Video for a startup with their hands. Without experience and budget
as a result the video we shot for yourself, without experience and with a minimum budget. Turned out better than I thought: in the first days of 1500+ hits and record a lot of likes on our fb page. Positive comments were added that did everything themselves. For the young banking services with a special trip to the service this week turned out very useful.
As the main performer in the whole thing for shooting video, I talk about the process and our mistakes. Just say that you are not a professional, neither in movies, nor in video. My professional activity is connected with management of projects and marketing, relevant experience is just Amateur photography. So our experience will be rather interesting startups and enthusiasts who, like us, with no experience wants to do something better than we have.
First I will describe the process, and then a simple list will give you practical insights and tips. If the story is tired — go directly to Chapter "dry residue for those who want to repeat".
The video format was chosen because I wanted to tell you about your iPhone application in which we have embodied ideas about super-Bank part of usability and design. We know that when we are talking about the ease, beauty and comfort — it is better to show than to tell. Around the same time came across an interesting video from Mailboxapp and Simple. From these works we cherpnul inspiration and confidence to shoot a video and yourself.
First we went to communicate with people who do this professionally. Talking about prices, organizational and time expenses. More or less decent Studio called the minimum price of $8 000–$10 000 per minute video (similar to the one that mailboxapp) and 2-3 weeks to process. Was wondering about these videos, like izettle and Runes — this cost between $25k and $35k respectively. For our video on the 1 minute calculation was as follows:
the
Communication with the studios proved to be very useful: we learned about the steps to creating a video, what specialists are required, as are certain effects, etc. for Example, in practice useful to understanding the peculiarities of working with voice and sound. This is a separate work, work is sometimes comparable to the creation of the video, so we decided to abandon the scenes with the voice than to make their lives easier by about half.
It is in the process of discussing the project, we came to the conclusion that it looks not too difficult, and you need to try to shoot himself. Reasoned that in the worst case we'll come back and pay $10,000, but at least we understand that paying for work that you can't do yourself; and at best — save more interesting is. Of course, it was not so easy, but then the decision was made.
Our first scenario consisted of 20 bulletpoints in Evernote, the second of 18, and the last of the 14. Here it is:
From the beginning we decided to limit the duration of 60-75 seconds. According to our observations, longer movies watch, only if they have a lot of dynamics and suspense. If you are not sure what a good command of the laws of drama and can hold the viewer's attention, do not shoot a long movie — it's just not inspected, and everything will be in vain.
When you make up a script about your product, quickly develop a taste for it and want to show a lot. There is a tendency to increase the scenario. We fell into this trap and end up double-cut scenario, because long-term scenario not only leads to too much timing, but blurs the focus and mixes the main ideas with details that only seem important.
For the future we concluded that the script is very, very important. More than we thought. In addition, a good script that protects you from unnecessary work (see our experience below), it allows to test video "interesting" even before you spend the money first. Just tell the script to friends and see their reaction. Interesting if they tie, do they have over the development of events and causes emotions ends? If answers to all is "no", then the script is easier to alter. We had one "Yes" and we continued.
Filmed on a personal camera Canon 5d m3, Canon lens 24-70mm and a tripod to Vanguard. Everything else is a slider for camera movement, a pair of light sources and a microphone — was rented for a modest 900 rubles per day. Camera would be easier, in our opinion, would suffice and a modern SLR the basic level for $800.
According to the scenario, we needed shooting in the café. Usually rent a place and shoot in a comfortable environment. We went the other way and agreed with Progress Bar. We were allowed to shoot for free, but so that we will not disturb the visitors. Professional actors we hired a girl friend Catherine has kindly agreed to help us with the main role of Lisa, the bartender agreed on the spot, and all the other people in the frame — real visitors and the waiters participated without knowing it.
Props are minimal: a cookie from the store, Cup of house coffee I bought on the spot.
As sunlight in the morning gives a beautiful picture, we were in place by 8 am and began shooting street scenes. There were four of us: model, operator, and 2 assistant, kindly agreed to participate. Assistants were carrying the equipment and kept the light. The material on the street we filmed for 1.5 hours. It in the final movie came just a couple seconds. All because of the street scene we filmed immediately without first having visited the place and not defined with specific plans. This error led to the fact that almost all footage came in very beautiful street objects and most of the material had to reject.
Closer to the opening of the café (9-30 am), we moved inside and started shooting indoors. The main difficulty in our case was that the bar was quite dark, with a mixed light from the Windows and from the lamps. Had a little Tinker and add your own light (well, rented) so that the person in the picture was bright and natural colors. We managed two additional sources of light that compensated for the shadows on the faces appearing in the initial conditions. For shooting this episode took another hour.
