673 – Learn the right way to shoot video: Tom talks Vertical Video

Episode 673 – Vertical Video
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 673 and Screw the Commute Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about shooting vertical video and all the tips that goes along with that. The reason I'm doing it is because I've been doing lots of it lately, with my TikTok efforts probably shot 70 of them in the last couple of weeks. So I want to tell you about some of the tips to make it easier on you to do it. I mean, it's all the craze now, and it really wasn't that long ago people would make fun of you for shooting vertical videos, Right? So, I mean, giving you just a tiny bit of history and and on video format so you'll recognize them when you see them. And plus, I'm going to have a really cool technique if you choose. You can get a two for one happy hour discount when you're shooting videos. In other words, you can get a horizontal and vertical one out of the same shot. So I'll tell you about that near the end. I hope you didn't miss Episode 672 and also 669. This is my foray into TikTok. Episode 669 was my first week results and things that I'm covering. Episode 672 was the types of videos I'm shooting. Then in a week or so, I'll give you an update on how things are going. But it's it's one of the most rapidly or it's one of the social media's that you can make the most rapid progress on.

[00:01:54] All right. So check out those episodes anytime you want to get to it back episode. You go to screwthecommute.com, slash and then the episode number. 669, 672 and today is 673. All right. I want to thank people that are kicking in for our Patreon. We just started a Patreon that's going to help support our program for persons with disabilities, getting them scholarships so you can go to screwthecommute.com/patreon starts as little as three bucks a month to help out these people and you know Christmas is coming along and be a great thing. Legacy thing to to help these folks out so screwthecommute.com/patreon. You can also go to patreon.com/screwthecommute. All right so there you go.

[00:02:40] Well, let's get to the main event. All right. Here's your tiny bit of history. Let's talk about YouTube. Now, if you see a video that looks a little fuzzy and it's square, that's called standard definition or PSD. All right. Now, that's not that's not CTD. That's SD. All right. Now you'll see many of my older videos in that square format. That was the thing of the day back in the day. And they're really not out of focus when I say fuzzy. So as you get a better eye for this, you'll just notice that they just have less resolution as compared to today's standards and they kind of scream that they're old.

[00:03:24] In other words, they're not as sharp like today's videos. Now the next step up is widescreen or high definition, also called HD or 1080p. All right. So you don't have to worry about the numbers too much. That's where you'll see most of those kinds of videos on regular YouTube. Now, if you're on regular YouTube and you see a vertical video where both sides of the video player are black. That's most likely a person who didn't know what they were doing. And in the know video, people would make fun of them. Okay, so that's what you see. But then came Facebook stories and TikTok and Instagram reels and now Facebook reels and YouTube shorts. All of these are supposed to be in the vertical format, and if you tried to shoot them horizontally, you would be made fun of they would just look stupid. And there's one exception I'm going to tell you about later with that two for one happy hour discount to be able to shoot horizontal and vertical in the same shot. So now it's pretty much standard procedure to shoot either horizontally or vertically, depending on where you are going to put the video. And like I said, I'm going to show you a trick to get around that later. Now, here's one thing I don't want you to worry about when shooting vertically, and that's camera shake. And yeah, I'm perfectly fine. And you should be, too.

[00:05:00] If for some of your videos, your camera or cell phone is on a tripod or a mini tripod. But. And that's a big but. All right. In today's atmosphere, you should never pass on shooting a video just because you don't have a tripod. I mean, I had a guy working for me who was a retired promo director from Hollywood. He was a really big deal. And he told me, Tom, I had $1,000,000 worth of cameras. I had $1,000,000 worth of lights. I had 50 people on the set would run and get me a cup of coffee. And he held his hand out like doing a selfie. He said, in today's atmosphere, this is an acceptable video shot, so don't worry about having all the fancy stuff. All right. So let's talk about holding the camera and we'll talk about tripods and selfie sticks in a minute. Now, I don't care how little your hands are, you can hold the camera in one hand and hit the record button with the thumb of the same hand. I see it all the time with these young girls on on Instagram and everywhere else where they're they're doing it themselves and their hands are very small. So you can do this with just a little practice. Now, some places to record, you have to hold down the button while you're recording, and that makes it more chances that it's going to be a little bit shaky. But again, don't worry about it.

[00:06:32] I'll tell you about that in a minute. You can also hit the record and stop button with the opposite hand. You just need to know that unless you trim the video, trim means you take off a little from the front or the back of the video, the end of the video. But if you don't do that, you're going to be seen on the recording, reaching toward the camera at the beginning and the end of the video. And again, this is something that was totally stupid and amateurish in the past and it's now acceptable. I even have some Instagram reels that I shot during a trend where the trend actually started with your face sticking in the camera and then you jumping back to get in position for the video. And it ended the same way, right? So so you could get away with I mean, it's really different now than it used to be. You can. So all things that were stupid in the past are acceptable now, and that covers a lot of things in life too, by the way. So. So just practice holding your phone or camera with one hand for selfies and the more you practice, your hand will adjust to it. And here's the thing about being shaky. I got to tell you another story about a Hollywood guy retired. It was working for me and. He was even. I mean, he worked on the original Star Wars. That's how, you know, this is high level stuff, this guy.

