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Nash Inner circle Hong Kong ~ USA 1101 Posts |
So after spending money to hire a professional to do my corporate market promo vid (top vid: http://www.nashfung.com)
I kinda need to scale back on other vids and self-make them Gang, please let me know if my promo vid for the college market is at least comparable? I didn't have my mic to record audio in some clips which hurts big time, but I tried to balance that with snappy caption: http://www.nashfung.com/college-magic-show.php Thanks!
I teach leaders the magic of curiosity and empathetic communication. keynote Speaker | Seattle magician
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Greensboro New user 73 Posts |
You've got great video clips in which the audience is having a great deal of fun, but the audio is definitely holding you back. I don't see any problem with your editing skills, and the captions look good. Get clips with good audio and you'll have gold. Unrelated topic: Have you ever considered playing with the similarities of "Fung" and "fun", as in: "When in comes to magic shows, nobody gives you more FUNg." I like that kind of stuff, but maybe it's not for everybody.
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Dannydoyle Eternal Order 21245 Posts |
I think before that you need to proof read. I am the king of typos but even in a testimonal they look bad. "We had a CROWED of 400 and Nash did an awesome job".
For ne the video was way too many jump cuts. I know you are trying to cherry pick audience reactions but it is almost hard for me to watch. Maybe this is what kids want I have no idea but for me it was hard to watch. The only venue you have that is video worthy the audio is horrible. If you have to caption audio because it is so bad I personally would not use it. It says a lot. Also words mean things. "I am going to read your mind. I am going to tey to guess what you drew." Ok are you going to read her mi d or guess? Sure it seems nit picky....but is it? This stuff matters in performance. The audio is definately bad. Next time weae a microphone direct into the video camera. It is as important as the video.
Danny Doyle
<BR>Semper Occultus <BR>In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act....George Orwell |
Nash Inner circle Hong Kong ~ USA 1101 Posts |
Greensboro: Sorta kinda .. but not really. I just randomly joke that I am a FUN G when people inquire me about the origin of my last name at events.
Danny: Thanks so much for catching that, it's fixed now. The audio is really a shame, I've bought a Zoom H1 for sound ever since that. As for words, in my show I only TRY to read their mind... in my intro I cover that I am not a psychic, but I'm pretty good at guessing So yes, I was guessing. (In the video I actually said I am gonna try to read your mind but in that 2 seconds clip I decide to take out "try to" to make the caption more readable. Which is another proof that my audio was bad.. DARN!!!) But the main question I have is the editing. In the previous promo vid every individual clip was 3-5 seconds longer. This is something I notice about modern day trailers in movies where every individual clip is less than 5 seconds long, even if it is the same continuous shot, they will change up the angle or make it a moving shot. I'm curious to see what everyone thinks?
I teach leaders the magic of curiosity and empathetic communication. keynote Speaker | Seattle magician
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Dannydoyle Eternal Order 21245 Posts |
I think the jump cuts take away from getting to know who you are. It is almost assaulting the senses. Which is the opposite of what you want.
If it is working for you then leave it.
Danny Doyle
<BR>Semper Occultus <BR>In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act....George Orwell |
Benji Bruce Special user 930 Posts |
Hey Nash,
You can tell the first demo is professionally made and the college one isn't. If you have to, use the professionally made demo and get rid of the college one until you can hire someone to do it. Always remember this quote "It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." When you show a bad demo, you're showing them you're not a pro. So it's better to have no college demo than to have a bad one. And it's much better to use your corporate demo as the college demo. Here is a blog post I made about how to structure a demo: http://www.paidtoperform.com/demo-video-structure/ and here is my demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yqhszLsnIs From the very start, people should know that your demo is professionally made...and music plays a big role in the "feel" of your demo. Think about how horrible movies would be without the dramatic music....the same goes for a demo. The current music seems like you just randomly put a song in the demo versus having the song accompany your style. Remember that your demo is all about social proof. It's much better to start your demo with you performing in front of a crowd of 200 student on stage than to start with a street magic clip. The beginning has to show the buyer that you're a pro. Also, you want to put the logos at the beginning. The reason for this is because you're "framing" their mind. You're guiding them to think about how good you are from the very start. If someone says "We have an entertainer who has performed for Amazon, Google, Mircrosoft, and more...." then it will change how people think about you from the start. But if you tell people the same thing, halfway through, then you've diluted the effectiveness. It's like the famous violinist who played in a subway and nobody listened because he looked like a bum. But little did they know, he was one of the world's best that plays to thousands of people in huge theaters. It's all about framing. Your logos should be towards the beginning. And a final tip...include Pattern Interrupts. A few seconds into your video, people will get bored. We all have ADHD. So if you include a patter interrupt, you re-start the brain. |
jay leslie V.I.P. Southern California 9498 Posts |
You can take that video to an editor and they can adjust the color, saturation and broadcast safe levels then run the sound through a separate sound-editing program, including sweetening the audio, You would be absolutely amazed at * What can be done by a competent editor.
