July 4, 2018
Mastering photography and video skills usually takes a lot of patience, practice and time. Filming something well is almost identical to taking a great photo – same principles apply.
Get to know your camera, work out all the different settings and what they do. Invest in some basic filming equipment like a tripod, some lights, a good microphone and recording unit. You really need to spend some time figuring out your ideal set-up because even the crème de la crème of post-production experts won’t be able to turn a poor video into a masterpiece.
In today’s post, I’m going to share 6 of my top tips for video post-production, so grab a cuppa and lets get started!
- Shoot good footage. This tip isn’t really about post-production but if you don’t take this into account, you’re setting yourself up for a fall (or seriously long hours in front of a computer trying to polish a turd). Don’t rely on post-production for magic tricks – they don’t exist. Re-shoot as many times as you need. And this goes for audio as well!
- Sort out your footage. There’s nothing worse than having all of your video and audio clips dumped into a project. Your video will most likely follow a storyline. Create different folders for each chapter and remove any clips that aren’t needed. A good folder system will massively speed up your editing process.
- Clean up your audio. Microphones will generally pick up other sounds that you won’t want in your video – be it high frequency from some electrical device or any other background noise. Also, when cutting up audio clips and editing them together, always use transitions for a smooth, seamless sound.
- Colour grade your video. Now generally speaking, this can be avoided if you’ve nailed tip number 1. However, if filming with different cameras or even different lenses, the colour of your video clips can vary. A bit of colour grading will make your final video look a lot more professional.
- Vary your shots. Remember, people have very short attention spans. We get bored quickly! So if you’re filming pieces to camera make sure to use cutaways and layer them on top. If you’re filming with two cameras then switch between angles throughout the video.
- Music. Music in video can be powerful, but so can silence. If you’re using music make sure it reflects the energy of the story you’re telling. Does your story take a sudden turn? Then so should the music.
And … Cut!
Hopefully, this post has given you some ideas of pitfalls you can avoid when the time comes to start producing your own social marketing videos. Good luck!