4 Mistakes Video Bloggers Make and How You Can Avoid Them

Here are four Video Blogging mistakes I see all the time and what you can do to avoid them.

1. Mistake: your background isn't doing anything for you.  Don't set up in front of a grey wall. Or a brick wall. Or any kind of blank wall.
   
   Of course you can use white, grey, or black wall as an advantage. But you need good lighting to do that. Most V Bloggers don't use lighting so I counsel to just stay away from this:
   
   
   
   
   This looks better. Hey, who is this guy?  Note, I'm not using my laptop camera.
   
   Instead I have a mini DV camera (Canon HV30) perched slightly above me.  You'll see that the walls are creating interesting angles. The chair to the left breaks up the white wall and that the splash of blue on the wall helps enormously:
   
   
   
   
   
2. Mistake: your shots have you centered up in the frame.  Think about negative space. You will look stronger in the frame if you don't appear bullseye in the center of the frame all the time.
   
   This guy is centered up. We get bored of even 2 minutes of this.
   
    
   
   This person is against a black background but he's lit well so it's OK.
   
    
                     
   
   
   This video can be seen here: http://www.viddler.com/explore/AdventCreative/videos/2/
   
   
3. Mistake: you stick to a medium shot. In the following example, two of my social media gods, David Meerman Scott shoots a video of Chris Brogan with his Flip Mino.
   
   David chooses to let the camera hang on a medium shot.  Two problems with this.  In video, only the face is expressive.  While Brogan has a nice chest and cool Sopranos-like shirt on. It doesn't provide the viewer with any information. 
   
   The eyes, the mouth... focus on that.  Also, note all the head room above Chris' head.  Close that up.
   
   Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
4. Mistake: No Editing.  It's easier to hit record spew out what you're going to say in a medium shot and then post.  But that would be like writing a rant and not putting in paragraph marks or punctuation. 
   
   Editing takes time to master.  iMovie has made their program pretty much worthless.  So try ScreenFlow, Final Cut Express or Adobe Premiere. Lynda.com has some great tutorials on Final Cut.
   
   I haven't checked out the editing capabilities of the iPhone yet but it looks (just from the ad) like they are basing it on their iMovie platform. Yuck. 
   
   Look what a little editing does here (and a mix of settings):

   

How are you making your Vlogging videos better?

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Comments

[Kevin]

Chris,

Great post, I found you through David Meerman Scott's retweet. I would love to read more about lighting, do you have a post up about it?

Thanks, and again great posts.

Kevin

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

Kevin:  Glad you found me.  Thanks for liking the post. I havent written a post about lighting yet because most of my readers dont have professional lights.  Also, camera are so fast today that they dont require a lot of lighting.  That said, here are some things Ive tried in the past. 

1) Get a 60 watt lamp - place it slightly above you - behind the camera - and put some diffusion over it.  Ive actually used Glad Press n Seal as a way to make the light more diffuse and softer.2) Use a window that acts as a key light to one side of your face.  Darren Rowse likes to use this technique in his vlogs.

Hope that helps!

[Catie Foertsch]

Christopher - excellent post. Especially #3 - I often find that people are reluctant to zoom in because it makes them feel awkward, as tho they're violation your personal space. So - they take the safe route and stick to a much wider shot, which as you note makes the subject's head very small in the frame. Another problem is too much head room - which is space between the top of your head and the frame. A wide shot combined with too much head room makes your video subject look small & insignificant, regardless of how interesting they are.

A too-wide shot may also be caused by using a camera without fine zoom controls. When zooming in, you may find it difficult to not zoom in too far and cut off the top of the person's head. So - you zoom back out. My advice is to keep trying until you get a good zoom, because the results are worth it.

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

Thanks Catie. Big nod of agreement!

[Chris]

Great post! I found this through a friend's twitter page.

I'm an insurance agent, broadcasting live via Ustream. There is nothing particularly exciting about a guy sitting at his desk typing and talking on the phone. I started doing this to become more available.

I feel like I've got a good concept, just looking for ways to improve... these tips are an excellent start.

Are there any open source programs besides Ustream that anyone can recommend?

Here is my site if you'd like to critique at some point: http://www.atlantainsurancelive.com

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

Chris: Thanks for the feedback. I checked out your site but you were not live on your webcam.  Let me know the hours you hang out on camera.  Good for you for testing new waters with video!

[dangtech2000]

great post - Chris - very helpful. It's amazing when clients say - I don't need production values; it's YouTube. Well unpolished does not mean authentic.