It should take 4 or 5 hours so, whatever they charge. I charge 65 an hour for that kind of work but you can find a local person and just take the tape to them in person. * What could be done; I shot a clip. in the park, with traffic and a crying baby. After two hours the traffic was gone and you didn't hear the baby. On one of the Escape Artist conventions, there was a wedding in the room next door and the beat of the music just came through the wall which overshadowed our stage show. In an hour, it was also gone. As of about three years ago, it doesn't matter which program(s) the editor(s) use(s) it's an issue of how good they are. You might take the tape to two different editors who specialize in video or audio. You may also write the edits down (time code) take the raw footage in and save a little because the editor doesn't need to spend time looking for them and you already have a sample of what you want it to look like.
Jay Leslie
www.TheHouseOfEnchantment.com |
Nash Inner circle Hong Kong ~ USA 1101 Posts |
Hi Benji
Very good point about putting pattern interrupts in the beginning and mention my client list in the front. Thanks for the input. Trust me I agree that I should use the corp. video ; but that video is already on my landing page, corporate page, and video page.. I'm just afraid it will be over used if I have it on my college page too and college buyers are video driven so I'm kinda stuck with this situation where I have to make the best out of these footage But yeah, I like your video, gives me a lot of ideas of what to change. Hi Jay Yeah man if there's a way to clean up the audio, that'll make a WORLD of difference. I'm gonna ask the people who did my corp. video if they are up for another project
I teach leaders the magic of curiosity and empathetic communication. keynote Speaker | Seattle magician
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jay leslie V.I.P. Southern California 9498 Posts |
If they can't, maybe they can direct you to someone who only does audio - It's a speciality. Sometimes, cleaning-up audio is a bit of mechanics and sometimes there's a little Voodoo involved.
You can also rerecord your voice and replace existing audio and sometimes you can hire a voice-over artist to talk-over unfixable parts. It's an art.
Jay Leslie
www.TheHouseOfEnchantment.com |
Dannydoyle Eternal Order 21245 Posts |
Benji has some pretty good advice on video that many should read and read again. Some pretty good insight I have to admit.
Good point about the social proof being at the start. They may not make it till the end. You want that up front. I have to admit there Benji I never really thought of it that way. Thank you. I learned something! Only thing I would say that often college gigs wind up being the street variety. So much of that work runs that route so showing that may not be the worst thing. All in all listen to what Benji posted. (Yep check the user name again, I WROTE THAT!) I see SO many videos that are done so badly by people trying to save money. It shows. Think of it like this. Once they have seen others, if you show up with less of quality than they are already used too, well out of the DVD player it comes. Or simply clicked to a new page.
Danny Doyle
<BR>Semper Occultus <BR>In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act....George Orwell |
jugglery New user 29 Posts |
Hi Nash,
You asked about the length of your edits. I don't really think it matters. It matters more that you keep interest up throughout your video. One way of doing that is to vary the length of your clips. Some will be longer, some will be shorter. If they are all uniform, the mind gets a bit numb from the regularity. A common issue that magicians and jugglers have when they construct their promo is the tendency to try to entertain, rather than to sell. That would be wrong. This video is entertaining, but it spends no time selling the show to the prospect. A promo video is meant to sell the show - or at least get the viewer interested enough to seek more information. Always keep that in mind when editing. Always ask yourself, "How does this clip SELL the show to the target audience? What does it do to further the conversation I want to have?" (you don't want them to ask how the trick is done, you want them to ask, How can we book you?) The tendency is to show tricks. For the most part, the buyer doesn't need to know what tricks you do. They need to know if YOU are right for THEIR EVENT. So, instead of editing a video to show the beginning, middle and end of an effect, you really want to have it show the result of your show - namely, an engaged, entertained college crowd. A GREAT way of doing this is by using a voice over. Have the voice spell out the things that your visuals cannot - that colleges across the nation come to you for quality comedy and magic. I know you are trying to do this without spending a lot of money. You could find someone on fiverr.com to help you out with a voice over. It is really hit and miss, though. Make sure that you really take your time and research the VO artist. Finally, rethink the idea of doing this yourself. Yes, you can save money, but at what cost? I'll guarantee you that a good video editing job will cost less than the fee you will get from a single college booking. And you have a much greater chance of being booked if you have a video of professional quality. If you want to get a good idea of the style of voice over you want, click over to my video editing page: http://www.steverusselljuggles.com/steve-does-video/ You'll see that it is much easier to tell your story when you combine the right words with the right images. All the best, Steve |
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