Video blogging basics

Throughout the Internet I have seen so many people ask. How do I begin video blogging?

Today I finally decided to take some time and address this issue as well as share a couple of tips that I use when creating my videos. These tips are purely my own opinion but they work for me and they should work for you to! When starting out in the video blogging world it’s important to keep a couple of things in mind so you don’t lose focus while recording.

Recording is the easy part to video blogging, editing the video is going to be the hardest part if you don’t stay on topic and focus.

I suggest you make a bullet point list outlining the top things you want to cover in each video you create. This will allow you to quickly glance at a piece of paper and see the next topic to cover and you can keep the pace moving along. When you get to the editing stage of your video blog you will only have to edit out the parts where you paused slightly looking at the notes.

I have found this makes a major difference and saves me a lot of time, I would encourage you to do the same! Another point I would like to make baffles some people but it’s a piece of information that you should take to heart. The question relates to the lighting in videos, for some reason people just don’t seem to get it or they don’t understand that dark videos are out…

The lightning can make or break a videos success; believe it or not the lighting is not overly difficult to get right. Just use as much natural daylight when recording as possible. People will tell you that you must have high-quality video lights but this is simply not true. All you need is a good source of daylight and your set!

When it comes to the audio for your video I suggest using your video cameras audio and not getting a separate microphone to record with. I have tried both methods but using the video cameras audio abilities has always produced excellent results for me.

In addition people seem to have trouble editing their videos properly. I have seen it so many times and the video’s end up looking distorted after the final output because they don’t know which settings to use. Rather than just listing a bunch of settings you can use I would like to suggest for you to tinker with the settings until you get a small file size with decent quality. Files size is not as important as it used to be however keeping it in mind is important for slower Internet connection users. If you use services like YouTube and Revver uploading bigger videos is no problem!

Back to the editing though, I use Imovie HD to edit my videos. It has always worked really well for me but I know that some people don’t have a Macintosh and Imovie is not a choice on Windows. Therefore if you’re making online videos using the built-in Windows Movie Maker may be your only choice. Luckily for you Windows Movie Maker is a great program and works excellent for online videos. Just use the export for web option and you should be fine.

Lastly people seem to have trouble putting videos on their own websites. I’m not sure why this is such a big problem…

All you have to do is copy the embedded code that the video hosts will give you. These embed codes will work on any website, blog or forum. However if you’re having trouble getting a video to display properly on your own website feel free to e-mail me the link to the video and I will see if I can help you out.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my free video blogging tips; stay tuned to the blog and subscribe to our feed so you can receive more video blogging tips and techniques!

Feel free to comment below and tell us what you think of our video blogging tips; feel free to share yours as well.

[tags]video blogging, video blog tips, vlog[/tags]

Filed under: Personal Posts

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