[00:07:59] And he also got an Emmy nomination for the Winds of War miniseries. So this guy is the best of the best. And he said, Tom, it doesn't matter if it's shaky, a good editor will use that shakiness to create excitement in the video so that people can't just reach over and stop it or scroll past it. So that's his name is Gary Smith, and he's still doing some side jobs for speakers and stuff, doing making their videos really powerful. So that's if you're shooting yourself. This is all selfie stuff. But now if you're shooting what's called point of view or POV videos where you are not seeing but you are pointing the camera at something you want the audience to see. Well, then you can use two hands if you want. But even saying that many of my TikTok videos have me holding the camera in my left hand and pointing it to my computer screen with my right hand. Where? Excuse me. It's pointing it towards the computer screen, and then my right hand ends up in the shot. I'm pointing to stuff on the screen. It's no problem. Like I said, it's a new world out there and things that would have made you look really outright stupid in the past. Totally acceptable. All right. And another reason you don't have to worry about too much shakiness is that most modern cell phones and cameras have what is called image stabilization, which is electronically smooths things out unless you're really running at full speed with the camera rolling.

[00:09:44] So you don't have to worry about that. All right. Let's talk about selfie sticks for a moment. Now, they have come a long way, but you still have to be careful in what you buy. I mean, I saw them actually at the dollar store the other day, and they were so flimsy. A large cell phone would probably have bent them when they were extended. If you're going to bother with a selfie stick, get a solid one off Amazon with great reviews. If it's flimsy when extended, you're going to hear the noise of the extensions clicking together because the tolerances aren't good and and that'll get on your video. That's terrible. And the best ones also have a mini tripod at the bottom, which makes a great handle when it's closed and gives you the option to sit it up for a still shot or when you need your hands to demonstrate something. Now some selfie sticks come with a Bluetooth start and stop button, which can be paired with your cell phone. And that's a handy accessory that allows you to start and stop the video without reaching up and touching the camera or moving it or knocking it. Somehow it starts with Bluetooth and stops with Bluetooth. All right. A fancy and much more expensive tool is called a gimbal. Think it's gimbal and you can do some fantastically cool things with a gimbal.

[00:11:12] But it does take lots of practice. And check out YouTube for just type in cool gimbal shots and you'll see all the crazy fun things you can do with a gimbal. But you've got to practice. It's really difficult to operate. All right. Let's talk a little bit about framing your shot and then I'll tell you the cool technique to be able to shoot vertically and horizontally at the same time. How about that? One thing you want to do on framing is consider what else you want to be displayed on the screen on top of the video. This has hit home with me as I've shot about 70 ptic talks in the last couple of weeks. And on that platform I can put text on top of the video. I can put animated gifs and sometimes with the green screen effects where I need to place myself in the picture so people can see my background. And maybe it's a book cover or my dog's playing or something like that. Now you have to leave room on the screen to place these elements. Also, when placing those elements, let's say it's some text. If you put the text too high or too low on the screen, it might conflict with the controls of the platform you're on. Or maybe other text like a caption or video description is displayed in the same place on the screen. So your text is on top of that text and neither piece of text can be properly read.

[00:12:46] So you have to plan for this. You might have to give extra headroom in your. Video, which wouldn't be normal for just a normal shot. But knowing that you're going to put some text up there to fill that space in. This is really a big deal. You really need to experiment with whatever platform you're using so you don't waste your time creating videos that can't be seen properly because you didn't account for placement of things on the screen. All right, So before we give you the super duper tip, what I want to do is remind you about our Patreon and Go Fund me account for the persons with disabilities. We've got three people in the program. They're making great progress. Two of them are blind. One of them already started their own business. So it's a pilot program where I'm trying to prove the concept that I can get these people hired or in their own business or both. And then I took a grant writing course, so I'm going to roll it out really big for corporations and foundations so I can help hundreds or thousands of persons with disabilities. So help me out on this. You can go to screwthecommute.com/patreon start as little as $3 a month and you get all these great training episodes that I put out and all the money less the Patreon fees and the Go Fund me account which I'll tell you in a minute is going towards the scholarship.

[00:14:14] So I'm not taking any for myself so you can check the page on it. screwthecommute.com/patreon or if you'd like to make a one time shot at go fund me just go to screwthecommute.com/disabilities or imtcva.org/disability. All right. So I'd love to have you help on that. Okay. Here's here's the cool thing. So you can get to two for one happy hour discount. Okay. To get a horizontal and vertical video from one video. All right, Now, here's the thing, though. Here's the deal. You must have a camera or phone that shoots in 4K. Now, remember, I mentioned earlier, standard definition. That's old high definition is it's out there mostly, but 4K is considered you HD or ultra high definition sometimes 21 $0.60, so you have to shoot in 4K for this trick to work. So here's what you do. You shoot your video in 4K in the horizontal orientation. That way the video will be immediately usable on YouTube, Vimeo, your website, or wherever else horizontal format is used. But here's the kicker. You make sure you're shooting. What you're shooting is in the middle of the frame. See many cameras and cell phones allow you to even put a grid on the screen to help you frame shots. And the grid doesn't show up in the final video.

[00:15:51] Now, when doing this, you or your video editor can either use the horizontal version or cut out the sides and use the middle for the vertical version. And it'll still be very good quality because you shot it in 4K. Now you'll need a video editor that knows what they're doing for this technique to work. Or you can do it if you're really into it, but that you have to have a good quality video editing program like Premiere Pro or Final Cut with Mac and all that stuff. And it's just extremely convenient to not have to decide whether to shoot vertically or horizontally or even worse, to have to shoot the same scene twice, which may not even be possible, you know, shoot one vertical and one horizontal if it's in a fast moving environment and you just had to get the shot. So that's your little trick. You've got to shoot in 4K and keep things in the middle. All right. So there's your vertical stuff. And again, keep check out those tick tock. Things are making great progress. The last check was like 22,000 video views in two weeks, which is way more than you can get on any other platform unless you're a big celebrity. So check it all out. And also help us out with the Patreon screwthecommute.com/patreon or screwthecommute.com/disabilities to help out with go funding. All right we'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.