20 Top Tips For Video Production From Industry Experts

Make sure all your presenters or subjects know what’s expected of them beforehand to minimize mistakes or wasted time on the day of the shoot. You should have a good idea of what the finished product is going to look like long before you start filming, and your presenters should know exactly what they’re doing. 

Presenting can be a nerve-racking. The more you can prepare your subjects and put them at ease, the more effective your footage will be. 

NB: When filming, pay attention to how they speak. You'll pick up rhythms they use that make them sound different and any verbal mannerisms that are unique to them. When you're going over your audio edits later on, this will help you save time getting the spacing between their words right without any guesswork.

#4 KEEP YOUR COOL

#5 KNOW WHAT B-ROLL FOOTAGE YOU NEED

They don’t need to be a work of art - even just using still images, reference videos, mood board or even examples of music can be powerful navigators - whatever is easiest. But remember - the more time you spend on planning your marketing video, the less likely you are to find yourself missing footage later on. Which will save you time and stress, not only for yourself but for everyone else involved as well.
                       
PRODUCTION

Whenever you're filming anything (or even taking photos), remember the "Rule of Thirds". Imagine your shot is divided into nine equal sectors by two horizontal lines and two vertical lines.

When it comes to lighting in video, different kinds of light have different temperatures. These color temperatures are measured in degrees Kelvin (^oK). This is a topic that really could warrant its own post, but for the sake of keeping it top-level for now, all you need to know is that mixing two light sources with different colour temperatures will make for an unevenly lit shot.

Wherever you’re shooting, ensure that your primary light source is even and consistent. If you shoot indoors, avoid rooms with windows. If this isn’t possible, position your subject far enough from the windows to avoid the daylight interfering with your shot.

#8 MANUALLY SET YOUR CAMERA'S WHITE BALANCE

Intense primary light sources can blow out the brightness and contrast of your shot and cause unflattering reflections on your subject. There are many different lighting techniques, each of which can be used to achieve a certain effect. Even if you have a professional light rig, make sure your shot is lit evenly - don’t just point it at your subject. Uses a reflector and/or a diffuser to minimize harsh spotlighting or shadows (we don’t want your female presenters looking like they have a “mustache” like the far-left example above).

You don’t need to soundproof a conference room in your office (although, if you can, go for it), but be sure to check the acoustics before you start filming. If there’s an echo in the location you had in mind, try and find somewhere else to shoot. You can fix a lot of audio problems in post-production, but even a faint echo can be a nightmare to get rid of completely.

#11 SHOOT MULTIPLE TAKES

When importing your footage in to your editing program, clean up your clips as you import them. Most editing packages will allow you to set “in” and “out” points for each clip, reducing their length by trimming out pauses, false starts, and all those behind-the-scenes comments and jokes that get made. Editing the final sequence together using trimmed clips is a lot easier than adjusting every single clip as you go along.

Once you’ve got all the clips you need imported into your editing program, it’s time to start actually putting the rough cut of your marketing video together. The easiest approach is just to get your clips roughly in to place instead of painstakingly going over the precise timing frame-by-frame. It may not look pretty, but it will give you a strong idea of which parts of your marketing video need the most work before it’s already begun to take shape - saving you a lot of time, effort, (and yes, sometimes even tears).

If you’re editing footage from a shoot where multiple cameras captured the same scene, creating a multi-camera sequence is an absolute must. This syncs all video and audio in to one clip, which you can then use to edit. You can easily switch camera angles on a clip without having to dig back through your footage, and you can even perform cuts as the footage plays out in real-time.

Multi-camera editing is great for interviews, live events, films etc. As interview footage has a lot of narrative content, multi-camera sequences is a great way to tell their story with dynamic visuals.

When editing a shot of someone doing something, make sure to cute to the next shot during the action that you subject is performing.

For example, if you’re editing together a sequence of someone opening a door before walking through it, cut to a shot of the subject opening the door at the precise moment the person turns the door handle. Cutting away before or after the action can look jarring and distract the viewer.*

You may not even have to worry about this, but it’s definitely worth keeping in mind if you’re working on a more challenging video.

Unless you’re trying to make some type of parody video of a George Lucas film, please don’t use radial or star wipe transitions, or any other effect presets.

If you’re going for a cheap amateurish look, then feel free to go ahead, but if you do need to use some transitions, keep it to simple cross-fades. Let your content do the talking, not your editing software.

Audio is a powerful tool. Every story has a soundtrack. Even if it is just the audio.

Extract the audio from the clip and place it on top of other video clips. Add the audio over the top. When working on projects that rely heavily on dialogue and interviews, your soundbed can be an amazing guide for the pace of your story and can actually speed up your workflow. If you’re making a documentary and building your story through a series of interviews, transitions between topics with soundbites of highs and lows of a song can be a great work around if you get stuck.

Music can be powerful. Absence of music can be powerful. Think carefully before you decide. Not every video needs background music, but if you decide that yours does, pick music that will resonate and is suitable for your project.

And unless you use use royalty-free music, or compose your own, most music is subject to stringent copyright restrictions that could land you in some seriously hot legal water if you don’t play by the rules, so make sure you pay close attention to the licensing requirements of the music you plan to use. Free Music Public Domain is a handy resource to browse and read more about a selection of public domain artists and genres.

Time is short. Attention spans are shorter, particularly with online content.

Cut away everything but the essentials. Only include the most important clips. Be ruthless. Less is more. Keep it short! If you don’t need the full length, cut it. If you halve the length of your film, it will almost certainly create more of an impact on your audience. Keep your clips short - A rough role is 3 seconds per clip. Varying the clip lengths will change the mood of your film. Think about the effect you want to create. Vary your shots - a scene should generally include a wide shot, a medium shot, and a detail shot. This might mean you might have to retake the scene several times to capture the clips you need.

Story blocking is a great practice to help you keep track of certain character’s story arcs so you don’t miss the key message and focal points - this will help you to visualize projects that have to be cut to a certain length.

Editing platforms are extremely powerful tools that can empower you to accomplish a great deal with your videos, but they can work magic.

Post-production should be seen as a process to add polish and finesse to your video, not an opportunity to go back and fix mistakes that could have been easily avoided during a properly planned shoot. Sometimes something as simple as brightness, contrast, or background audio just can’t be fixed, so do yourself a favour and don’t assume that any and all problems can be fixed in post-production.