1 Ingredients

To create a workshop video you need the following

• A goal
• A message
• A story
• Contents
• A smart workflow

2 Telling a Story

Telling a story

You can find a template here

Topic of video and reason why

2 or 3 sentences that sum up the topic and reason why of the video.

Audience

Partners, client, general public.

Who is your talent

A hamster or Brad Pitt?

Style

i.e. Funny, technical, sentimental, kinetic, documentary, youtuber…

Key take aways

What specifics will the viewer take away form the video?

Outline

Beginning, middle and end.

Write the script

• Keep the sentences short and convey a clear message.
• Keep it simple
• Keep in mind how long you want the video to be
• Read it aloud
• Are there phrases that are hard to say or specific words that should be emphasized?
• Make a note for the talent.

3 What makes a shot interesting?

Perspective of the camera

• learn it by doing it.
• selection depends on effect.
• start with solid stuff
• start slow and with experience move on to faster shots
• select the perspectives you'd like to use - no need to use all of them

Keep camera still and wait until something happens

• e.g. people enter the location
• cycle board - wait until a board is moving

Follow a person around

• have a coffee
• to go to a station

Circle around the action

a group
a table, a location

Move the camera to capture the big picture

• surroundings
• scenery and context
• drone shot

Move the camera in direction of what's interesting

• don't hesitate to go very close

Interesting details

Short snapshots (1.5 sec - e.g. posters) - don't be worried to go very close

• Tea cup and steam
• Pen

Look moves

• observe how you look around in a room - focus 1 → focus 2

• Natural stuff you see

4 Creative process for interesting ways to transport a message

Use the Idea Machine to create ideas for interesting way to transport a message

Possible questions for the amassing phase of the topic

• How would a kid explain it?
• How would you explain it to a martian?
• What images come to your mind when you learn about the topic
• What would a poster look like for the topic
• If your topic where subject of a blockbuster movie, what would the title be?
• What metaphors would be interesting

You can use an online brainstorming for this purpose in BrainStore's Idea Machine

5 Using a camera

RTFM

• Read the manual (summary) twice. Know how to access the menus, which menus contain which settings and so on.
• Keep crib sheet handy if neccessary (a 3x5 card with the with a punch hole and a string, attach it to your camera)

Be prepared

Charge battery - you can charge while shooting with USB C -
Lens cleaning cloth.
Tripod, or a gimbal.
Microphone (e.g. Rode Wireless Go)
Mic dongle for camera (e.g. this one for the DJI
Lights or other accessories.

Work with natural light

• Direct sunlight can be great for contrast and drama when shooting architecture

• But if you are shooting human subjects in direct sunlight, you can end up with blown out highlights and poor skin tones.

• For human subjects, seek open shade under trees or between buildings for a softer light.

• Overcast days are also great for softening the light.

• When indoors, use light coming in through the windows.

• Magic hour, the hour before sunrise/sunset is the optimal time to shoot outdoors.

• Make sure the light is not coming from behind your subject unless you are looking to silhouette your subject.

Stabilization

Stabilized footage is more eye-friendly than non-stabilized footage. Stabilization can be achieved through

• through a gimbal in your camera or a gimbal you can mount your phone or camera on
• a tripod
• through a very experienced camera person
• software (in your phone), in your GoPro
• through mechanical stabilization in your camera or in your lens

Set up your shots

Amateur photographers are notorious for their instinct to center everything.

Unfortunately centered pictures aren't terribly dynamic or interesting.

Smart photographers obey the “the rule of thirds” and you should do the same.

Imagine a tic-tac-toe board over your viewfinder. The lines intersect in four spots. Your goal should be to frame the action using one or more of those spots.

Shoot B-roll

B-roll is secondary footage that you splice into your primary video to flesh out the story or replace a scene you don't like.

Anything can be B-roll. For instance, you might take shots of people arriving at the event, chatting with each other, people setting up the chairs, street scenes from outside the event, etc...

When the time comes to assemble your final movie, you can mix in this footage to add variety.

Get there early and record the area around your event.

Recommended camera: DJI Osmo Pocket

Tutorials for Osmo Pocket
[Tutorials for Osmo Pocket]http://link.dji.com/u/gm.php?UID=xuaWg9Vhf9&ID=290636680_2765927_118

Settings DJI Osmo Pocket

• 4k 60fps (shooting with 60fps means you can use footage at 50% of the original speed and thus creating slow motion effects)
• Follow mode
• Slow follow
• Swipe up to get menus
• Swipe from left to get image settings

6 Accessories

Your eyes and your ears are more important than your gear...

