So Nate, I have a channel that I follow and this girl it's always walking
with her phone. All her videos are very personal. In my head I'm thinking, "They
don't really look professional." But there's something about it that attracts
me to that. She's in the car; she's walking. I can relate to her everyday
duties. What do you think about that? How professional and how personal do we make our
video? -Yeah. That's a... The perfect setup for this episode because we're going to talk about
how to make your videos look professional and yet not corporate? And
what is it about that type of video that attracts people or there any
disadvantages? As we're going to talk about in this episode? So, that was a
perfect example and it's obviously a channel that you follow even though
they're not as professional. There's not a studio. So, I thought maybe to introduce...
We'll talk about... Because there was a time of a place for a studio but then
there's a time and a place to just film a video in your car or just
when you're walking around and those type videos will perform even better. So,
what we've got here, we've got a nice looking background. This isn't actually a
studio we're in an air B&B. So, that's that's what I use as my filming studios.
Ally, my filming assistant today. Go ahead and turn on your phone recorder. And get
a shot of what we set up here. I normally only do a one camera shoot but
we're doing 3 cameras today. A lot more elaborate than I typically do
because we're doing an interview setup. So, what I'm talking to Karin, we can be
focus on her this camera can look at me. And you say something back to me like
watermelon or something. -Watermelon. -The camera can focus... So anyway, we've
got a 3 camera shoot for this. Alley, if you could walk around it and show
this view of what we're actually seeing. To make this room... I mean
we don't want it to look like a studio. That's why I picked this space. Because
It's just a cool location. But I really focus on the lighting We've got
big windows so lots of natural light coming this way. And then I set up these
reflector panels a couple additional lights just to get a good rounded light
on us so that we look good. So, that that's definitely a professional side of
it. But I'm not going to put text effects on the screen or have these cool flashy
intros. And we're not using green screen or anything like that. I want it to look
like a home. I really want people to be able to connect with me and these
episodes feel like they're coming into my space for my environment. -What about
your own personal home? I I want to film my videos at home? -Really, it's a
matter of convenience. I would definitely recommend it. For me, I don't because I
have to deal with noise of kids. Or you know, if it's during school
sometimes I will film at home, depending on my wife's there or not. I just don't
want to have to tell my wife to go away. Well, because I'm going to be filming you
need to be out of the house or something like that. So, I do have a room down and
then the game room is also my filming studio at home. And so, it just... It's
really just a matter of convenience and that. If you're going to set up like a
corner of your home to be your studio versus just being candid and walking
around and filming while you walk, maybe I'll give you a comparison. So, with Kris
Krohn. The real estate investment channel that I produce. Going back a couple years,
one of our top performing videos was him down in his game room. He had a pool
table with red felt. And he kind of was sitting on the pool table and he talked
the whole time, the whole episode. I think it's about 7 minutes.
A shorter episode I guess. Compared to the second one we did. Whole episode was
same just sitting in one place. But we have the lighting perfect on him. In
that video, it performed well. And because it it performed well, I decided to
"Let's redo this this topic. We'll make another video, the exact same title --How
To Invest In Your 20's? Well, let's walk around. And I had to include his car. He
has a BMW i8 which you have to like be on a two-year waiting list for this car.
The wing doors. So, at the time, he was hesitant to show the flashy car and he
didn't even want to be that guy. But I said, "Okay, we're just going to do it. Trust
me." So, he drove away and then I had a pull... You know, drive backed into his
driveway. So, I filmed him coming into the driveway. He got out of his car
and I just followed him into his home. He opened. So, we don't have lights set up.
This wasn't anything like well lit. I followed him. His house cleaner happened
to be there that day vacuuming. So, I was like, "Hey, cleaning lady." And then we
walked past her into the kitchen. He talked for a minute in the kitchen and
we didn't have the lighting setup so it was kind of subpar lighting. We got a
good direction and then we went down into the basement where the pool table
was and he had a whiteboard. But it was... It was probably the worst lighting there.
We ended up filming for for 20 minutes. And we kept moving around. That video had
way higher watch time and ended up just skyrocketing because it was on a topic
that was successful on our channel filmed in a much less professional way.
