Demonstrate Your Credibility

Demonstrate Your Credibility

If You Mess Up, You Don’t Have To Talk About It

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19 Keep Going If you mess up TW rev 02When you are presenting on camera and you make a mistake, you can choose to ignore it and move on or you can stop what you are doing and concentrate on the mistake. I’ve seen this happen many times and done it myself more than once. The thing is: people really couldn’t care less if you didn’t get it “right”, they just want you to get on with it.

Avoid the rabbit hole of presentation errors

I suppose you could start talking about what you had originally wanted to do and how you messed up and the next thing you know you’ve forgotten what you talking about in the first place. That just makes matters worse and can really derail an otherwise useful video. Just find another way to say it or find the words you first wanted to say. Do it quickly and then move on.

When you get hung up on one part of a presentation the whole message can get lost. It is a distraction to concentrate on your errors. Simply continue forward. There is no need to apologize for or even acknowledge your missteps; they happen and they are not what you are making the video for. Talking about your mistakes just makes you seem like you have less confidence in yourself than you do. People put their trust in you to help them, don’t make them feel like they made a bad choice.  A lack of confidence is contagious.

A skill that professional presenters have

Some people can play around with their “happy accidents” and make them into entertaining content. For the rest of us, that is a separate thing from our main video message. Most people would do well to save that stuff for outtakes or blooper reels.  It is better to remove them from the main body of your video by either redoing the section or editing them out. If you don’t, you are wasting your viewer’s time and drawing attention to something that does them (and you) no good whatsoever.

Make “fixing it in post” faster and easier

If you don’t quickly recover from a mistake. Stop, back up to the line before you misspoke and then continue on from there. That way your speaking will have a natural, rhythmic flow going into where you left off.   When you cut out the problem part, you will still have a continuity of energy running through the presentation. You might even realize that the break improved your video because the second time through you said it better than the first.

The easiest type of video to make

If you are aiming to do the least amount of editing, then you’ll have to start over from the beginning or live with a few screw-ups here and there. As long as you do not allow them to throw you completely off track, you will be fine leaving those mistakes in, just do not dwell on them any longer than you have to.

Who I am:

I’m Philip Quintas and I make it easier for customers to trust you before and after they buy from you by creating simple videos that help you help more people.

If you want one-to-one help with making better videos, I can answer your questions and even write, shoot, edit, upload and promote videos for you or any combination of these services.  Sign up using the Email Address* and First Name* form on this website to get direct access to me, my experience and offerings.

Reading Can Make You Look Like You Do Not Know What You Are Talking About

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16 Don't read a script TW rev 02

Either memorize what you are going to say and say it with genuine emotion or “wing it.” When talking without a fully composed speech prepared, I recommend that you have a simple, basic outline memorized to stay on topic and get all points covered. If you wander down a side path, it is easier to get back on track when you clearly know where you intended to go.

Viewers can see it in your eyes when you are reading from a teleprompter or haven’t worked out how to best deliver your scripted message. There isn’t that spark of spontaneity and that sense of possible danger of messing up. Reading when on camera can prevent you from connecting directly with your audience.

Phoniness is obvious, it can do harm to your reputation as an expert

When you talk to people off camera, you typically are not reading from a script. That would seem insincere, forced and basically like you do not know what you are talking about. The same thing is true for videos. Unless you have rehearsed your presentation well and are able to go through it smoothly and with great conviction, it may not be very effective.

There is a “work around” to use sparingly, if you can

If you have to make your presentation in short sections, be sure to get the introduction done all the way through. The opening bit will be one that you are most likely going to be seen on camera delivering. After that, through the miracle of video editing, you can insert other graphic elements, like titles, photographs or B-Roll cutaways over the cuts in the main “master shot” of you talking on camera.

Conclusion

You can always choose your own style of presenting on video. I’m telling you this because I find it to be very challenging to maintain an authoritative position when reading directly from a script on camera. When I look down to read, my focus changes from my presentation to the written words in front of me and that breaks the concentration that I feel is necessary to convey my messages convincingly.

Who I am:

I’m Philip Quintas and I make it easier for customers to trust you before and after they buy from you by creating simple videos that help you help more people.

If you want one-to-one help with making better videos, I can answer your questions and even write, shoot, edit, upload and promote videos for you or any combination of these services.  Sign up using the Email Address* and First Name* form on this website to get direct access to me, my experience and offerings.

Getting Started Editing Video

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Editing Film small

Editing video is all about choosing what you want people to see and hear.  The technical side of it can be intimidating and that is where I can be most helpful to people.  If you are planning on editing video and you do not know where to start, or if you get stuck somewhere along the way, let me know.  I might be able to help you out.
Finger on the Pulse Long smallYes, you can edit video on your smart phone or tablet, however, the type of editing you can do there is very limited.   That may be perfect in some situations (like when you just want something simple done quickly), but when you choose to really work with the footage you have and create great looking, compelling videos that can be re-purposed for many different uses, you will need something more advanced, and if you want to do a quick, simple edit that is always still an option with bigger systems.

Here are some ideas on what to do before you edit video:

Create a copy of all your raw footage and test your workflow.  The last thing you want to do is lose your raw footage.  The second to last thing you want to do is try to edit video on a system that is not capable or set up properly to edit video.

Unless you want to stay in the “quick cut and post” style of just getting your videos online, the first thing you will need to do is get the video that is in your recording device (camera, cell phone, tablet, etc…) onto the computer you are going to edit with.  Eventually, if you shoot enough video your recorder is going to get completely full and you will have to do this in some way or another or lose some of what you have already shot.

The second thing to do is to make a copy of those files and save them somewhere else (other than the computer you are editing with).  That way if something bad happens to your computer or you make a big mistake (like deleting raw footage files), you can always get your video files, copy them back onto your computer, and continue editing.  If you do not do this, you may lose your video footage forever.

Download your video files

On some devices getting the footage from your camera on to your editing computer is as simple as taking the memory card out of the camera and putting it into your computer.  Other systems require you to use a cable to connect the two devices and some have different methods altogether.  If you have the manual or can read it online, that is usually a good place to find information about this essential procedure.  If you are having trouble with this let me know in the comments section of this post (tell me the make and model of the device you have recorded video on and I’ll do what I can to help you figure it out).

Once you have the video files backed up (copied and stored both on your computer and somewhere else) then you are ready to get into a video editing software solution.  There are a number of options to choose from.

My personal favorite video editing software

I highly recommend Adobe Premiere Pro CC (Creative Cloud) because it is compatible with so many different kinds of video and other types of graphic and audio files.  It also offers several ways to collaborate with people worldwide.  Premiere Pro is capable of doing everything from simple trims (changing the length of a video file) to exporting a feature length motion picture.

If you have another choice, let me know about it and tell me why you like it.  For now, I am going to concentrate on the Adobe software because it works really well on most computers.

Who I am:

I’m Philip Quintas and I make it easier for customers to trust you before and after they buy from you by creating simple videos that help you help more people.

If you want one-to-one help with making better videos, I can answer your questions and even write, shoot, edit, upload and promote videos for you or any combination of these services.  Sign up using the Email Address* and First Name* form on this website to get direct access to me, my experience and offerings.