlier and in a conversation with another wonderful woman and client we were discussing the whole online “Business Building” conversation /scene / hoo ha and how it was starting to leave anything but a pleasant taste in our collective mouths.

And Andrea is abso-fucking-lutely right.

The business building aspect of it all is starting to DO MY HEAD right in.

I’ve spent a lotta time of late planning and thinking about what I SHOULD be doing to build my bloody business [like checking out 3 or 4 different courses I could/should do in ONE DAY] that it makes me forget I need to be DOING the thing that is my business.

That and that alone.

So don’t get me wrong, I’m not slagging off everyone in the business building business businessy building biz shiz thang [SEE? It IS MAKING ME CRAY CRAY] – nope, there are people who I could learn from and yes they are still on my radar but all the other squawking, tweeting, 10 TIPS TO BUILD YOUR BUSINESS TODAY shouty, webinar this webinar that shit is officially OFF.

Switched OFF. Unsubscribed. Unfollow. Unfriend. Unplug.

Before I go insane worrying about it. Worrying that I should be doing more.

While I’m at it “should” is another mofo that is going in the suitcase. For serious.

In 3 days it will be a year since I wrote THIS article and I need to remind myself that the point of writing that, was to anchor myself in the foundation of DOING, DOING, DOING.

And doing it my way.

No following blueprints. No more watching, learning, spending money on courses. No more clicking on links in twitter, reading an article and discovering yet another thing I’m NOT doing in my business right now and how this is a bad, bad, very bad, you’ll never find success type thing. No taking business advice from people who have only ‘just’ found some measure of success and are looking to capitalise on it.

The online world can be very alluring in convincing us that what we REALLY need to do is build our business. And so we all forget that what we actually NEED to do, is the thing we say we do. End of.

Imagine if in the real world you walked into a shop to buy a loaf of bread and the shop keeper said

“Oh I see you want to buy some bread but actually what you need to consider is how I’m looking beyond bread, past sandwiches and beans on toast, past bread & butter pudding, past dunking some chunky bread in your homemade soup – all that bread stuff is like so yesterday. NOW imagine if one day you could come to an event called ‘BEYOND BREAD – Living the dream in a post wheat based product world – where you’ll learn that the UNIVERSE is trying to tell you there is life beyond bread”

You’d think the shopkeeper was mental and with good reason.

So yes, enough already.

And I’m not trying to implement some weird and wonderful reverse psychology where you now follow my ‘business’ advice. I am NOT in the business of business.

Never have been and aint right now.

Just for the sake of my own clarity [and yours should you be unfamiliar with me or what I do] :

I offer video consultations for women, who want to learn to create video too. I also offer a video critique, should you be so brave.
I offer bespoke motion graphics for your videos
I offer video editing.
I create and produce videos. [sometimes purely for my own amusement and creativity. Coz I can]

That’s it. So I’m getting back to that and that alone. If you are interested in any of that, tweet me, leave a comment of get a hold of me via my contact page

Biz building, you enjoy your little holiday, wear sunscreen and remember I may not need you when you get back…

If you’d like a wee guide to help you create your own videos my Guide Book, SHINE on SCREEN : Your Guide to producing great video on your own, is out now..