Sound: The Most Overlooked Element of Video
It’s easy to get wrapped up in lighting, color, compositions, resolutions, and more when filming or editing. All of those are essential to pay attention to, but more important than each of those individually, is sound. It may come as a surprise, because it’s an element in great productions that you always expect to be there, thus it goes unnoticed. However, if there is poor audio and sound design, you’ll pick up on it immediately.
In an audio class at Ball State University, it was beaten into my head that great sound will make your video ‘look better.’ It doesn’t literally, but it was a reference to a study that had to shots taken from the same camera, but the audience thought one looked better than the other, little did they know the only difference was the sound.
Life is strange without sound. Take a few seconds in the office and pay close attention to every sound you hear: the push of a stapler, the creaking of someone’s desk chair, a coffee mug being set down gently on the desk, someone sniffling, quick typing on a keyboard, shoes scuffling on the ground, and air being pushed through vents.
Or go out in the parking lot and hear nearby cars accelerating, semi’s shifting gears, people’s shoes scuffling on pavement kicking little pebbles as they walk and talk on the phone, leaves on trees gently blowing in the wind, birds chirping, and more.
For the vast majority of the population, experiencing sound is a constant part of our lives. With that being said, why shouldn’t it be at the forefront of our minds when creating or watching video? Sound can take your video piece to the next level.
Recently, Ryan and I had the privilege of filming a beautiful home for Minear Real Estate. The property called for more than the great, but our standard drone video with voice over or only music in the background. So along with Ryan’s drone work, I filmed on the ground. It was a nice piece, but it was made into a great piece with time spent on sound design. Suddenly, the video turned into an accurate portrayal of the property: a peaceful and serene getaway. One where you heard birds chirping out in the lawn, the constant relaxing sound of water running into the pool, and the gentle blowing of the wind.
Spending the extra time with sound, made a great property video into an exceptional one. Witness for yourself how adding sound design can benefit your property or real estate video:
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10 Ways to Stay Creative – Written By Forbes Agency Council
I just wanted to share some ways to stay creative. Many times we get into the “Daily Grind” and forget about what got us here in the first place. Our creativity and our personalities are what makes us valuable.
Post written by
Forbes Agency Council
Successful PR, media strategy, creative and advertising executives from Forbes Agency Council share trends and tips.
1. Go Analog
My inbox is flooded with inspiring content. But the act of watching/reading is so passive that it can demotivate me to create. So I like to do something analog at least once a week – write in a journal, sketch random objects, can some fruit, whatever. While my hands are moving, my brain is roaming. Pretty soon I’m hatching an idea – or at least enjoying the act of creating instead of consuming. – Patti Sanchez, Duarte, Inc.
2. Try Saying Yes
This last year, I’ve creatively lost over 90 pounds. One of the simple ways that I’ve done that is to put “yes” back in my life. “Yes” to taking the dog for a walk instead of in the back yard. “Yes” to social gatherings with friends. “Yes” to parking farther away. “Yes” to shopping daily for food instead of ordering it or stockpiling it. “Yes” to buying and riding a bike. “Yes” is a powerful word! – Douglas Karr, DK New Media
3. Find Inspiration On Instagram
I like to follow creative and inspirational accounts on Instagram. My free time is limited during the day, so for the five or 10 minutes I have available to hop on social media, I like my feed to be full of posts that help motivate me and get me inspired. – Leila Lewis, Be Inspired PR
4. Be The Intern
I encourage myself and others to be the intern. Assume the role of a non-jaded learner, open to all possibilities. Sit in the proverbial front row at conferences. Watch channels you wouldn’t normally like. Try a new social app or two every week. Surround yourself with young thinkers. Follow lots of diverse and creative people on Twitter. Listen more than you talk, and synthesize everything regularly. – Daryl McCullough, Citizen Relations
5. Give Yourself Permission To Think
I used to mistake responding to emails or participating in phone calls as my most tangible contributions to client work. However, what I’ve come to realize is that as a firm owner and entrepreneur, one of the most valuable things I bring to client engagements is my creative thinking, so I now give myself time each week to indulge. – Lindsay Mullen, Prosper Strategies
6. Hone Your Hobby
