Norman Rockwell, Creative Director

The relationship of the well staged and photographed still image to creative direction in advertising and video / film is no more evident than in this article about Norman Rockwell from Photo District News.

Before he ever committed paint to canvas, he set up intricate photoshoots. These were as professional as any video or film shoot, and included casting, set design, lighting, and the directing of talent and expression.

It raises my estimation of Rockwell, perhaps because it makes clear that he wasn’t working from swipe files, but was in fact creating his own masterful photographic tableau’s. Take a look at the comparison of Rockwell photo to Rockwell painting. Each has their own genius.

He picked the right people. He directed the right expressions. He positioned them in a still life pose that rivaled the best photographers and painters.

Then, on canvas, he filled in the details, adjusted, added, enhanced, reimagined and yes, photo-realistically replicated what he had previously created in black and white.

It was quite a process. Probably not unique. But a definite unraveling of a great artistic process.

We need to imagine our own work in video and print as well as Rockwell did his. Great motion is made up of great moments.

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• Video Painting (buzzfeed.com)
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The Art of the Interview: How to be Invisible

Interviewing for an audio-visual enterprise is an ancient art.

In a good documentary, the star of the interview is the person being interviewed. The interviewer is typically off-camera, and if the interviewer is really good, you’ll never see them or hear them speak. Why?

They ask questions that get full answers.

The art of the interview has been bastardized by today’s TV performer who wants not only to look handsome or pretty, but also smart. So they ask a lot of rapid fire questions. They’ve only got a minute, and they are thinking Emmy. So these questions contain major hints at the answer the interviewer is looking for.

Interviewer: Tell me about how horrible you must feel now that you’re house has burned down?

Interviewee: I feel bad.

Well, yes. But it can be worse. I often hear local cable interviewers ask the question this way:

Interviewer: The fact that your house burned down must make you feel awfully bad, doesn’t it?

Interviewee: Yes, yes it does.

Interviewer: How bad?

Interviewee: pretty bad.

Pretty bad, indeed.

In a corporate long form documentary style video, an ideal scenario is the video that can be “narrated” solely by the interviewees, through their own words, in complete and meaningful sentences. Suffice it to say that this is hard work. You must ask the right questions in the right fashion and then have the editing chops to put it together into a compelling narrative that has a beginning, middle, climax, and end. The interviewee will not be a talking head on camera, so you have no excuse to make your interviews TV style, where editing would cause unsightly jump cuts (therefore giving the producer an excuse to edit less. More gross profit!)

Some producers will pretend that TV style interviews are the right way to sell business-to-business products and services. That’s ridiculous. Looking at two talking heads blathering on without b-roll, music, or story is an absolute waste of a company’s dollars. That producer has no intention of working for his or her money.

We believe in interview style videos, just as surely as we believe in unstaged actualities to convince audiences of a product’s quality or a company’s intent or philosophy.

Yes, it takes longer, and it costs a bit more. But the shelf life can be very long, and the impact multi-tiered. Its a technique that works at meetings, or on the web. Consider this technique for your next video.

An example can be found by clicking on the image below.

Excerpt from Corporate Founder Story Video

Great Video Installation Ideas

Video installation “Spiegelbilder” TEST from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

Take a look at their other installations as well.

Tribute Video “How-To” Book Now Available

Tribute Videos are videos that celebrate a person, couple, group, or institution. They can be engagement videos, anniversary videos, memorials, retirement videos, milestone birthday videos, company histories, leadership stories, school reunion stories, award-winner portraits, and more. They are at home in the living room, rec room, boardroom or ballroom.

Tribute videos are how I got my start. (See “AVSquad” in the links.) And they remain the most satisfying of the work that we do. There is nothing like telling a people story.

A lot of people are into video these days, some as a hobby, some as a potential profession, some as part of their job duties. There is a perception that video is easy, thanks to point and shoot miniature cameras, computer editing, and thousands of tipsters on-line telling you how easy it is and selling something– usually hardware.

But hardware is only part of the problem, and hardware and editing software are covered pretty readily via training web sites, DVD lessons, and more.

No one is training people on how to tell a compelling story. How to interview, how to move pictures, how to choose music, how to pace videos, how to get a visceral reaction from an audience!

That’s where “Tribute Videos for Love & Money” comes in.

Tribute Videos for Love & Money

It’s an ebook that details my communications beliefs and systems. If you like samples of my work, and you want to know how and why certain creative decisions were made, this is the place to start. It concentrates on the “Tribute” people story type of video, but frankly, if you can tell that kind of story, there isn’t much you won’t be able to do as you grow your capability or career.

For more information, go to videostoryschool.com.

I hope you like it and find it valuable.

Bad Idea #2: Not Budgeting for the Video

If you are a corporate marketing services buyer, you might already be budgeting for video. But if you are a marketing manager, or sales manager, or fund raiser, perhaps you aren’t. Meeting planner? Sometimes. Training Department. Yes, probably. Really, every situation is different.

Throughout my career, I’ve heard time and time again, “We didn’t budget for this…”, as if that was sufficient justification for me to cut prices.

