In Part 1, I looked at the various ways you can record, edit and produce your video. Now, let’s take a look at how you can build your studio at home or the office and make your images look even better.

These tips are specifically for those of you who will be recording your video in an area that doesn’t have natural lighting.

1. Have at least 2-3 light sources. I have a ceiling light, but alone, it casts a shadow over my face. I added a table lamp that sits behind my laptop. It’s pointed towards a sheet of aluminum foil so that the light reflects off of that and on to my face. Before, the lamp shined directly towards my face, but there was a glare across my forehead, cheeks and chin. In Richard Harrington and Mark Weiser’s book called Producing Video Podcasts, they actually recommend a third light source. I found that 2 are perfect for me due to the size of my office, but if you’re in a larger room, you’ll have to invest in the third light source.
2. Get the right type of light bulb. I find that light bulbs that are similar to flourescent lights give off the best light source for your video recording. It casts a nice white glow. The ones that give you a yellow glow look very ugly in the video recording and tends to darken your face. I buy energy efficient light bulbs that are cool white. The soft white energy bulbs give an ugly yellow glow.
3. Put on some make up. Take a look at the before and after shot. The before is how I look without makeup. The after, I’m wearing some. Makes a huge difference because not wearing make up can be a distraction. You don’t have to lay it on thick like Tammy Faye Baker, but put enough on to even out your skin color and hide any blemishes and scars. Sometimes, a light dusting of face powder can remove the glare from your face. Someone who I know doesn’t wear make up, but looks amazing is my mastermind buddy, Sherman Hu. Also, check out Nancy Marmolejo. She looks stunning and her make up isn’t on thick.
4. Do something about that background. Be very careful what’s in your background. If you want to show off your office, that’s fine. But if you’ve got a poster of Metallica on your wall and you’re producing a video for a business audience, you may want to take it down or select another area to record. To create a backdrop that you see in my video, I simply took a room divider and covered it with a blue blanket made out of flannel. I like flannel because it doesn’t have any creases in it,  which means no ironing. I’ve seen people use drapes for their backdrop, so that’s an option as well. The only issue with the dark blue as my backdrop is that I HAVE to wear make up. On the flipside, the dark blue helps the light to reflect nicely against my skin since I have a darker tone.
5. Take note of your clothing. In Canada, whenever a leader of a political party speaks on camera, his tie is the same color as his party’s colors. I would recommend that you adopt this for your own videos. Wear colors in your clothing that match with your brand. Check out the Blog Squad videos on YouTube. Do you notice that they wear one primary color in each and every video? If you said pink, you’re right. Pink is part of their branding. I try to stick with pastels because those are the primary colors on my blog. I also try to record myself wearing business attire because my videos are meant for a business crowd.
6. Watch that eye level. Position your video camera so that it’s at eye level. If you’re looking down towards your video camera then the person viewing your video will feel like you’re speaking down to them. I place my video camera above my laptop on a speaker and then, I lower my office chair so I can look into my camera at eye level. That way, the viewer feels that I’m sharing information, not scolding them.
7. Practice, practice, practice. Video is unforgiving when it comes to your facial expressions. You can’t hide your frustration in video because it will show in your eyes. Or, if you’re nervous, the camera will show it. To lessen your nervousness in front of the camera, practice what you’re going to say a few times so it looks natural when the cameras start rolling. A teleprompter will help, but given the costs, you may well be better just to practice what you’re going to say. No need to memorize, just be you.

Most podcasting experts will tell you that don’t need Hollywood effects to produce a video podcast. I interviewed quite a number of video podcasters for my book and many shared with me that they started off with a few homemade items to create their studio.

Too often, people are looking for Hollywood effects when watching a video podcast. My advice? Just make sure the content is solid and get it out there.