Since I was a kid, I’ve been performing close-up magic, so I’m constantly reading about the history of magic and deception or sharpening my sleight-of-hand skills. Focusing on a hobby that’s completely unrelated to work keeps me sane, but it also actually helps me when it comes to thinking strategically and conceptually about client projects. – Dan LaCivita, Firstborn
7. Utilize Your Surroundings
I enjoy running as much as possible. If I want a proper challenge I head down to the beach here in San Diego and go for a long-distance swim. I also enjoy competing in triathlons. Getting outside for some exercise helps me with clearing my head and reorienting myself. However, I also enjoy starting my day with some brief mediation; it keeps me centered and helps me stay focused for the workday. – Clayton Dean, Circa Interactive
8. Use Your Network As Inspiration
I surround myself with people who aren’t afraid to challenge and push me, as I’m not as cool as I once was. Hourly productive and constructive arguments with my staff keep me on my toes. Also, constant networking with my peers – who are doing similar things but in different industries – keeps me abreast of what is relevant and innovative. – Coltrane Curtis, Team Epiphany
9. Be Present
Everyone gets busy. Many times, beyond busy. When we can be present in the moment and step away from the rat race, we can fuel our creativity and inspiration. Stepping outside, listening to music, drinking wine, indulging in great food, immersing yourself in anything that brings you to a calming state is essential. For me, it’s a blend of everything, depending on the moment. It’s a must. – Michael Gaizutis, RNO1
10. Never Stop Being A Student
We don’t just subscribe to business publications, we read them. We learn from them. We don’t just buy business books; we read them. We engage people from these learning sources that connect to and grow our business. Locking out a portion of our day to concentrate on learning keeps us creative and inspired, but even more, it ignites unmatched thinking, strategy and competitive advantage from our leadership and team. – Elizabeth Edwards, Volume Public Relations
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5 Types of brochures for your business to consider
A brochure is your brand at a glance, but one brochure does not fit all needs. We have put together this short list of brochure types to help you identify what type or types you may need.
Leave-Behinds – “After Sales Pitch”
Leave-behind brochures include complete descriptions and benefits of your product and/or services. These are great to leave after meeting with potential customers to make a lasting and profitable impression!
Sales Support Tool – “Sales Kit”
Sales Kit Brochures are like leave-behinds but have larger photos, pages and headlines. These are used as sales aids to help you describe and showcase your product or services. These will keep your audience interested and help them retain the information after the pitch is delivered.
Point-of-Sale – “Over the Counter”
Over the counter brochures are a piece that you would like your customers to take when visiting your brick and mortar storefront. One look should be enough for your customers to know what your brochures are all about. The key to point-of-sale brochure is to have catchy headlines and images to attract attention. Its purpose is to spark interest so that your potential customers would ask more questions.
Respond to Inquiries – “Question and Answer (Q&A)”
Q&A brochures are great for potential customers whom inquire about your business. This is a great opportunity for you to seal the deal because the customer is already interested in your brand. We recommend having a number of Q&A Brochures on different topics put together for quick responses! Though this is a great tool, we would also recommend not to follow up with the brochure alone. A handwritten note still goes a long way!
Direct Mail – “Post Box”
Direct mail brochures are among our most effective print pieces we offer. Why you may ask? Direct mail is a very popular form of marketing but a well designed and uniquely folded brochure mailed rather than a standard post card will stand out to a carefully selected mailing list. The effectiveness of this tool goes way up with amazing new tools like Variable Data Printing (VDP). This revolutionary tool makes it possible to completely customize your brochures with first and last names from your list and even custom images! Give us a call to discuss more possibilities with VDP on your next direct mail brochure!
Here at Blue River Digital, we can help you no matter where you are at with your brochures. Maybe you are just running low and would like some more printed. Maybe you have a concept and would like someone to design it for you. Or maybe you just know that there is a need but do not where to start. We are a full service marketing firm and can design print and deliver your next brochure piece and would love to chat with you about your needs! Please give us a call today! 260.248.2749
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Your Marketing Team _ Graphic Design Retainers
YOUR marketing team!