Then I shot close-UPS of the bar. Such atmospheric shots needed to make the video more alive and dynamic. Just work the machine, the actions of the Barista, as the calculation is performed, and so on. Many of these frames were in the final movie. It took another 40 minutes.
When we decided to start shooting major scenes with the iPhone, we suddenly began to rush administrator. It turned out that the administration gave us a couple of hours, and then had to begin the event. So suddenly we have only one hour to shoot and still had 80% of what we planned. Generally, be ready to such situations, if you do everything the way we did. I had to move quickly — I decided to remove all of the shared plans, which is interior, and the scene with the interface (close-up) to postpone or even to do elsewhere.
We shot a scene where the girl sits at the table and keeps the iPhone. While shooting the camera move with the slider. It added dynamics to the shots, poor on events. However and here has not done without surprises in the footage, was present shake. Leased rails were already not in the best condition, and we used them in a hurry. In exactly one hour we were asked to leave, so all problems had to be solved later.
Out on the street, we began to decide what to do next, because we don't have time to shoot footage of themselves with this app. You could wait and negotiate for another day, but we decided to shoot everyone in his office. To do this, put on the table a brown paper, put coffee and biscuits so that the still life was like katerny. Table placed near a window and set up additional lighting to and lighting the picture was repeated the café. It turned out that the light from the window at lunchtime too sharp — then glued several sheets of paper with tape and stuck them on the glass as a diffuser. In the office we could only shoot close-up (with a table in the background), but it was enough. It is important that now there was no hurry.
Shot with a tripod, because the emphasis in personnel accounted for solely on the phone's screen. The screen shot just for the camera, without the use of screencasts or additional technical means. Shooting these scenes that took half a day left. And in the evening surfaced a couple of problems:
Making mistakes in a few days we met again and took all the shots with the phone, which was in the final version. However, now because of accurate focus, we got a new problem — the so-called moire, which is manifested in the form of a nasty pattern of pixel grid
For mounting I used Adobe Premiere cs6 and quite a bit of Adobe After Effects (2-second episode).
The work was constructed in three stages:
Only post-production I spent 7-8 days. It took a long time to understand the program interfaces. Almost immediately it became clear that we need a separate computer, more powerful than the old macbook air that was available. Bought a modern PC — and the work went more quickly.
So first going to the sequence of scenes and frames, and the pace of change of plans. This task can be performed in any video editor, including iMovie or Windows standard Video Editor and to master that for a couple of hours. Window Adobe Premiere ready to show the episode looks like this:
Shake pictures managed to eliminate the built-in Premiere antisecurom (warp stabilizer). With moire had to Tinker a little longer, for he finished "boxed" solutions are not found. In the end, I used the noise Canceler Neat Video and a combination of blur effects (Blur) and Unsharp masking (Unsharp mask). It is not possible to eliminate moire completely, but it became less visible and, so to say, closer to priemlemo level for my taste. By the way, if you decide to remove the screen of the smartphone to the external camera, you are likely to face the problem of moire.
After removing defects, you can improve images with correction of colors, brightness and contrast. In our case, we did not pursue the purpose of creating artistic effects, but only "leveled" episodes on colors and tones. So the final changes are the most dramatic, are still present:
Final file posted on Vimeo, which is rumored to be less distorts the color and gives you a more flexible compression settings, privacy, etc. For this you had to buy a paid account for $60 a year, which we did. To start we showed the video to friends and gathered feedback. When convinced that your grades, felt the work is completed.
11 Jun video was presented as part of a new rocketbank.ru. As we said above, the first day the video has gained more than 1,500 hits, collected the most likes on our Facebook page, and generally caused a positive response. Now, after all this time, the video is steadily gaining 100-150 hits a day. On promotion, we've spent $15 for the cost of the action button "boost post" on facebook.
To summarize
In the end, all the fun cost us 2 950 rubles and 3 weeks for everything:
the
Of course, we had our camera, lens, tripod, and later the computer. We did not pay the salaries of actors shooting. If we had all the equipment and the computer rented, and all participants paid for their working time, it would have resulted in an additional 15 — 17 thousand rubles. The total amount would be about 20,000 rubles, or $650, which is still significantly cheaper than the minimum $8 000-10 000, which we called the Studio.
