

Ask HN: Best Practices on creating video for a startup? - grab

It would seem today you must have some sort of a youtube video (vimeo btw, does not allow uploading of 'commercial' videos, many startups may one day find a dead video on their homepage) describing your service or app, so what are the best practices?<p>Do you just display it as is? Or use illustrations and flying text bubbles all over?<p>A single narration voice? Or voice actor for each character?<p>What about background music? Visual effects? Any recommendations on software? I guess windows movie maker won't cut it.<p>Do you make your video public or hidden? Send fake traffic? You don't want your video out there with 17 views.
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dools
I've made a bunch of videos for Decal[1] - and whilst I'm still on a long
learning process I can probably give you a few bits of advice:

1\. For initial marketing/landing videos don't spend too long showing the
actual product - don't try and pack in a complete feature demonstration in.
You only need to get people just interested enough that they'll try the
product out - you can have a longer, more detailed instructional video as part
of the initial sign-in/login process (still - you should keep your
instructional videos under 5 minutes, preferably 3 minutes if you can).

2\. When I did a landing video that was 3 minutes, average watched was 73%
according to Wistia's stats - when I did a landing video that was 60 seconds
average watched was 98%

3\. Background music is useful for marketing/landing pages, but not for
instructional videos

4\. If you're doing an instructional video, it's good to have pauses in screen
movement from time to time - it's hard to process information about what's
happening on the screen simultaneously whilst listening to the audio so you
need to give the brain some time to catch up (even if the words are describing
what's happening on the screen)

5\. ScreenFlow is awesome

6\. You can improve the quality of your voice over without shelling out for an
expensive mic by sitting in a closet (compare the V.O quality on the first
round of Decal marketing videos I did with this one that's about to be
released: <http://iain.wistia.com/m/Ki1dVy> \- NB: still vascillating on the
backing track for that one)

7\. If you want to really hammer home a message, put words on the screen that
are keywords from the voice over. It's a powerful way to get the message to
stick in people's minds.

8\. I've experimented with a "straight to camera" video piece - it's _hard_ to
look good. You need a proper lighting setup, otherwise you end up looking like
an al-qaeda suicide bomber. That being said, however, having a straight to
camera piece seemed to improve people's tolerance for a very rapid product
overview.

9\. Start the video with a statement - try to orientate people and give them a
context for where they are and what you're trying to achieve. In the case of
instructional videos, you can say something like "This video is intended as a
fast paced overview of all available features. For more detailed instructions
see our support page" or something. For marketing videos start with the key
benefit - try to get that out in the first 10 - 15 seconds.

10\. Using Wistia for video hosting is great because you get good stats, a
range of embed options including the cool "post roll call to action" which
prompts people to click a link when the video finishes and no brand dilution
(ie. people don't see youtube ads or get prompted to leave your product and
view something else when the video finishes).

11\. Marketing video takes way longer than instructional video to create
because of the editing process. The process I go through for Marketing vids
is:

\- Write copy first, time yourself speaking it, get it under 1 minute

\- Record a rough draft of you speaking the copy

\- Story board the video - I use index cards or a whiteboard for this - ie.
"When I'm saying this, I should see this on the screen"

\- Record and edit the video to the draft V.O - make sure you cut out
unnecessary loading times or mouse movements and use transitions and screen
zooms to help ease the rapid pace of action on screen and focus people's
attention

\- Do the final reading (in the closet or sound proofed room :) and then cut
that up, cut out any "smacking" noises or breathing when editing, and place
that to the video

\- Now decide on a sound track, try a few options and see what's best. I'm
vascillating on my choice of the Mbira for the Decal Mockups launch vid
because it's kind of strange and I fear people will spend too long trying to
figure out what the hell that music is, and lose focus on the video. Here's
another version with (coincidentally) Adrian Holovaty playing a Gypsy Jazz
version of "all of me" <http://iain.wistia.com/m/xP1dqp> \- I think that's
better (I haven't asked Adrian's permission to use it yet, though :)

For instructional videos my process is slightly different:

\- Just use the product, go through basically the way that I would demo it to
someone if I was showing it to them, and record this

\- Then edit the video down to about 3 or 4 minutes - if it's too dense,
separate subject matter into separate videos and reference them on a support
page

\- Now that you have your "demo framework" simply narrate that - write down
your narration, then record this as a draft voice over

\- Now go back and, for each section of narration, record the video for that
again, specifically to go with that narration. You'll be more focused and get
a better result with less choppy mouse edits

\- Now go sit in the closet again and do the V.O and edit that down to fit the
video

I _think_ that's about it. I'm by no means a professional but I've been
hacking away at it for a while so hopefully some of this is helpful to you.

