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Shooting Professional Videos

Most YouTube videos, even those produced by businesses, come from standard consumer-grade equipment in the comfort of someone’s living room, office, or conference room. Few YouTubers, even businesses, go to the trouble and expense of enlisting professional video makers to produce their videos; the expense is too great and the return too small.

But with that said, there might be times when you want to enlist a professional video production company to create a video for your business. The production company might send a cameraman and crew to your offices, or you might travel to a sound stage or studio to shoot the video there. In either instance, the result is a much better looking (and sounding) video than you can create on your own, with a lot more editing and special effects options.

Of course, you pay for higher-quality results. A professionally produced video could cost $5,000 to $50,000 or even more, depending on the length and complexity of the shoot and the amount of editing necessary to create the final cut. But if the video presents the image you want to portray on YouTube, it might be the only way to go.

Why Create a Professional Video for YouTube?

When the vast majority of YouTube videos come from consumer camcorders or webcams, why go to the expense of creating an expensive professionally produced video? There are some good reasons to do so, and some equally good reasons not to.

Advantages of Professional Videos

One of the main reasons to produce a professional video is that it looks professional. Let’s face it: The average YouTube video looks amateurish, which is what you expect when amateurs are doing the shooting using consumer-grade equipment. That’s fine for many businesses, but if you’re in charge of marketing for a large multinational corporation, you might not want your YouTube presence to look as if your cousin Jim did the filming in his basement.

This is why you see companies such as Intuit, Nike, and Smirnoff spending big bucks to create videos for their YouTube channels. Their videos might lack the immediacy of webcam-produced video blogs, but they pack the much more powerful punch that their brands demand. In fact, many of their YouTube videos resemble traditional commercials—or in many cases, extended versions of commercials.

So, if you represent a big company with a big message and a big budget, going with a professionally produced video makes a lot of sense. In effect, this is what your customers expect; anything less would invite cognitive dissonance into your brand message.

Disadvantages of Professional Videos

Of course, the primary disadvantage of going the professional route is that YouTube users might reject your message as being too commercial. It’s a double-edged sword; you have a commercial message to impart, but the YouTube community is resolutely anticommercial in nature. Unless your video is extremely entertaining or equally informative, you could end up receiving more negative comments than positive ones.

In addition, a pro-quality video might be overkill for YouTube, especially when it comes to video quality and production values. Your video, no matter how much money you spend on it, is still seen in the same 320×240 video window as basement-quality webcam videos. The typical YouTube viewer, watching in his web browser, might not even see the better lighting, quality makeup, and appealing backdrops. A lot of money can get lost in the resolution.

Money is the real killer for a lot of businesses. Expect to pay in the range of $1,000 to $3,000 per minute of finished video. In most instances, you’re looking at a minimum of $5,000 for a two- or three-minute video, with big shoots (requiring lots of studio time and personnel) costing three or four times that much. It’s not cheap.

Bottom line, a professional video costs a lot more money than one you create yourself. Ask yourself whether you’ll see the results of that expense. In addition, ask yourself whether your target audience in the YouTube community responds well to this type of video.

What Makes a Professional Video Professional

To the untrained eye, there might be little difference between a well-done semi-pro video and a professionally produced video. But professionals can tell the difference; it’s a matter of trained professionals using quality equipment to produce superior results.

Shooting can be either on location (typically in your offices) or in a video production studio. Both have their advantages.

Shooting in the Studio

Shooting in the studio has the advantage of more equipment and props on hand. This is especially important in lighting and sound, which can be better controlled in a studio environment.

When you first visit the studio, its size is likely to impress you. Most production studios are built around large sound stages, big spaces in which all manner of props and backdrops are used. For example, you might see some sort of curved seamless background, or perhaps a large curtain or roll of seamless background paper, in front of which the subject stands. This background is typically a neutral color; technicians shine colored lights on the background if a colored background is necessary.

You’ll see one or more rows of spotlights on the ceiling, as well as various auxiliary lights mounted on stands. You’ll also see various baffles, diffusers, and reflectors—all to better direct the right lighting to the right spots in the frame.

You’ll shoot the video in front of the chosen background, lit by the appropriate studio lights. One or more DV or Betacam cameras, mounted on tripods or tracks (for moving shoots), typically do the shooting. If more than one camera is used, they’re synchronized via time code to make for easier editing between shots.

Sound can be recorded in a number of different ways. Some studios prefer to mic each subject individually, typically with a wireless lavaliere microphone. Other studios prefer the old-school approach, using a boom microphone held over the heads of the subjects, just out of camera range. In both cases, a separate soundman is typically responsible for getting the best possible sound.

If the subject is reading from a script, and he probably is, you’ll find a teleprompter mounted on top of each camera. The script for the video is entered into the teleprompter system via keyboard, and the teleprompter operator controls the scrolling speed of the script.

In addition to the camera operators, soundmen, and teleprompter operator, the crew might also include one or more lighting specialists, makeup and wardrobe people, various assistants and gofers, and, of course, a director. For a typical shoot, this means a crew of anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen people—a lot more people than are typically involved with a semi-pro video.