And yet, saving is not important. Importantly, the process brought lots of positive emotions and satisfaction from the result. Complexity jumped out at us here and there — but they were just more fun. Like any creative process, working on the video brought a lot of dividends to the whole team — we argued then generated, discussed and ideas were killed, and survivors were modified and turned into a picture. A couple of weeks the main topic of conversation at lunchtime was the story and the video, and was attended by all, from the service staff to the CEO. A very useful experience for the young team.
the
We will be glad, if you'll be able to use our experience and get another cooler. Email us! And, of course, become customers of our progressive Rocketboy. With us you can make friends, read and even follow — fb, blog, twitter.
PS my name is Alex, greetings and questions mail.
Article based on information from habrahabr.ru
As the main performer in the whole thing for shooting video, I talk about the process and our mistakes. Just say that you are not a professional, neither in movies, nor in video. My professional activity is connected with management of projects and marketing, relevant experience is just Amateur photography. So our experience will be rather interesting startups and enthusiasts who, like us, with no experience wants to do something better than we have.
First I will describe the process, and then a simple list will give you practical insights and tips. If the story is tired — go directly to Chapter "dry residue for those who want to repeat".
How it all began
The video format was chosen because I wanted to tell you about your iPhone application in which we have embodied ideas about super-Bank part of usability and design. We know that when we are talking about the ease, beauty and comfort — it is better to show than to tell. Around the same time came across an interesting video from Mailboxapp and Simple. From these works we cherpnul inspiration and confidence to shoot a video and yourself.
First we went to communicate with people who do this professionally. Talking about prices, organizational and time expenses. More or less decent Studio called the minimum price of $8 000–$10 000 per minute video (similar to the one that mailboxapp) and 2-3 weeks to process. Was wondering about these videos, like izettle and Runes — this cost between $25k and $35k respectively. For our video on the 1 minute calculation was as follows:
the
-
the
- $2 000 — script and storyboard the
- $5 000 — 1 day of shooting (equipment, specialists), the
- $500 — fee actress, the
- $1000-2500 — postproduction.
Communication with the studios proved to be very useful: we learned about the steps to creating a video, what specialists are required, as are certain effects, etc. for Example, in practice useful to understanding the peculiarities of working with voice and sound. This is a separate work, work is sometimes comparable to the creation of the video, so we decided to abandon the scenes with the voice than to make their lives easier by about half.
It is in the process of discussing the project, we came to the conclusion that it looks not too difficult, and you need to try to shoot himself. Reasoned that in the worst case we'll come back and pay $10,000, but at least we understand that paying for work that you can't do yourself; and at best — save more interesting is. Of course, it was not so easy, but then the decision was made.
Scenario
Our first scenario consisted of 20 bulletpoints in Evernote, the second of 18, and the last of the 14. Here it is:
From the beginning we decided to limit the duration of 60-75 seconds. According to our observations, longer movies watch, only if they have a lot of dynamics and suspense. If you are not sure what a good command of the laws of drama and can hold the viewer's attention, do not shoot a long movie — it's just not inspected, and everything will be in vain.
When you make up a script about your product, quickly develop a taste for it and want to show a lot. There is a tendency to increase the scenario. We fell into this trap and end up double-cut scenario, because long-term scenario not only leads to too much timing, but blurs the focus and mixes the main ideas with details that only seem important.
For the future we concluded that the script is very, very important. More than we thought. In addition, a good script that protects you from unnecessary work (see our experience below), it allows to test video "interesting" even before you spend the money first. Just tell the script to friends and see their reaction. Interesting if they tie, do they have over the development of events and causes emotions ends? If answers to all is "no", then the script is easier to alter. We had one "Yes" and we continued.
Equipment and training
Filmed on a personal camera Canon 5d m3, Canon lens 24-70mm and a tripod to Vanguard. Everything else is a slider for camera movement, a pair of light sources and a microphone — was rented for a modest 900 rubles per day. Camera would be easier, in our opinion, would suffice and a modern SLR the basic level for $800.
According to the scenario, we needed shooting in the café. Usually rent a place and shoot in a comfortable environment. We went the other way and agreed with Progress Bar. We were allowed to shoot for free, but so that we will not disturb the visitors. Professional actors we hired a girl friend Catherine has kindly agreed to help us with the main role of Lisa, the bartender agreed on the spot, and all the other people in the frame — real visitors and the waiters participated without knowing it.
Props are minimal: a cookie from the store, Cup of house coffee I bought on the spot.