But of course, as the exception, you know it doesn’t work that way. When there’s a line item foer the kind of thing we do in your approved budget, things move along a lot faster, and without additional justification to upper management. So you’re good to go, the minute you’re ready and the demand is there. (Your bosses like to see action, after all… how does that go– “Look busy”?)

Budgeting a video is a tricky process, because it’s all based on the amount of footage you shoot, and the kind of footage you shoot. Controlled, short (one or two days) shoots make for controlled, reasonably fast edits… perhaps this is a new product video and it’s mostly close-up tabletop work.

A history of the company, or a plant tour, or an overview of the entire operation may be a different story. Multiple shooting days, or weeks, combined with a desire to tell the best story ever about OUR GREAT COMPANY, Inc., will conspire to drive the price up. Not unreasonably, mind you– it’s all about the time it takes to do the job.

I’m convinced that professional buyers know what professional video producers and agencies need financially to do a job that meets the buyers’ expectations. I’m also convinced that when the project has not been budgeted for, they will find it necessary to “negotiate”. The problem is that this may eliminate the most credible and accomplished vendors. The  buyer is willing to make that sacrifice because they don’t want to go to the boss with an unbudgeted expenditure, and the lower the expenditure, the less the job impact. But what is sacrificed?

What about the positive impacts on your career? When you hire the right creative video producer, you’re often on your way to having a major message impact on your company (really, call and I’ll give you examples.)  And that can mean big things for you. Budget shouldn’t get in the way. And it won’t, if you’ve thought ahead.

The smartest buyers I’ve worked with investigate the cost of various kinds of projects before budgets are submitted. Granted, for the production company, that might be frustrating because it can mean a 4 or 6 month wait before anything gets going. But when it gets going, you won’t be playing a game of sticker shock driven ” I didn’t budget for that”, “well, maybe we can cut out some graphics”, “can you do this cheaper and we’re pay you more on the next job”, et. al.

You can do the job that will accomplish your goals, get you applause and recognition, impact the company’s bottom line, and impact yours as well.

That’s why we do no obligation creative proposals. We scope out the video or multimedia project or website or meeting, define as much as we can, and quote a turnkey “put it in the budget” figure.

You have to start somewhere. It might as well be ahead of the curve. That puts you a couple of major step closer to success.

Video in Emails ups Click-Through Rates 2-3X

Here’s some research published on MarketingVox that states that using a video in your email will up clickthroughs by 2 to 3x. Yes, many isp’s and corporate nets block videos in email, but there are plenty of ways to get around that without upsetting the IT department masters. Read more here, and call us at 908-213-8705 if you’d like to try it out for yourself. It’s an inexpensive investment that can triple your direct email effectiveness.

How to Produce a Video on the Cheap. And, Yes, a “Good” Video.

Video is one of those rare fields that has had a total reboot. It has not been supplanted, replaced, superseded, obsoleted, or died.

It flailed for a bit, while the doctors tried to find what about the web made its parents think it was going to die.

But then Dr. House entered, and declared, “Ahah! It isn’t dying. It is being reborn!”

And it was reborn, in short pants. Younger, leaner, easier to maintain (not as fussy about it’s baby food) and requiring far fewer oil changes.

Have I mixed enough metaphors?

The new video was born of a demand caused by the Internet, and it wasn’t always called video. Sometimes it was “Powerpoints,” or “Decks”, or “Flash shows”, or “Streaming” video. But those were just designer labels.

Wrangler or Dior, it just doesn’t cost as much to make a video, if you do it right.

You will always pay for brains. The theme. The premise. The strategy. the script. (Uh, that’s what I sell, folks.)

But when you can get a high-def camera for 250 bucks, and a a damn good editing program for 100 bucks, and a powerhouse computer off-lease at some corporate slag-heap for practically free—- well now all that matters is that you know what to do with all this firepower.

My advice is go to the best video writer / director in town and yell him you know the secret handshake and get him to work on the cheap. He may just be glad to have the business.

But barring that, and assuming your ego wants to be a part of the wonderful world of video, here’s a few ways to produce a perfectly acceptable video on the cheap.

Start by making a slide show (for more on this, go to my other website, slideshowsecrets.com.) A good slideshow has compelling still images, the occasional graphic sequence, and a great soundtrack. The secret sauce is the soundtrack. There are terrific slide show programs available like ProShow Gold from Photodex for Windows and FotoMagico for the Mac that create incredible moving still image shows that sync precisely to pre-existing soundtracks that output to video and thus create, well, video. They can upload to YouTube, your own hosted site, to a DVD, flash drive, etc.

If you’d like to be working with full motion (more precisely, if you NEED to work with full motion– to show a motion process, to use interviews that MUST be on-camera) there are terrific low-rent video editing programs on both the MAC and PC sides.

For Windows, you can’t go wrong with any of the Sony Vegas family. These allow you to mix stills, motion, graphics, and create a fully sophisticiated soundtrack all within one program. We at VideoStory have used the pro version for years.

