DIY VIDEO PRODUCTION SAVES YOU TIME & MONEY

[Karla Darocas *New Frontier]

"The Revolution Will Be Digital" - who said that?
Report by Karla Darocas

If you have a business, which has a product that needs training, why not create your own video on DVD? It really isn’t that difficult and the money and time you will save is large.

This has been a lesson learned by the Spanish representative of a cosmetics company. This business woman learned very quickly that in order to push her company’s products into the vastness of this Spanish country, she was going to need a teaching aid. The hours and money spent driving up and down the coast and inland, was digging into all of her profits. Once this busy representative realized that she could not split herself into a million pieces, she called me to shoot her pre-planned facial and makeup application training videos.

Here are some steps that you will need to follow – to create your own DIY training videos.

You will need a good digital video camera. The best and most affordable video camera is the JVC Hard Disc Camcorder. This baby has its own hard drive, which makes moving and storing your footage easy.

You will need a tripod. It will take a bit to set up your tripod to the right height and tilt. It is best to put your camera on the tripod and then zoom in on your subject. Then you can adjust your tripod again. Then zoom back to the full screen and you will have your basic frame for your video.

Lighting has to come from a big source. Since you are shooting DIY, it is best to be as close to a window as you possibly can. Never have the light behind your subjects. Try and have the light coming from the side or put your camera by the window and shoot the subject in full light. You will need all the house lights on as well. Unless you have a remote microphone, I don’t advise shooting your video outside, as you will have wind noise. However, if the shoot is in a sheltered place and you can project your voice, by all means shoot outside.

Tight spaces make the best locations to shoot your video. If you are in the house, pick out a corner with white walls. The whiter and tighter the better!

Once you have your raw footage, you will need an editing suite. DIYers can use the free video editing programme that comes with most Windows packages. It is called Movie Maker and was designed to be a fast and easy programme to use. Another programme that I use is called Power Director by CyberLink. It is a bit more sophisticated and accepts the file format MOV. It has a tremendous colour balancing system, which you will need. However, it is still a basic programme for editing your video and is easy to use. If you are feeling really brave, you can try a programme called Studio from Pinnacle. This company is not new to video editing and their Studio Plus programme has all the bells and whistles. However, it does demand a lot of learning and a very powerful computer system with a large amount of memory. I tend to use this programme to make fancy introductions and exit credits.

Once you video is edited, you can then produce it to DVD. Again, most editors come with some sort of production package as well that are integrated. However, if you are planning on posting your video to the web, you will need to covert your file to an MPEG or MPEG2. This is more tricky, and most free online storage places for streaming video, only accept up to 1 meg of video, hence calibrating your video will take you some time. If your video is over 15 minutes in length, I wouldn’t bother calibrating to fit on YouTube, as it will need to be so diluted, it will look grainy.

So – there you have it!
Save Money, Save Time – DIY Videos :)