Well I have got myself in the thick of it again. I am shooting and editing business video. If this is something you are thinking about doing in house like we have decided to do let me share some tips I have learned the hard way.

Lighting is Everything

Trust me on this. We had to re-shoot one video three times in three different locations due to lighting. Build or buy a lighting kit. Just do it! We choose to do a three point lighting system to highlight the person we were focusing on. This worked great and made our subject look brighter and more alive.

Background and Framing the Shot

Choose your background carefully. We learned really quickly that adding different backgrounds to a person can change their skin tone and brighten or wash out your subject. An example is while we were filming Rex we noticed that we had to use a darker background or his white hair literally disappeared. We also discovered that using a one tone background just did not do him any favors. We ended up shooting him in his office which turned out to be the correct setting and feel for the videos.

Another tip is to really look at your background. You may need to move items to make it look cleaner or position your subject so the frame is centered in the space you are shooting in. Also check to make sure all lighting equipment is out of frame. That sounds simple but we made this mistake so you could too.

Editing Video Is Hard

I a have no video editing training but even with easy to use tools like wevideo and adobe it can be a pain in the neck. It is time consuming and soul sucking. After a day of video editing you really have to give it to the guys who do this for a living. My tip would be to keep it simple and add variety to the video. Add images or words to break up the video and make it more interesting to watch.

Animation

I have also started working with some video animation with GoAnimate. This handy little tool can let me create a short video with voice over and moving animations quickly. Again it does take a little work to make the story flow and continue to be informational but overall I like the tool. The best part of using animation for business videos is you do not have to schedule time with your video subject to sit down and tape the video. Animations do not care about how their hair looks either.

Over all I would say creating videos for business in house may not be the easy, but it does give you creative freedom to really get your point crossed. If you want to see some of the videos I have done so far check out Bancorp Insurance YouTube Page.