On the MAC side, Try combining the iLife and iWork products to create a hell of an arsenal. iMovie 9 allows for simple, intuitive editing. By using the presentation program Keynote for graphcs and effects and outputting to Quicktime for inclusion in your video edit, you’ve just upped the quality quotient by 10. (Please, please, do not tell any professionals I told this to you.)

A lot of these secrets can be found in my new book. “Tribute Videos for Love & Money”, which explores ways talented people with limited knowledge and resources can make great videos. If you’d like a free pre-release copy, just email me at brienlee@slideshowsecrets.com and I will send you a free complete PDF of the book in exchange for your email address for my newsletter. It’s worth it. It’s free.

Are You Packin’ Your Video Camera “Heat” Today?

Are you packin’?

Your video camera, that is.

Your camera– and your right to use it– is as important to many of us as our right to pack heat– uh, carry a concealed weapon, that is. And no, I don;t pack heat.

But I do pack cam, and that can be just as important. With it, you can:

• Capture a family moment.
• Witness a crime.
• Record breaking news or a natural disaster.
• Make a personal statement by pointing the camera at yourself.
• Record a coworkers moment of triumph.
• Surreptitiously record b-roll for a company video.
• Ask Grandma 20 questions for posterity before she shuffles off to Baltimore.
• Narrate your own personal documentary.
• Record something worth 100,000 hits on YouTube (like that territorial squirrel fight I saw– and missed– the other day. I forgot to pack cam.)

So pack cam. The links you gain, the views you rank, even the money you make from a once in a lifetime catch, is worth only the amount of cam you take.

How to Make Your OnLine Video Go Viral

Ad Age Digital has an insightful article on making your video viral, especially in terms of big campaigns.

The Kind of Video You Need in a Depression: The Tribute

When times get tough, and we examine what’s really important, we realize the importance of friends, family, people and places in our lives.

We take a hard look at the “things” in our lives. We’re quicker to make judgments, and pare back frivolous things, and conserve and treasure more those things that provide the most comfort and respite. For some, they must have books. Others, perhaps movies or music. Some people must have live theater. We make our choices, we make adjustments in our budget, and we we’re happy for what we have.

This past few months created occasions where I realized the importance of one of my favorite kinds of video: The Tribute. “Tribute” is an all-encompassing name that essentially means some form of life story, family history, celebratory story, or honorary review.

It’s what got me into the business. When my father turned 50, I produced a slide show. A simple, single tray click-click that was (however) carefully timed to a full soundtrack featuring his favorite music, recordings of family members past, slides and pictures and press clippings of accomplishments, and even a part narration from a very bad imitator of Howard Cossell.

100 people were in attendance, and I was stunned by the positive reaction. I repeated the technique (this time with two slide projectors and a dissolve mixer to make the picures fade into one another) a few years later for a college event or two, and finally for my sister’s engagement party.

All of these are still dragged out of the closet and rewatched some 40 years later (they’ve been transferred to video, of course). Less and less of the original audience can be in attendance, of course, making these showings even more special. Little did I know what kind of investment they would be– an investment that grew in emotional value year by year.

Nobody lives forever. In the case of my father’s 50th birthday, well, he was gone just 11 years later. My mother died just 5 years after the event. I’m so glad I created that show.

Last fall, my brother, who has produced these kinds of videos since the mid 1990′s, called to say that he had a job he didn’t have the time to handle. Could I do it? I admit it, I asked: “How Much?”

But the how much is never the make or break in these cases. The customers (unless it’s a corporate tribute to a retiring executive) always think the price is too much, and we always think the hourly rate for the effort put into these is way too small.

Enter the recession.

The matriarch and patriarch of The Smith Family (we’ll call them) wanted to encapsulate their “story” for their four children and their dozen or so grandchildren. This was very proactive– they had an incredible wealth of pictures, and a dozen or so 8mm films no one had seen in ages, and in the case of the children (now in their 40′s and 50′s) and grandchildren, perhaps these had never been seen.

We took the approach of interviewing Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Theirs was a WWII romance, s New Jersey story, a suburban sprawl story, and it paralleled the story of the country tremendously. But mostly, there were their memories. Razor sharp, warm, and incisive.

I’m proud of the result.

Then in February, I turned 60 and for the first time ever, someone (my brother) produced a tribute video for me. I was blown away by the surprise, and even more blown away by his work.

Corporate videos come and go. This year’s “Exceeding Your Expectations” becomes last year’s news, management changes, the themes change, and the videos change. “More with the 90′s” becomes “Making it in the New Millennium”.

By families have more permanence. And yet in today’s digital world, who can make sense of, or even physically project, the film and slides and tapes of yesteryear? And beyond that, how do you make it a story?

I know how to– very well, in fact. As I pointed out– I’ve done it, and not just for families, but for corporations, civic leaders, and church dignitaries. Tributes focus on what’s best about people– their upbringing, their character, their accomplishments, their likes and loves, even what they learn from their mistakes. They become stories of character– and that is something companies should afford to pass along from department to department and employee to employee.

In the next few posts, that show the power of the Tribute– how it can emphasize love, prosperity, achievement, togetherness, and purpose.

Perfect for a recession.