Creating Video Content on a Budget
This week I was back at General Assembly for an evening about video. Not your standard UX subject maybe, but in a world where video is king I am interested for two reasons;
- To record my creative projects better
- From a UX research point of view for recording what participants do.
Being someone who has only really consumed videos (and those mostly about knitting stitches) I really wanted to get a better idea of what creating videos requires and where to start.
Our tutor Nigel Camp was really knowledgeable and happy to share as much as he could in the two hours we had.
Interestingly he started by talking about common mistakes, which got us thinking about the sort of videos we want to make and where they should be filmed. Although good equipment is important up to a point, it is the planning you put in and the little details which can make your video great rather than just good.
Some of his points were similar to points made about taking good photos, but now with the addition of audio and a moving target! For instance to make sure you have good lighting and use the rule of thirds.
He gave us a good idea about the range of equipment available from smartphones right up to really technical cameras.
Lastly he talked about post-production and the sort of software you can use to put it all together.
This session was perfect for me, technical enough to be useful without getting into anything too complicated and scaring me off.
So now hopefully I will be able to put this into practice when I create my next paper animation, but equally I think it will be useful as the team start thinking about how we go about setting up a usability lab at the office.