Shooting episode 1 — Progress Bar
As sunlight in the morning gives a beautiful picture, we were in place by 8 am and began shooting street scenes. There were four of us: model, operator, and 2 assistant, kindly agreed to participate. Assistants were carrying the equipment and kept the light. The material on the street we filmed for 1.5 hours. It in the final movie came just a couple seconds. All because of the street scene we filmed immediately without first having visited the place and not defined with specific plans. This error led to the fact that almost all footage came in very beautiful street objects and most of the material had to reject.
Closer to the opening of the café (9-30 am), we moved inside and started shooting indoors. The main difficulty in our case was that the bar was quite dark, with a mixed light from the Windows and from the lamps. Had a little Tinker and add your own light (well, rented) so that the person in the picture was bright and natural colors. We managed two additional sources of light that compensated for the shadows on the faces appearing in the initial conditions. For shooting this episode took another hour.
Then I shot close-UPS of the bar. Such atmospheric shots needed to make the video more alive and dynamic. Just work the machine, the actions of the Barista, as the calculation is performed, and so on. Many of these frames were in the final movie. It took another 40 minutes.
When we decided to start shooting major scenes with the iPhone, we suddenly began to rush administrator. It turned out that the administration gave us a couple of hours, and then had to begin the event. So suddenly we have only one hour to shoot and still had 80% of what we planned. Generally, be ready to such situations, if you do everything the way we did. I had to move quickly — I decided to remove all of the shared plans, which is interior, and the scene with the interface (close-up) to postpone or even to do elsewhere.
We shot a scene where the girl sits at the table and keeps the iPhone. While shooting the camera move with the slider. It added dynamics to the shots, poor on events. However and here has not done without surprises in the footage, was present shake. Leased rails were already not in the best condition, and we used them in a hurry. In exactly one hour we were asked to leave, so all problems had to be solved later.
Shooting episode 2 — Office
Out on the street, we began to decide what to do next, because we don't have time to shoot footage of themselves with this app. You could wait and negotiate for another day, but we decided to shoot everyone in his office. To do this, put on the table a brown paper, put coffee and biscuits so that the still life was like katerny. Table placed near a window and set up additional lighting to and lighting the picture was repeated the café. It turned out that the light from the window at lunchtime too sharp — then glued several sheets of paper with tape and stuck them on the glass as a diffuser. In the office we could only shoot close-up (with a table in the background), but it was enough. It is important that now there was no hurry.
Shot with a tripod, because the emphasis in personnel accounted for solely on the phone's screen. The screen shot just for the camera, without the use of screencasts or additional technical means. Shooting these scenes that took half a day left. And in the evening surfaced a couple of problems:
-
the
- Film the script was too long to fit in a minute, gathered too many ideas with no apparent Central message. Decided to focus on the work support in the application and shortened the script up to 13 points. the
- Text was not always in focus, the close-UPS were read poorly.
Making mistakes in a few days we met again and took all the shots with the phone, which was in the final version. However, now because of accurate focus, we got a new problem — the so-called moire, which is manifested in the form of a nasty pattern of pixel grid
Installation and correction
For mounting I used Adobe Premiere cs6 and quite a bit of Adobe After Effects (2-second episode).
The work was constructed in three stages:
-
the
- the Installation sequence, the choice of rhythm and dynamics the
- removal of defects (shake, moire, artifacts), the
- color Correction and tinting (contrast, curves, toning, like in instagram)
Only post-production I spent 7-8 days. It took a long time to understand the program interfaces. Almost immediately it became clear that we need a separate computer, more powerful than the old macbook air that was available. Bought a modern PC — and the work went more quickly.
So first going to the sequence of scenes and frames, and the pace of change of plans. This task can be performed in any video editor, including iMovie or Windows standard Video Editor and to master that for a couple of hours. Window Adobe Premiere ready to show the episode looks like this:
Shake pictures managed to eliminate the built-in Premiere antisecurom (warp stabilizer). With moire had to Tinker a little longer, for he finished "boxed" solutions are not found. In the end, I used the noise Canceler Neat Video and a combination of blur effects (Blur) and Unsharp masking (Unsharp mask). It is not possible to eliminate moire completely, but it became less visible and, so to say, closer to priemlemo level for my taste. By the way, if you decide to remove the screen of the smartphone to the external camera, you are likely to face the problem of moire.
After removing defects, you can improve images with correction of colors, brightness and contrast. In our case, we did not pursue the purpose of creating artistic effects, but only "leveled" episodes on colors and tones. So the final changes are the most dramatic, are still present:
Final file posted on Vimeo, which is rumored to be less distorts the color and gives you a more flexible compression settings, privacy, etc. For this you had to buy a paid account for $60 a year, which we did. To start we showed the video to friends and gathered feedback. When convinced that your grades, felt the work is completed.