While you don’t need to be a Hollywood producer, I highly recommend that you follow these tips if you have a limited budget:

1. Buy a simple video recording device. I use the Flip Camera which you can buy for under $160 at any Walmart (Canada & US), Best Buy or Target (US only). I record all my videos using the Flip. Check out the videos done by Dulcita Love (a Social Media Telesummit alumni), Nancy Marmolejo (a longtime colleague), Travis Greenlee and The Blog Squad (my mastermind buddies). Very good quality videos for a small investment. You just insert 2 double A batteries, turn on the device, then click the red button at the back to start recording. Easy.
2. Edit the recording using the free tools on your computer. The Flip camera records in an AVI format which is a lousy format to share online because it’s too big and bulky. I use Camtasia to edit my videos and you can download the software for just under $400. If you can’t pony up that kind of cash, both Mac and PC users have free video editing software on their computers. If you’re using a Mac, you can edit your recording using iMovie. On a PC, there’s a free tool that comes bundled with XP and Vista called Windows Movie Maker. In iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, you can mix in music, add other video clips and have loads of fun putting the final touches on your video.
3. Save your video recording in a M4V format. This format is required for podcasting and ideal for sharing your video online. Why? Because it’s a compressed format. That means you get a high quality video file in a lean size and gives you a better chance of meeting the uploads requirements for Facebook and YouTube. For Windows Movie Maker users, the only compressed format available in this software is WMV. But never fear because there’s many free tools online to help you convert WMV to a M4V format.
4. Publish your video for all to see. There are so many options here. You can upload your video to YouTube or Facebook, then add tags so it brings in traffic. You can use a service called TubeMogul which will submit your video to dozens of video file sharing websites. I use mDialog because I can upload any file size and the encoding is done for me. mDialog also offers an RSS feed which I can then use for podcasting. Or, simply use Podpress on your Wordpress blog and post it there.

As you get more proficient with shooting and producing video, you can then improve your technique. But I highly advise that you first concentrate on creating really great content. The bells and whistles will come later.

In a couple of days, I’ll post some additional things you can do to make the people on your video podcast look good. In the meantime, please post your tips in the comments section below on what tools you use to create stellar videos.

Update: Check out Donna Maria’s post in response to Larry Lawfer’s comments below. In summary, Donna Maria writes that business owners are never locked into any one strategy. That if we wait until we can hire professional videographers to produce a video for our business, we will miss the boat.

I love this quote from Donna Maria:

“We don’t succeed because of how much we have. Instead, we succeed because of what we do with what we have.”

I stumbled upon a report by Edison stating that podcast listening is going up. Aside from the encouraging numbers, the Edison report did one thing right and one thing wrong.

What Edison did right in this report is that it called the people they surveyed for this report podcast consumers. This then incorporates both audio podcast listeners and video podcast viewers.

But what Edison did wrong was focus only on audio podcasting throughout its report. People who read the report will assume that podcasting is ONLY audio.

I hear this so often when I speak to people:

“Oh, I know about podcasting. And video is a great marketing vehicle too, isn’t it?”

When did podcasting become audio only? Podcasting is video too. Heck, I’ve even seen people podcast powerpoint slides and PDFs in iTunes.

So, podcasting is audio AND video. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

After reading Michael Port’s new book called Beyond Booked Solid, I put together a bunch of process maps on paper. To share these maps with my team, I used Visio to make them look pretty.

In this video, I take you click by click on how you can create a process map fast using Visio.

If you’re reading this through a feed reader, you’ll have to go to my blog to view this video.

As I see others using the Flip camera, I’m seeing a common problem emerge - often, the lips are moving slower than the words that I hear.  It’s rather obvious and very annoying.

The problem is that people are uploading the video file uncompressed in an AVI format, the format that the Flip camera records in. This looks good on your TV, but it’s lousy for online sharing.

The Flip camera also comes with its own software where you can save your video file in a compressed format. I used it, but it degraded the image.

If you want to share your video online without compromising the picture, you should save it in a compressed Quicktime format (m4v). That way, if you want to podcast your video file, you can do so easily using iTunes.

There are two ways you could do this:

• Purchase software that will convert your video file from AVI to M4V (I use Camtasia as I can also mix in screen captures and sounds - see this video as an example) OR
• Sign up for a free account through mDialog. This service will encode your video file in a few formats without you having to get your hands dirty. Just upload your video file as is and mDialog will convert and encode it in the right formats without degrading the picture.

For a budding videographer like me, I don’t want to fuss around with encoding issues when I want to publish my video. So, when CC Chapman told me about mDialog, I thought I’d give it a try.

With my handy Flip camera combined with Camtasia, I put together this 7 minute review of mDialog.