How often do you leave a team meeting with great new ideas or unearth new needs from team members and have no way to execute? Maybe you do not have the tools or likely the extra time to get the done on time. New marketing collateral, internal forms, promotional graphics, social media posts; these are all materials that can really make your sales efforts stand out!
Imagine having a team that will take care of all of this for you! BLUE RIVER DIGITAL CAN BE YOUR MARKETING TEAM!
Blue River Digital can handle your graphic design, website management or maintenance needs, or even your social media page management, on a monthly basis so you can focus on running your business!
With our retainer design services, your business can begin to take advantage of the numerous benefits when partnering with BRD!
BENEFITS OF A RETAINER PARTNERSHIP
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Claim Your Businesses Google My Business Page
Your Google My Business profile is the first thing people see when they search for your company online. That makes it a critical part of your marketing mix.
Google gives every business its own Google My Business listing, consisting of a Google Map of the company’s location, its address, reviews, photos, the website URL, phone number, business hours and more.
Your business information appears in numerous places all over the internet, including a knowledge panel on the right side of the Google search engine results page and Google Maps on desktops and mobile devices. That means it’s really, really important to make sure your business’s information is correct and up-to-date!
Verifying, correcting and maintaining your Google My Business Account is a service our Digital Marketing Department offers here at Blue River Digital! With complete transparency, setting up and maintaining your Google My Business Account is a completely free process from Google and with time and effort you can perform the service on you own. Although, many of us find it difficult to find the time within our daily schedules to complete our daily tasks let alone navigate the vastness of Google.
In the end, we want your business to have the correct information shown when potential customer search for you! We would be happy to assist you whether you choose to manage your account on your own or if you like us to take care of it for you. Give us a call today to get started! 260.248.2749
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2019 is here! Take the time for yourself!
Well it’s march and it has been 3 months since our last blog entry. I guess that means we have been busy and have forgotten, which is mostly true. I think it’s that we just forgot. Anyway, I wanted to write this as a reminder to ourselves and to anyone reading this entry, that we need to to take the time to work on our own image as a business, work on ourselves, improving our workflow and improving our outlook. At the end of the day if you do five more jobs then you anticipated that might be success for many of us.
Yes, it would be a success by completing more work and perhaps making more money, but did we really improve our outlook on the big picture, did we smile today, did we enjoy our day at work?
Take the time to invest in yourself, and learn to keep those thoughts of improvement on the front burner.
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Get Noticed With Banner Stands
Retractable banner stands are a quick and easy way to dress up a small space like an expo booth or point of purchase display in a showroom. Plus, once you have the stand, the banner can be changed out to match your latest promotions.
Can Video Increase Your Profits
Why Your Company Should Be Using Video
Ryan Sigler | November 2017
Are you using video on your website and social media?
If not, you should be. We are finding out more and more that video will become very important to your company and its future in the next five years.
Here are a few staggering statistics to get you thinking.
• YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.
• 87% of online marketers use video content.
• One-third of online activity is spent watching video.
• 92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others.
• Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
• Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.
• By 2019, internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic.
Statistics source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/03/08/video-marketing-statistics.
How would I use video in my industry?
Have an upcoming event? Have important news? Need installation information? How about using your product? You can effectively communicate any important information that you want your audience to hear through video and it will reach more viewers and at the end of the day which will increase your profits!
When specifically talking about the auction industry, we are finding that both aerial videography and surface videography are important. Aerial video works great to show large audiences at an auction, large portions of land and its individual tracts, a complete line up of equipment, and of course great photos and a different perspective to the viewer. Having video from on the ground and close up also works great by capturing “in the moment” video, great sound; and a close up look at the equipment or the auctioneer. Combine the two perspectives and you have great visuals to go along with your talking points.
The process of making a video.
