My final outcome and first video I’ve learned put together as a result of this amazing workshop. I will definitely buy the application and some tools to create interesting content for my social media both with my designs as well as work in progress:
Anna Bress, a TV Journalist was invited by the Center of Entrepreneurship to host a workshop here in Cardiff Met teaching us video editing and some basic rules to make interesting content to post on social network. She worked for BBS and also with freelancer journalist teaching them digital skills. 18 months ago she started her own business teaching video editing, to create content, to companies, to make them more independent in creating their own professional content. Four hours of workshop very well spent. When I signed up for it, it kind of scared me the amount of time but I could have listened to her way more. I loved her professionalism and engagement and how she made every aspect of it interesting, I could have listened to her for hours and hours. I will definitely be using all these skills in my practice. This is a summary I managed to write down while listening and learning:
Motional hooks work very well with engagement. The traditional way of leaflets doesn’t work anymore as it used to be. Nowadays 70% of the population is on Facebook. People are more and more attracted and to videos than photographs and these can be done now by common people without the need of expensive equipment. The quality of the phones today is very high and professional. From 2011 when phones started to have high video standards, journalists started self shooting their own pieces getting rid of the camera men. Another interesting data is that 85% of videos on social are watched with the sound off, therefore the text in association with video has become very important. Have relevant background behind the subject when filming or interviewing.
Recommend investing in:
- MICROPHONE. there are 2 types. A lepall (boya 14:99) The more expensive one (49:99 smart tlav+). A hand held microphone, chenifec 23£ is good already (better is around 200£). Stay far 20 cm away.
- Stabilization such as selfie stick or a TRIPOD if the interview is too long. Cheepest amazon basics 18£ and works perfectly, it has an extension and a hook down to put wait on it not to tramble on an unsteady floor (wooden) especially with a lot of people walking on it. Newer brand is 36£ and more stable for higher budgets.
- Tripod for phone or tablet that can be attached on the tripod. There are 1.99 on amazon, very basic but serve the purpose.
- LIGHT – always go for natural, 1 meter from the source of light for example a window. The light always on the subject, never behind him. If the situation requires artificial light adjust accordingly.
Video: open the camera, click on the screen to focus on a point, if you click longer on it it will block on it and get everything else blurry. Normally the camera picks up a face but if there are more that one in the room it is good to lock it there so it doesn’t get confused.
Resolution: Standard Hd – 1080px works great, the 4k is 40.000px. and much higher. Filming in 4k is not necessary but it has to be at least Hd and it can be transformed after. If i film far away and i want to crop it afterwords it should be 4k otherwise cropping an Hd would get too blurry. Not many people watch in 4k neither on tv nor on socials but it has to be considered when filming in distance in order to crop it and for the future.
Frame the subject in the picture. You don’t move around with the camera while filming, it is very amateur. You take the wide for 3 or 4 seconds, the mid, close ups and even more close ups. After that, Kine Master will help with editing. Every project has to be then saved or moved to the cloud, the app doesn’t perform very well when it has too many videos to deal with at once. You have to chose your edit format first.1:1 works more and best for social. In the app go to: Media —> All –> chose the 3 videos (wide, mid and close up). Click and drag the videos after to change their order if necessary. If a video is upside down, select it and flip it with the Rotate/Mirror setting. To cut, stretch out the video if necessary to understand where to cut, a light touch on it, and go to trim, trim to left or right depending on what is needed. Go to volume to reduce the volume accordingly if I have to talk over it and be careful that the volume level is green, under the mid lines. You just need 2 to 3 seconds of the same image or video, it is the necessary time for the brain to register the information and not get bored.
Careful when using imagery. Pexels and Pixebay are some of the websites that provide free images. I Movie (for Ios) is similar to Kine Master as setup and it s free but after learning Kine Master she wouldn’t go back to I Movie.
Recording the screen is another important tool. Screen Record is an app used by Apple and it only registers what is on the screen. Call Recorder is an app to record phone calls but you need the approval to use it. You can record what you see on the screen. AZ Screen Recorder, however records external sounds too and it is an app for Android.
For the interview: strong introduction, 4 questions and strong ending. You can hear people talk for 10-20 sec and then start layering with photos. Layer –> Media –> pull it out or do split screen while muting down the new layer’s sound. 5-8 words when doing voice transcription in words for videos. If its 30 sec long it is doable, if longer than 1 minute it will take time to be able to split the video every 5-8 words.
There are other useful apps such as: Microsoft Hyperlaps for timelaps. Record 5 min at the start, 5 in the middle and 5 at the end for long processes such as decorating a christmas tree for example. BIGVU is an app that allows to transcript on screen what is needed to say and can be easily readable when filming oneself.
Anda Avramescu 