Preparation For Your Free Video

Now that we have discussed what would be good for both of us we can go ahead with the preparation for your article and free video. I have written this page as a general guide to walk you through what we will need to do to finish this project, so that we will both end up with something of real value.

Your Article

Firstly chose a topic to write about. I have put together a list of articles needed, so have a look through this first. This should be a general article covering the whole of a topic in an interesting and informative manner. It should fit in with the general style and ethos of the SuperLiving web site. The article should be non promotional, and not promote your services. It should showcase your knowledge and expertise in such a way as to enlighten and entertain readers, and make a complicated subject seem simple. The idea is to show you as an expert. The typical length of the article should be 1,000 to 2,000 words, but it is more important to properly cover the topic that to write a certain number of words and then give up.

It is best to agree the topic with me first, because I will need to approve the article before we proceed further, and I wouldn't want you to waste time on a topic that isn't suitable for my site.

Examples of articles with videos:

Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy by Barbara Burgess
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Vanessa Cecil
Omega-3 Fatty Acids by me
Flax Seed Oil by me

Your Biography

I will place your biography details at the end of your article. This is the place to promote yourself and your services. Please let me have a picture of you which I will crop and resize to 90x90 pixels. I can take this from the web. The biography text should be no longer than about 76 words, and must fit into six lines of text for formatting. Make sure you include important keywords for me to link back to your web site from. I would suggest that your own name, your company name and what you do e.g. public speaking would be suitable. This way you receive the maximum Search Engine Optimisation value for these keywords.

Your Video

Once I have approved and published your article you can write the video script. This should cover and emphasise the key points of the article, but is best done in a more personal way using natural spoken language. This is the place to showcase your personality, but don't let that suggestion go to your head. Overacting will only work against you. People want to see you as a real, warm, approachable and knowledgeable person. Remember that the close-up nature of video will exaggerate movements, so speak to the camera as you would to a good friend standing next to you in your living room. It is not the same as giving a speech, where you need to emphasise things so that the back row stay interested.

A good length for the video is two to three minutes. Much shorter and you can't say very much. Much longer and you really have to be extra interesting or have vital content to keep people's attention. You can calculate the typical running time as we all tend to speak at about 3 words a second. Once you are happy with the script please e-mail it to me. Once it has been agreed we are ready to shoot.

The Interview Technique

Many people are more comfortable and relaxed being interviewed on video. rather than preparing and delivering a script. We can agree the best questions to ask beforehand so that you can prepare the main points that you want to get across. Each question and answer can be shot as a single take, and repeated until we are happy with the result. The best takes are then edited together. This breaks the video down into easy and manageable chunks.

Using Autocue

My personal preference is to speak from an autocue. You may prefer this, or to speak from memory, the choice is yours.

I run an autocue program called Cueprompter on my laptop positioned just below the camera lens. As long as this is far enough away from the camera the final video looks as though you are looking directly at the camera. Cueprompter is available online at www.cueprompter.com. This also means that you can practice with the same system, and alter the pacing of the delivery before the shoot.

To prepare the text I recommend putting ten countdown numbers to give you breathing space at the start, before you need to start reading.

I use the big screen size, big font and white on black text, which are the default settings.

Click on the 'Start Prompter' button and the teleprompter screen opens.

Click on a speed setting before you start the text scrolling. I recommend starting with speed setting 4. The speed setting never looks as though it is doing anything, but it does, it just doesn't give you any feedback that you have set it.

Run the script by pressing 'Forward'. Use 'Stop' and 'Page Up' to get back to the beginning.

Here is a test script for you to copy and paste into Cueprompter and try reading out loud:

---Start---
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
This is a test script for me to read out loud and see how Cueprompter works.
I will try using it with my own script.
I can alter the speed of the text, but number 4 or 5 tend to be the best settings.

Any problems that I have can then be corrected by altering the spacing of the text until it all flows smoothly, and sounds natural.
---End---

Please let me have the final text, with the right spacing and speed setting for Cueprompter before we shoot the video.

Final Touches

Please let me know what text and logo you would like on the final credits at the end of the video. This is where you can promote your business and contact details. You can have the top half the screen for your details, and I will add mine at the bottom. I would suggest you keep this simple, and encourage people to go to your web site for more details.

I will edit the video and host it on SuperLiving's YouTube Channel. If you have a YouTube Channel of your own, I can upload it to there as well. I will need your username and password to do this. This will give you the details of the code to add to your web page to show the video. See our section on using YouTube to get the most from your video.

And For Our Next Project

Once you realise the power of video then I hope you will chose another topic and come back for another free video. I am, however, only looking for one page for each topic.

Please remember that when you need a promotional video we are only too happy to do that as well. You might also want a video-email. We will have to charge for promotional items at our normal rates, but if you have them shot at the same time as a free video it will be cheaper. Remember that our catchphrase is 'Affordable web video'.