New blog. First Post. I was going to hold off on this until my site redesign, but after what I saw tonight, I think it’s an important thing to note: Don’t shoot amateur quality videos and sell them as professional productions.
Tonight, a friend passed a referral to me. I went to look at the company website – we’ll call them “LLC.com”. Their web design firm has posted some videos about what a great place this company is to work for. Now, defining your corporate culture is an excellent use of video in today’s climate. Google has done it with the Life At Google series on YouTube. The Google series is shot well, and has compelling themes.
The videos I watched tonight on the LLC site were (a) Grainy – if I didn’t know better, I’d think they were shot with someone’s camera phone. (b) used the on camera microphone – a very big no no. Sound is as important as picture, and since all of these shots were extreme closeups, to have the voice sound like it was coming from a barrel is quite rude from the position of a viewer. (c) one of the persons were shot sitting in front of a window. The light coming from behind washes the subject out. It looks cheap. I can’t hear what they are saying, so even if it IS a wonderful place to work, no one will know.
Truthfully, I don’t know if their web designer is also the video producer, but since the design firm touts multimedia production on their website, I could make a pretty good case for it. “LLC” has a nice website. The designers did a good job. Was this thrown in at the last minute? Was it made to be a “value added” component ? At this point, I don’t know. Maybe I can find out.
Producing videos for businesses is a lot more than Point And Shoot. Some folks just love to do things like that for themselves, and that’s okay. BUT
** You have to have an external microphone. No discussion.
**The basics of 3 point lighting are simple. So use room lamps, and buy some Perfect Daylight bulbs so at least your colors come out right, and your subjects look like somebody you would want to watch.
And if you find that you’re in over your head, ask for help. Your business and the image you convey can be seriously harmed by thoughtless multimedia.
———- That’s a wrap.