However good gear, which is not to complicated can make things easier for you.

In addition to a good camera and a good microphone you might want to consider

• A decent Mac/PC
• A second camera for the b-roll
• A fast external SSD disk with enough capacity
• Fast SD cards
• A gimbal (for stabilisation)
  
• Lights
• A greenscreen

7 Recording Sound

About sound

Good sound is key. Nothing makes a viewer more aware of the artifice of video then bad audio.You can have great video, but if your audio is bad, all the viewer will be thinking of is how bad your sound is. Yet if you have okay video and good sound, you can still make something that delights the viewer. So here are a few tips for making good audio.

Use a good Microphone

If possible, use an external microphone whenever you shoot videos. A lavalier, or lapel mic, like the type newscasters use, is unobtrusive and especially helpful when you want to hear someone's voice clearly.

The clap tric: a loud clap helps synchronisze sound a video.

Monitor the Sound

If you can plug headphones into your camera, do it. They'll allow you to hear exactly what the camera hears, so you'll know if your subject is speaking loudly enough or if the background noises are too distracting.

Limit Background Noises

Background noises are distracting in a video and can complicate the editing process. Turn off fans and refrigerators, so you don't hear them humming. If there's a window open, close it to shut out the traffic noises or the bird tweets.

Record Background Sound

Think about sounds that are specific to the event you're recording and capture them. This adds to the mood of your video and help viewers feel as if they are there. While editing, you can move the audio clips around and have them play underneath different parts of your video.

Watch Out for Wind

When recording outdoors, the impact of the wind on the microphone can create loud slapping or popping sounds. Buy a wind protector for your microphone to cut down on this effect. You can also a sock :-)

Add It Later

You can always add sound later. If you're recording in a loud area, wait and record the narration later when you're in a quieter space. You can also add sound effects, and music when you are editing.

8 Workflow

It's worthwile thinking about workflow before starting

What matters?

• You want backups of your footage (in case a memory card or hard disks breaks down)
• You don't want to clog your computer with heavy video files
• You don't want to look for files...

So...

• Copy your video files onto a fast SSD drive (e.g. Samsung Evo)
• Create your project library on an SSD drive
• When importing your footage select the files you want to use
• Don't worry - you can still add files later on
• Start a project with an empty library

9 Editing Video

Empty tutorial

For Mac Users using iMovie:

1) Download this file to your movie folder
2) Expand it and open it
3) Open "Empty Movie"
4) Add content (images and stills)
5) Replace dummy content
6) Work on the titles
7) Work on the transitions
8) Export as a file (in 4K) then upload to a platform of your choice (e.g. Vimeo or YouTube)

Not using Mac and iMovie?

Start a new movie.

Copy intro and outro.

Additional resources

Shared folder for images and music.

10 Add on 1: Expanding content type

For your videos you will be using footage from a video camera.

You can add other footage forms to your tutorial

• Images (with or without Ken Burns Effects)
• Video slow motion (use with caution)
  
• Video timelapse (action gets fast)
• Screen animations content (e.g. created with Adobe After Effects)
• Screenshots content (e.g. created with Quicktime Screen Recordings)
• A greenscreen
• Background sound
• Background voice
• Music

Make sure you use quality ingredients - this makes work much easier.

11 Add on 2: specials: Goal, message and story of a workshop video

What are possible goals for the video?

Create value for the customer and participants:

• Makes it easier for the customer to recap the story
• Documenting the process makes it easier to get buy-in from third parties to embrace the contents
• Many people like to appear in a good video.
• Share credits with participants
• Provide link to further information

Create value for the team:

• Every movie is a showcase for how BrainStore works
• We can use it for sales and marketing
• Making movies spices up our job and is fun.

Messages

Separate between preparation, amassing, discovery, like with the Idea-Machine
Separate between organising team and participants. Work with mixed teams
Document results
Work with unsual tools
Be inspired by a cool location
Use stimulating tools
Make sure the IT is up and running
Are you interested? Get in touch.

What are possible stories a video can contain

• Perspective field trip. This is what happened. We started with this, and then, and then, and then.
• Perspective results. 1395 inspirations, 121 ideas 725 likes. And how we got there
• Perspective what we learned
• Etc.

Example for a story

The topic as a question
Organizing team setting up location
Participants arrive, coffee
Welcome message
Amassing (with fast music)
Lunch
Discovery (with slow music)
Break
Like (with washline, dramatic)
Leaving
Thank you participants