1\. <http://www.decalcms.com/>

~~~
jamesbritt
_5\. ScreenFlow is awesome_

Indeed. I generally avoid using my Mac if I can, but Screenflow is amazingly
feature-rich. Lots of options for editing audio & video, mixing, effects.

That it also happens to do a good job capturing your screen almost seems
incidental. I've used to re-design and edit video created with other tools.

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iamelgringo
We needed a single place to post our videos from Hackers & Founders,
especially as we launched the Co-op, our take on incubation. (You'll be
hearing more about that shortly). So, we decided to eat our own dog food, and
use one of the startups we were working with in our incubator:
<http://VidCaster.com>.

Within a couple of hours of receiving the DVD from Naval's Hack your Funding
process video, it was up and streaming on their service. They also grabbed all
the other video content we had on vimeo and transferred it over without any
problems. The following week, they streamed 1TB of video on our videos alone.
Not bad for a company that had only raised seed funding before that.

They are simply outstanding, and I'm not just saying that because they are in
our incubator. Their service really does rock. Clean interface, amazingly
responsive founders that have been running their own video businesses for
years, and built VidCaster to scratch their own itch.

BTW you can look at all the pitch videos for our startups on
<http://hackersandfounders.tv> for our upcoming "Not-a-Demo-Day" this Thursday
night. It's powered by VidCaster. And, one of the VidCaster founders shot all
the videos for us as well.

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ulisesroche
The best book on video editing, bar none, is Walter Murch's "In the Blink of
an Eye" so, get that and read it like 20 times. Then get yourself a copy of
FCP and use export for web.

To shoot good video, the choice of camera (at least, prosumer) is not as
important as lighting technique, I recommend getting a film production
textbook from eBay(they're all pretty good really) and a trip to home depot to
buy materials for a green screen, and make yourself a cheap lighting kit. For
compositing and effects software, I can't really recommend after effects, but
that's what I've used before. (eagerly awaiting an open source JavaScript
replacement :( #wildestdreams

That should leave you in good shape. as for actors, yeah, it's worth budgeting
for. Some folks can do multiple voices. That's how you can tell the good ones.
Plenty of talent in any city though, just go to a local theater show and ask
around.

~~~
ulisesroche
Oh, while you're at home depot, get yourself a little cart to serve as a
ghetto dolly, and don't forget to buy a tripod. You can fake a good steadycam
with these two, but you should always use a tripod. Oh, and add "Guerilla
filmmaking" by Robert Rodriguez to the reading list.

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wccrawford
My tip: Don't make it the only info about your service. If you can't describe
the service without the video, you are losing customers.

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adrianparsons
Screenflow[1] is fantastic screencasting software. It's incredibly easy to
use, and even does simple video and sound editing. I suggest recording a
voiceover separately.

1\. <http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/overview.htm>

~~~
jamesbritt
Yeah, Screenflow is great. I typically record sound and video, but split them
and redo the audio once the video is in shape.

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hotpockets
This quora thread had a lot of great answers: [http://www.quora.com/What-are-
some-good-examples-of-startup-...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-
examples-of-startup-product-demo-videos)

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petercooper
The way they present it is a bit in your face but this is genuinely good stuff
even if you just watch the free videos: <http://www.thevideoboss.com/>

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romansanchez
Check out <http://grumomedia.com>

He's got some tutorials which cover what I think you're looking for.

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abbasmehdi
Look at an existing video you love, or five, and take notes. Make it
interactive to beat the 17 views dilemma.

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massarog
Check out <http://explainabl.es>