Run
11 Jun video was presented as part of a new rocketbank.ru. As we said above, the first day the video has gained more than 1,500 hits, collected the most likes on our Facebook page, and generally caused a positive response. Now, after all this time, the video is steadily gaining 100-150 hits a day. On promotion, we've spent $15 for the cost of the action button "boost post" on facebook.
To summarize
In the end, all the fun cost us 2 950 rubles and 3 weeks for everything:
the
-
the
- 900 – hire of equipment the
- 1000 rubles – props (cookies and some coffee, later eaten and drunk respectively, so that they can not count), the
- 450 rubles ($15) – promotion on facebook, the
- 600 conventional rubles – amortisation of computer.
Of course, we had our camera, lens, tripod, and later the computer. We did not pay the salaries of actors shooting. If we had all the equipment and the computer rented, and all participants paid for their working time, it would have resulted in an additional 15 — 17 thousand rubles. The total amount would be about 20,000 rubles, or $650, which is still significantly cheaper than the minimum $8 000-10 000, which we called the Studio.
And yet, saving is not important. Importantly, the process brought lots of positive emotions and satisfaction from the result. Complexity jumped out at us here and there — but they were just more fun. Like any creative process, working on the video brought a lot of dividends to the whole team — we argued then generated, discussed and ideas were killed, and survivors were modified and turned into a picture. A couple of weeks the main topic of conversation at lunchtime was the story and the video, and was attended by all, from the service staff to the CEO. A very useful experience for the young team.
And now the dry residue for those who want to repeat:
the
-
the
- Not be afraid to try! If that doesn't work — no show the
- the Script is important. Unless you have professionals in the visual effects, the script is your only weapon. The biggest mistake is to think that the script is a formality. If you don't know where to start — read something about theory of film and drama, for example, this one the book the
- determine in Advance the timing, do not remove the long video, still not sure know how to keep the viewer's attention. In our opinion, optimal timing for the first trial — minute plus or minus 20 seconds.
- Spend a little time studying the role of light in photography and film. You'll need this at least to the people in your shots don't look dark. Start with this the 10-minute video about a basic arrangement of the light sources for shooting people.
- If you know nothing about the technical side of things, you can browse through free a book the
- don't rush to rent or even buy sophisticated equipment. You can always do something simple and an assistant. More brains are developing. The phone screen we shot on a background of brown cardboard, and to view the "top" just got a tripod between the Desk and the bedside table. the
- Visit the shooting location in advance, decide the angles and plans. Look at them through the viewfinder of the camera. the
- With all participants agree in advance, no one needs to hurry. If you have no experience shooting "extra" time will allow you to do more takes, they will definitely come in handy. the
- Take the assistant on the day of the shooting for him will be a lot of problems from "hold the light" to "go to water".
- to Understand basic video editing could even my grandmother. Note the simple editor, e.g. iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, can get along with them for a couple of hours, and they will allow you to do the main thing — to cut the scene as you want, make transitions and add music. If you did not make a blunder with the script, then at this stage you should have a great video that can be spread in the network. the
- If you wish to make the picture fuller and more interesting — get familiar with such tools like brightness, contrast and curves (curves). Read about the basics of color correction. Good, but thick book on color correction — the link. For these tasks it is better to use a slightly more advanced program such as Adobe Premiere. If you had the power to read there, but I want beauty — look at plugins like Magic Bullet . the
- To psychos and maniacs: if you are willing to go to end — sort it out with Adobe After Effects. Here you can retouch videos and create sophisticated visual effects. Without experience there will have to sweat, but you do want to do this. Personally, I think that the effects can very much add a good video, but to save a bad script and win the battle for sympathy can not, therefore, if you decide where to spend time on Adobe After Effects or working on the script — I would recommend a script.
Video for the web, it is possible to remove almost any modern Amateur camera. But be sure to spend a few days before shooting with the camera. Shoot your cat, people in the subway car on the street. Then review the footage on the computer. If you do not like the picture — understand why. the
If you love the blurry background in video (I think it is cool) — understand what is aperture and how to control it on your camera. If you shoot on your iPhone skip this paragraph. the
while shooting take the lead — you determine who where to stand and what to do. During the break, we'll treat all with something tasty and let buns girls. This is an incredible way helps. the
We will be glad, if you'll be able to use our experience and get another cooler. Email us! And, of course, become customers of our progressive Rocketboy. With us you can make friends, read and even follow — fb, blog, twitter.
PS my name is Alex, greetings and questions mail.
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