Sound Solutions: North Bank Audio Solutions

Many people are turned off by how fast technology moves. I recently got a question from someone who wanted to get into using video more to market her business and monetize her knowledge, but was puzzled as to how to get started.

She didn’t want to spend a bunch of money only to have her gadgets become obsolete a few months later. We’ll call her “Technophobe” for the purposes of this post. I don’t use this term in a degrading way. I think her anxiety around fast-moving technology highlights a common thread through the psyches of many people who want to get into info marketing, but aren’t sure how to get started. It’s also something I’ve noticed is very common with people who aren’t quite young enough to have grown up in the age of 1,000 mile-per-hour computer technology.

Here was my advice to her. I hope you find it helpful as well.

Dear Technophobe,

Don’t be discouraged by fast changes in technology. Much of that is simply marketing tactics to create perceived obsolescence so that people will buy more products. (The ironic thing is that this kind of marketing often discourages people like you - and myself - from buying anything.) The truth is, if it does the job now, it’s probably going to do the job just fine for years to come. It mantra doesn’t always work for things like computers, but now that we’re in the digital age, I wouldn’t worry too much about making a bad investment in a camera. Now is a good time to buy one.

I would go to an electronics store and try out a few cameras and just pick which one you like. I don’t have a specific suggestion. Simply find one that fits within your budget. Generally, with cameras, I would say don’t buy the very cheapest one available, but maybe a step or two up. You can find very decent video cameras for around $200.00. The cool thing about technology moving so fast is that these same cameras were five or ten times more expensive a few years back, so you’ve actually saved money by waiting.

Some specs to look for are:

* Buy a camera that uses miniDV tapes. I would avoid the cameras that export to a proprietary format because you can run into problems when you try to edit and produce them.

* Make sure it has an external microphone input. Audio quality is at least as important as video quality. This way, you can always upgrade the audio without buying a new camera.

* Pick a camera that isn’t too noisy. It’s always a bummer when you play back your recordings and there’s an annoying buzz or hum over the whole take.

Probably more important than the camera itself is that you have proper lighting when you record and that you use a tripod. Natural light looks the best, so if you can record in a space with lots of windows, that is ideal. You can supplement by placing lights (sometimes household lamps will work just fine) behind the camera as you record.

To edit your video, it all depends on your level of tech-savvyness. If you use windows, sometimes the free Windows Movie maker will work just fine. If you use a mac, iMovie will do the job. A step up is Sony Vegas Video Studio (about $100 I think) and if you want to use what the pros use, go for Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro. I use Adobe Premiere, but going that way will set you back quite a bit.

If you’d rather delegate the editing, there are lots of people who can do that for you. My business offers video production (http://northbankaudio.com) but we are by no means the only show in town. Shop around locally and online or ask colleagues for a recommendation.

To get your stuff online, there’s a nifty tool called http://tubemogul.com/ that will help you upload to about a dozen of the top video sites (including YouTube) in one swoop, for free. This is one of my favorite tools.

I hope this helps. Let me know if I brought up any other questions or ideas along the way.

~Caleb