1. You have two options in capturing the video. Capture the video yourself, or hire a professional to capture the video for you. If you are on a budget and you don’t growl at the idea of taking some video, then I would suggest buying the equipment and shooting it yourself. There is a learning curve that comes with shooting video and getting the best results, but lets not let that get in the way. Most of these videos are going to be 2 minutes or less which means you don’t need to be Steven Spielberg to get effective video. Being stable and smooth while capturing the moments you need is 80% of the battle.
2. If either, you have the video captured, or do it yourself, you will need to edit the video and have it saved for publishing. What you will want from this process, is the finished video product with motion graphics, maybe an intro, voice over, background music, color editing, etc. While I am biased to Blue River Digital (www.blueriverd.com) on being your video editing source, there are many professional media companies that could do the job.
3. Publishing your video is relatively easy. I would recommend using Youtube or Vimeo as your primary video platform. You can set up an account for free and upload your videos to either source. Once they are uploaded you can then embed the video directly into Facebook, your website, or any other web platform that you may desire.
The Equipment
Aerial Videography: We have chosen to use DJI products for our aerial video production. Why? Well, when I first started flying a quadcopter in 2014, it was one of the original DJI products and since then I haven’t had any issues with DJI and I firmly believe they have the best technology on the market and they are a step ahead of everyone else. Everyone else such as GoPro, Autel Robotics, Yuneec, etc are all in the game, but are slightly behind DJI. What DJI product do I recommend for you? It all depends on your specific industry. If it is large portions of land that you auction or farm then I personally would go with the DJI Inspire. The Inspire has significant range along with faster speeds to allow more land coverage with better camera resolution. It does cost about double over the other options which would be the DJI Phantom 4 and DJI Mavic Pro.
The DJI Phantom 4 would still work great for large land coverage and would also work great for large equipment line ups. It would be great for any outdoor events and the cost is roughly half of the DJI Inspire and still provides high quality video.
The DJI Mavic Pro is much smaller in size and therefore could work for close up video needed in tight spots, indoor scenes, and subject tracking video. The price for these are less, but you will sacrifice a little bit of video quality but is still a great choice overall.
For our interviews and on the ground footage, we use a panasonic GH4 camera, with a Nikon lens and Metabones speed booster. We place the camera on a large gimble that keeps the video stable. This gimble is the DJI Ronin and it’s well worth the cash. The GH4 has built in wifi which can allow an ipad with the panasonic viewer app control the GH4 and all of its settings remotely. Mount the ipad to the top of the ronin and you’re in business. Only one thing is missing, if you want or need high quality sound, purchase the Rode shotgun mic that is either built for DSLR cameras or the large shotgun mic that you can carry and pickup much better sound. An alternatvie low cost solution to all of the above is the DJI Osmo. The DJI Osmo is a handheld camera that produces stable, high quality video, and can be outfitted with microphones, phone holders and other accessories.
Aerial Certification and Laws
The FAA has several regulations regarding the flying of your UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System).
1. You have to register your aircraft with the FAA and can do so for $5 online via the FAA.gov website. This requirement is currently under review and may not be necessary in the future, but for now, I would recommend registering it.
2. To fly your UAS for commercial reasons the pilot of the aircraft must obtain a part 107 UAS Remote Pilot Certificate. I have personally taken this exam and would recommend taking this exam even if you are flying for fun. The knowledge I obtained during my time studying for this exam was very helpful in teaching me about weather, airspace, altitude, lattitude and longitude.
Without going into too much detail you can obtain all the necessary information that you need to take the exam from the FAA.gov website. I would be glad to answer any questions in detail regarding FAA certification. Just shoot me an email (ryan@blueriverd.com) if you are serious about getting your part 107 and I can give you some helpful information and save you up to $180 by choosing the right study tools.
In Closing
If you aren’t producing videos for your business, it would be a great idea to implement it into your marketing strategy. Video production is one of the fastest growing departments at Blue River Digital, and many of our clients are seeing the results everyday. What I tell our clients is this: “If you can place your video on facebook and other social media platforms and reach 1,000 new views for your auction, event, product or business and 10 – 100 (1-10%) of those viewers show up to your auction, event or even buy a product, that will increase your profits.”
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