Figure 7.1 shows how this all looks in a real-world setting. This photograph shows your humble author in a (non-YouTube) video shoot in a professional studio. I’m standing in front of a curved seamless background, surrounded by various lights, diffusers, and baffles. The camera is mounted on a four-wheeled trolley that travels on a set of train-type tracks; one person pushes the trolley for moving shots. It’s very bright, and very busy, and very exciting, especially if it’s your first time in the studio. In fact, it’s so busy that it’s sometimes hard to keep your concentration!

Figure 7.1 A video shoot in a professional studio—look at all that equipment!

Shooting in the Field

As you can see, shooting in the studio is a big production with a correspondingly big expense. A better approach, for some videos, is to use a remote production crew to shoot in the field—that is, at your location, rather than in the studio. A location shoot is typically less involved and often less expensive than renting a production studio with full crew.

A location shoot can be as simple as one guy with a camera. Of course, the camera is a pro-grade DV or Betacam model, and the cameraman carries a set of portable lights and a wireless lavaliere microphone. He mics the subject, sets up and aims the lights, mounts the camera on a tripod, and starts shooting.

The results of a location shoot, depending on the environment, can be as professional as that created in a studio. In most instances, however, a remote shoot has a slightly different look and feel, somewhat akin to that of a remote TV news report—more immediate, less polished.

Even though a location shoot uses less equipment and a smaller crew, it still can be more involved than a typical semi-pro shoot. Expect the camera operator to be very demanding, being critical about shadows, background noise, and slips of the tongue; multiple takes are obligatory. Just because you’re shooting on location doesn’t mean that standards are relaxed.

Preparing for a Professional Video Shoot

If you’re in charge of creating a professional video, you need to do a few things to prepare your “talent” for the shoot. It isn’t as simple as showing up and smiling; there’s a lot of upfront work necessary before the cameras start rolling.

Make Friends with Makeup

This is a big deal, especially for guys. One of the primary reasons that professionals look so good onscreen is because they wear the right makeup. Makeup artists make big bucks in Hollywood and New York; the right makeup can make normal people look like stars, whereas the wrong makeup (or no makeup at all) can make even the most beautiful, blemish-free people look average on camera.

So, even if your talent is nonprofessional, you still have to work through the makeup angle. If your stars want to look good on camera, they have to wear the proper makeup. And make sure your people know that this applies not just to women, but also to any males in front of the camera— it’s an important issue.

One problem in producing your own videos is that you probably don’t know beans about makeup. This is another area where a pro video shoot differs from an amateur shoot; when you hire a video production firm, a makeup person should be included as part of the deal. The makeup should be tonal to get rid of glare on the face; if the subject’s hands are visible in the video, tone them, too.

Learn Your Shooting Angles

You’ve heard Hollywood types tell photographers to shoot them only from their good side. That might sound vain, and probably is, but there’s also a bit of truth to it. Most people look better when shot from one side than the other. A skilled cameraman or director knows this and positions the camera accordingly.

In addition, you don’t always want to face the camera head-on. A better shot often results from the subject’s body turned to the left or right of the camera, with the head turned to face the camera. This slight body angle is more visually interesting and avoids a boring “talking head” appearance.

Wait for the Lighting

One of the things you have to get used to on a professional video shoot is the waiting; there’s a lot of it. You might spend a full eight-hour day just to get three minutes of finished video. Although some of that time comes from multiple takes (the talent almost never gets it perfect in one shot), much of the time is spent waiting for the technicians to get the lighting right.

Lighting is important in a professional video. That’s why they use more than just one light in the studio; there’s typically a bank of lights above the stage and even more sitting around the side on stands. The director wants to light the subject (and every other important item in the shot) as flatteringly as possible, which takes time. One light aimed here, another aimed there, maybe a diffuser added in front of this one and a reflector to the side of that one—it’s all very involved.

Lighting experts talk about direct lighting and indirect lighting, fill lights and bounce lights, main lights and hair lights. You don’t have to know what all these things are—only that they’re all important and take time to get in just the right position. The subject of a video has to be prepared to stand in one spot for long periods, being as patient as possible while technicians adjust all the various lights and accessories. Then, and only then, can the shoot proceed.

Prepare for Multiple Takes

Few professional videos happen in a single take. Most subjects require multiple takes to get one perfect reading, and even then the director might want yet another take as a safety. In addition, it’s likely that the video consists of several different shots, intercut in the editing room. That probably involves delivering the same reading multiple times, with the camera moved to a different angle for each shot. Editors intercut the subsidiary shots into the master shot for more visual variety.

The key here is for the talent to deliver his or her lines not just perfectly, but identically across multiple takes. That’s why most directors prefer the talent to read from a teleprompter script, rather than speaking extemporaneously. If the talent is improvising on each take, it makes it next to impossible to match shots from multiple takes into a cohesive whole. The best on-air talent nails a perfect and consistent reading take after take after mother-lovin’ take.

If this sounds boring, it is; it’s also a special skill that not everyone has. Those infomercial hosts and newsreaders might not have a spontaneous cell in their brains, but they do have the ability to speak clearly and consistently from a script. It’s harder than you think.