(upbeat jazz music)
♪ Here we go a ♪
- For those of you watching,
does this stress you out?
iPhone 11 Pro Max.
just flippin' it.
No screen protector.
I got a case on the back.
Just flippin' it.
Are you a phone flipper?
Comment below if you're phone flipper.
No distractions!
Guys, in today's video, we're gonna be talking about
how to double your following on Instagram,
specifically, with one technique.
That technique is a focus on video production
on the Instagram platform.
Now, I have a friend.
His name is Christoph Benfey.
Oh, my goodness!
This guy is so talented.
The visuals that he creates,
here, I'll let the visuals speak for themselves.
Visual.
Another visual.
Other video visual that is just mind-blowing!
I get into a trance when I watch these things.
It's so creative!
So, he's gonna be joining us on the channel today.
He's gonna teach you guys how to do things like this,
but also leave you with a bit of a philosophy
of how content like this doubled his Instagram following,
got him more jobs by creating things like this!
So, I am glad to introduce my friend,
Christoph Benfey.
- (grunts) So, what's up internet?
I'm Christoph, and as Chris said,
I'm using Instagram to share video stuff.
I'm a filmmaker and I work on short films,
and music videos, and stuff like that.
And originally, Instagram was just a place for me
to share thumbnails of projects that I was working on.
About a year ago, I decided to shift that focus
into actually making content for Instagram.
And ever since then, I've seen huge growth.
Just over a year ago, I was probably sitting at
around 2,500 followers, and a lot of that was
people that I knew personally, or I'd come across
working together and stuff like that.
And then, as soon as I started making content
that was dedicated to Instagram,
I really quickly saw that grow.
Right now I'm sitting at about 13,000 followers.
So, what was cool about Instagram are the
actual limitations that it gives you.
They're really short videos.
People are scrolling by,
so you don't have their attention for very long.
There's music, and what's really important to me
is they loop.
So, I decided to kinda go in on the looping thing,
because that's one of the only platforms
where you can watch videos that way.
= [Announcer] We interrupt our program
to bring you this important message.
- So, we've been talking a lot about video.
Instagram is pushing video so hard right now!
I mean, they created IGTV!
They don't want that to die.
So, if you're uploading content,
Instagram is actually pushing that type of content,
which means that you're gonna end up on
the Explore pages more often.
You're also gonna get shared,
hopefully, more often by other people.
And all those things work together to push your content
and hopefully get more followers and fans,
which turns into you maybe doing this
more for a living or you get a few more people
who are watching your content.
Hot Instagram algorithm tip.
- Today, we're gonna shoot something
to kinda show off the zoomerang technique
that we came up with.
We're gonna kinda zoom in towards him,
which is where the zoom part comes in.
We're playing with a boomerang,
which is where the erang comes in.
And then we're gonna use music and looping stuff
to kinda just make it a little bit more interesting
on Instagram.
So, let's talk about the equipment
that we're gonna use today.
We're gonna do this with a gimbal and a mirrorless camera,
because that's what we got,
but at the core of it, you can do this kind of stuff
with just a smartphone.
In this case, we're using the gimbal
'cause it can rotate on a z-axis,
and that's the effect we wanna do,
but you can play around with this any way you want.
So next up, we're gonna pick a location
that lends itself well to this,
but don't get too hung up on the location.
Just go out and shoot and try different things
until you kinda dial the technique in.
And the more you start to experiment with it
and hone in on the skill,
the more you'll start to see locations that you're like,
"Oh, this would work really well here."
So, at the most simple level,
what we're basically doing is
starting at the end of the tunnel
and slowly making our way towards the front of the tunnel.
So we get the beginning,
we have the whole entire tunnel in view,
and then by the end, we're just focusing in
on our subject at the end of it.
And we're adding the infinity roll in
just to make it a little bit more interesting,
and I like to use a Onehweel.
Shout out Onewheel.
Get from one end to the other,
just so you get really buttery smooth movement,
but obviously, if you don't have a Onewheel,
you can just do this on foot and it's totally fine.
So, we're about halfway done.
We've shot the clip, it looks awesome,
we're really stoked with what we got,
but now we gotta turn it into something
that can go on Instagram.
So, I'm gonna bring this into the computer
and I'm just gonna add a basic speed ramp to it,
which you can do in Premiere,
and if you want more information on how to do this
in more depth, I do have a deep dive on my YouTube Channel,
that'll probably be down there somewhere.
But essentially, at the core of what we're doing,
is we're just speed ramping that move,
so it becomes a nice, short, palatable video
on Instagram.
So now, I import the clip into Premiere
and create a new sequence from the clip,
and then I right-click on it over here
and apply time-remapping.
And I adjust the speed in the middle,
so we have a nice, smooth speed ramp from beginning to end.
When it's all said and done, that clip should be about
four, five seconds.
Then I nest that clip and duplicate it
and then I reverse the speed of the second one,
so it loops back perfectly to the end.
So with all that done, this is what
the final video should look like.
(instrumental rhythm & blues music)
- All right, so that was a bird's-eye view
on how to do that technique.
If you guys want a deep dive on how to do that,
links are below to Christoph's channel.
He has videos that are what?
10, 15, 20 minutes long?
- Yeah, way more in-depth.
- (laughs) Way, way more in-depth!
What I want you to take away from this video
is, essentially, by being different on the platform,
and also playing to Instagram's strengths,
you could double your following.
You could start growing an audience on the platform,
which I think is huge.
You went in there and you were llke,
"Hey, why don't I try playing around with the loops?"
And because of this, you created your own style.
I really haven't seen anybody do what you're doing
on the platform, which I think is the reason why
you kind of skyrocketed over the last couple of years.
And on that note, guys,
please go check out Christoph's channel.
Go check out his Instagram page
and, dude, thank you so much for coming on the channel
and teaching everybody your magical ways of Instagram,
and hopefully everybody at home will start seeing
some double in their growth,
but in the meantime, go check out Christoph.
Guys, thank you so much for watching this week's video.
Please like, subscribe, leave a comment,
and we will catch you next time.
Peace out, everybody.
Should I grow my mustache out? (Christoph laughs)
You know that we were talking about this before,
where we were like, "We almost wore the exact same thing."
- We were wearing similar shirts
and I almost wore jeans with holes in them, yeah--
- I was gonna wear a Onewheel actually on my head.
- I could take my hair down now that we're done, but--
- Oh, hair gang!
Actually take it down. Let's see!
Yeah!
- Yeah, there we go.
- 'Kay, peace!
- Pshew!