Transcription
I'm a TV cameraman with 25 years experience, and I've built up a following on social media of over a 100,000 followers, and I want to help you create better content online. And we do that by creating better shots to help people stay longer on your content. So today, I've got five tips that will get you off and running straight away. And you can follow along, too, because I'm filming on my phone. So, here we go.
Trick number one. Now, this is the walk-in shot. It's one of your easiest wins. So, rather than start a piece with the camera just sat on this bench, just walk in. When your eyes have something to follow, it feels more interesting. And you don't just have to do it when you're walking to a place. You can walk to the spot where you're going to deliver a line. Let me show you. See, even this looks natural just trying to find a frame. And if you figure out the point at which you enter the frame and just start speaking, then then it becomes really quite slick. You can also enter a really tight shot just by firmly placing one foot down and leaning out of frame. And I can just bob straight back in and start speaking. It just feels quite natural.
Right on to tip two. I'm speaking to you here by pretending there's a camera over here. So, when I want to make that head turn and speak to that camera when I cut, I want to cut with my head's sort of around here. So, you'll see my head blur when I speak over here when I move my head. So, I'm going to cut at that point. See what happens. As long as you make that second shot a nice different size, you'll make it look like there is actually two cameras here, but there isn't.
So, on to trick three. Most creators, when they're creating their content, they're thinking about the words and what they put in that message. And when they think about the background, they go, "Well, yeah, it's fine. There's something behind me." And most places, you'll have people in their offices just talking away. But you've got to try and get some depth into this medium because TV only really works when you see like a parallax, something in the distance. So, if I just turn my camera around this way, you'll see something very different. The depth you get is just amazing. We've got all these leading lines, so your eye is naturally drawn to where I am in frame, especially because I'm wearing bright clothing on this relatively dull day. But it does make such a massive difference. So have a look at your background and try and insert you into it rather than think of yourself and then the backgrounds just will take care of itself.
And that takes me onto my next trick where you can add some movement into your image. It'll make people last longer. It doesn't have to be that ridiculous. It can be just you taking a few paces and you can naturally tighten a shot so it feels more important once I get here.
And finally, this is going to sound a bit brutal, but be really picky about your edits. If you've got into the edit suite and there are lines you can take out, well, take them out. Try and make things as easy as possible for people to digest.
So, let's have a recap. We've got the walk-in shot. We've got the blur on action cut. We've got adding depth to our footage. We got walking towards the camera. And we've got the fact that we should be brutal about what we send out into the world. If you do those five things, your phone will suddenly feel like a production studio. You'll look confident, competent, and totally in control. These are the exact principles I teach inside the studio. It's where we help coaches and consultants make videos that sell through trust, not tactics. If you want feedback on your own videos, come and join us.
Next up, we're going a bit deeper. Why social media feels broken and what should we do about it? See you there.