But it was more engaging. People feel like... In that case, they felt like they
were being invited into Kris's home. Does that does that make sense? So,
there's a time and a place for professionalism or having a studio
look or having the proper lighting. In this case, were filming over 20 episodes
in one day. And so we're really here for efficiency. If we wanted this episode to
be better, we could be out on the street walking and talking. We
get the client. It's 100 degrees outside so who are also waiting here for that.
-Yeah. It takes a lot of pressure also because a lot of people think that they
have to have the nice studio or you know, a big budget to do this type of videos.
-Kind of another awesome example for you. Okay. So, awesome channel called King Of
Random. I don't know if you've seen it. I think they're at 11 or 12 million
subscribers. You need to check it out. My kids love it. So, he'll do
experiments with liquid nitrogen or he'll make a flamethrower or he'll
take apart a microwave and turn it into an arc welder or he'll to build us
do experiments with play doh. I mean, it's just totally random. He used
to put 40 hours into one episode. So, he would he would come up with the idea,
he'd create prototypes. He'd practice it. He'd get all the lighting perfect. And he
would film it as if it were going to a network television channel. He'd put
real high production quality into it. And his videos did well and he got... He got
to a point where he was making a great living on his channel. Hundreds of
thousands of dollars a month in ad revenue and sponsorships and affiliate
commissions. But he was putting so much time into it to make these episodes that
he just got burned out. He wasn't spending time with his wife or his kids
and he was like just getting really depressed about that. He decided to quit.
He decided to quit his YouTube channel and get his life back. And after he had
made this decision to quit, he decided to just make a quick video on his phone.
Because people were saying well, "Hey. if you throw a liquid.. You got to be
careful with that. If you get liquid nitrogen in your... You're going to lose
your vision and it's that stuff on your face. You're just going to..." So, he says, "All
right." You know... He pulled out his phone. Just a selfie video. No lighting and
no preparation. He says, "Alright guys, I'm going to show you what happens. And
that I do know what I'm talking about. I know how to use liquid nitrogen. I'm
going to show you what happens when you liquid nitrogen in your face." He threw
the whole cup in his face. It bounced off. No harm to him. He just you know kind of
like this and he was fine. He said, "Okay, so that video was not 40 hours." That was
a minute or 2. And he just posted it to YouTube. And it got millions of views.
Millions of views so he he learned from that.. And the lesson that I learned from
that is there's not a problem with having good lighting. But what's... That
there's something that's just more valuable like being real being able to
tell a story, inviting people in. There's so much value in that that it's not
worth stressing about. It's better just to create that they're good real content
be authentic. So, is that helpful. -Yeah. -So, I will make a recommendation that when you
are creating like promo videos to sell a product or a service or a program or an
event, that you put a lot more thought into that, you know if you're just going to
be sitting in your car and like, "Hey! So, I want to tell you about all about the
benefits of my services." That's a setting where I will encourage you to take more
time, to be more professional. Because people are expecting that and you're
competing with a.. Like, think about the Superbowl commercial level. Typically
watch the Superbowl but I've seen all the commercials.
They'll put millions of dollars into this 30-second piece, right? People are
really expecting high production quality in a promo video. They're just
expecting that. The purpose of YouTube episodes, not promo videos. But
YouTube episodes is to build a relationship. And so on over in a
video with that purpose, it's more important to relate, to connect, to
invite them and then it is to be polished and professional. So, one final
advantage to having a less professional set up is cost. So, I mean we're filming
on a DSLR there, a DSLR there. A point-and-shoot DSLR there. But this
is what I do for a living and I've worked up. I didn't start this way
and I actually used to film videos professionally for my clients using my
own previous version of this --on my iPhone 4s.
Because it was adequate. The cameras on our phones these days are so good that
you don't have to be shy about filming a YouTube episode on your phone. If you're
walking around know that you're really going to connect if you're filming in your
car or you're filming an episode while you're doing your makeup or something or
while you're eating breakfast. There is great value there. People are going to love
that type of content and you don't have to stress that you're not filming on
that the most expensive gear. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode. This is a part
of a series where we're launching Karin's YouTube channel. So, I'll link to
the playlist where you can just watch all of the episodes on how to launch
your channel. From the strategy, the channel name, how we're going to do
keyword research. That's an episode coming up to actually filming an episode and
launching an editing. So, we'll see in the next episode.