You can’t be wish-washy and be a video producer. You have to take charge. If something isn’t working, you have to speak up.

Take this video from @Properties. Can you spot the lack of control?

First off… I like the company. I have a friend who is a very successful agent for them. I subscribe to their newsletter and look forward to seeing the videos that accompany each edition. The videos aren’t anything special, but they typically have a professional feel.

This one… not so much. Some of the videography is sloppy, and my biggest irritation is watching one of the partners answer to someone off-camera while the other speaks into the camera.… Read More

I got a great lesson last week in managing expectations. In this case, the client thought we would deliver one thing, we thought we were delivering something else.

I know… not an unusual circumstance. It’s the type of thing that can happen in any industry, but it was a good business experience for me.

The problem came up because we didn’t layout for the client in advance how we’d achieve what they needed us to do. They asked us, can you deliver this type of service? We said yes, but we didn’t give them a detailed account of what we would do.… Read More

I was filling in my wife last night about this whole Manti Te’o hoax. Notre Dame star football player… a girlfriend’s tragic death… and now the revelation it’s all a sham.

I said, “This is an incredible story.” Her response, “Maybe you should write a blog post about how this isn’t the type of storytelling we do.”

Truthful storytelling

She was being funny, but it actually touches on a delicate issue. How truthful are you when producing your videos?

Everyone has an ethical line in the sand. I mean, I hope they do. My background is in journalism, so mine is pretty strict.… Read More

Have you ever experienced technical difficulties?

Ridiculous question, right? We all have. We live in a world of technical difficulties. Video production is riddled with them. The equipment we work with everyday could fail at anytime. The trick is how you deal with it.

Hello, this is tech support

I’m trying to work some through issues right now. I’m serious. As I write this, I’m on hold with technical support for a product to broadcast a meeting live to satellite locations.

We did a dry run this morning. Checked out the meeting space… got a feel for the needed equipment. Tested the video stream… worked fine.… Read More

Have you ever had food poisoning? If not, I don’t recommend it. If you have, you know what I’ve been going through the last couple of days.

No gory details, instead, something that caught my attention over the weekend, and something I stewed over the during two days on the couch. Interview locations really don’t matter.

This is something I’ve blogged about in the past, but it was driven home to me while watching the ESPN documentary, The Marinovich Project.

The good, the bad, and the storytelling

The movie was a contrast in interview shots. Some “good”… Marinovich out on the beach.… Read More

No post today… sorry. Food poisoning. ‘Nough said. Ugg. … Read More

EntreLeadership podcast host Chris LoCurto got me thinking yesterday. He blogged about how he shifted his leadership mentality from customer-first to team-first and the benefits that followed.

It got me thinking about how T60 does things. See… I’m a solo-preneur. I pretty much do it all. I occasionally get help from freelancers, my wife certainly, but something really stands out for all of us.

Our standards

Everyone who works for T60 has high standards. Our videographers and editors… take their craft seriously. My wife… wants perfection. And I comb through every frame of the videos we produce.

I’m sure a lot of this is lost on our customers.… Read More

I guess this is a good week for b-roll. I started the week by blogging about how you can shoot b-roll, provide it as free content and get some publicity from it. Today, it’s how b-roll can save your butt!

I’m sure most of you know what b-roll is, but if you don’t… here’s a descent definition.

Now, back to my story. We produce a monthly vlog for a large trade organization. This month the CEO talked about the outlook for 2013, and he spent a lot of time on what last November’s election is going to mean for them.… Read More

Here’s a new one… I accidentally “liked” Online Pet Depot on Facebook, and now I’m being treated to all sorts of fun pet videos.

I don’t know when I “liked” it. Once I realized I was getting their posts in my feed, I was going to click “unlike” but a funny thing happened.

I started watching the videos. Nothing spectacular, just fun pet videos that people have posted on YouTube and now Online Pet Depot was sharing them with me.

It’s brilliant marketing when you think about it. Pet videos are some of the most popular on the web. Online Pet Depot has access to a ton of free content via YouTube and they take full advantage.… Read More

Holy cow! That was a break. I took two weeks off from blogging and most business activities, but now I’m ready to go.

Hope you had a great New Year’s because we’ll start with an observation I made that night.

If you watched any TV news coverage on New Year’s Eve, you probably saw video of people celebrating around the world. Sydney, Hong Kong, Dubai all checking in, but it wasn’t news outlets providing the video.

All three of those cities’ tourism bureaus shot the video, in some cases streaming live feeds, and provided it to news outlets.

This is something more and more businesses and organizations are doing.… Read More