Video Ain’t That Hard
I like to create short portfolio videos. Slideshows of work, short videos of producing work. I’ve tried a number of different approaches. Creating a video on my smart phone, then posting to Instagram. That’s always fun and a way to get my work viewed quickly. Audiences love to watch videos. Instagram forces you to keep them short on upload, so creating these quick video snippets are pretty easy.
But I really like to create 5 to 8 minute videos and have voice overs or background music. It’s not that hard to shoot the video, it’s the post production editing where it can get confusing. I’m not trying to create any documentary quality work at this time. Just portfolio reviews that I can save as MP4 files and upload to my YouTube account and then use the short URL to drop into WordPress post or on my Facebook page.
So what to use then. Since I do all my image editing both photography and images of mixed media work and photo composite montage in Adobe Lightroom, I can go straight to the Slideshow function and create professional image slide shows: with fade in/fade out, into and exit plates with my business information, and even add background music. Once I have adjusted all the settings I then save and export to a MP4 file.
If I want to get a little fancier, for under $100 I have been using a scaled down version of Adobe Premier called Adobe Premier Elements. In advanced mode, one can snip and move frames, stretch and fade. and voice and music, adjust volumes and fades.
I like to shoot in the interval setting with my Nikon. I just set the time frame and interval, say 7 minutes every 2 seconds. I then import the 200 or so frame and import them to Premier Elements and create a time-lapse video of working in the studio or on a photo shoot.
Working with video is fun and not that hard and can add a new level of interest to you portfolio and to your marketing.
