I write here a lot about the fundamentals- using LUTs, hijacking Canva- just general stuff that we often forget about as we start talking about the strategy behind TAYA videography and creating content that moves people to action. One issue that plagues me as a videographer is shot composition. I get in the ZONE when I’m filming and will leave shoots over the moon- and then sit down to edit later and find myself cropping and altering way too much in post for it to be efficient. So here’s a handy checklist for you to keep in mind when heading to your next shoot! Buffer space- shoot wider than you plan to need in post so your SME always has enough headroom and so you aren’t cutting off body parts in the final frame.  Background noise- remove anything that doesn’t have to be there- a cluttered image takes away from your SME. Antlers- is anything in the frame (like a tree or wall mural) making it so that your SME now has stuff seemingly popping out of their head or body? Lighting- Is the lighting even across the frame, with minimal color cast from surrounding walls or furniture? SME Direction- Are they facing a direction that makes sense? Either straight on or 15 degrees off is ideal for most situations.

Mandy York

24 minutes ago

This is a great post Lindsey, EVERYONE plays a part in assignment selling and you did a great job at breaking down some of these parts 🙌🏻 Thank you for sharing this! 

Lindsey Auten

November 18 at 03:56pm

We've all been there- you've got a great talking head shot, but you've got to cut a portion out for whatever reason. Maybe they stumbled on a word, or they sneezed mid-sentence, maybe they were just talking for too long and you had to make a decision on what was important to include. Regardless of your reasoning, you now have a weird jump cut that you need to hide with footage of something else- so what do you do?Enter your backlog of b-roll footage to the rescue! One of the simplest and most effective things you can do to make your life easier and expedite your post-production process is to have ready-to-go, drag-and-drop clips to use in instances like this. The first thing I want you to do is to go into whatever file structure you're using and create a folder called "Evergreen B-roll". Then inside that folder, make others, we're crafting a decent file structure here ok? So your subfolders could be "In office", "In the field", "Drone"... just whatever makes sense for you and your business. Next, take footage you already have and decide what would work for multiple videos. Maybe you've got a great shot of your boss running a meeting, or a plain jane shot of your company store front- stick those where they belong. After that, organize a Ninja-Day. This is where you are going to take an entire day and just walk around grabbing b-roll. Film people typing. Film people walking in and out the front door. Grab some shots of coworkers laughing by the water cooler. Shadow the sales team on an in-person client conference. Whatever it is, get 10-15 second shots of everything you could possibly use. These don't have to be fancy- and whoever is on screen doesn't have to do anything special- you won't be using the audio anyway so all you have to worry about is lighting and composition. Finally, grab a one month trial of a stock footage site like envato or storyblocks and go through and snag everything that makes sense for your business. You do printers? Get some cool footage of the printers you sell. You have a tech company? Great time to get some CGI footage of 'cyberspace' looking things. Keep that file structure squeeky clean and you should be good to go! Get creative!

Mandy York

November 7 at 04:42pm

Bryan Paulson  of course! Keep up the great work :) 

Lindsey Auten

November 7 at 04:12pm

Ouhhhh Mandy - YASSS!!! You know I gotta tag a bunch of our videographers 🎉 Anthony Navarro   Ben Friedkin   John Peter Chua   Karen Kate Ting   Kapil Naran   Drew DeSollar   Matt Totten   Noah Perez   Margo Dillon   - Check it outtt 👀

Mandy York

November 3 at 01:45pm