Creating a Demo Video - Part 2

Let's move on to some other tips for making a great demo video.

1.) Avoid zooming in and out excessively. This is probably one of the most frequent mistakes I see on amateur videos. ZOOM IN! ZOOM OUT! ZOOM IN! ZOOM OUT! Man, that's annoying (almost as annoying as reading ZOOM IN! ZOOM OUT! over and over).

Zooming in and out should be used very sparingly. Keep the camera zoomed where it should be and stay on that shot until the action on stage dictates that you need to zoom in or out.

When you do zoom, do so very slowly. Your goal as a person working the camera is to make the viewers NOT see all of the zooming and panning side to side. Your video should look smooth and steady.

2.) If you have the option to use manual focus on your camcorder, do it. Turn the auto focus off and focus your camera manually. Here's why:

When you have auto focus turned on, your camera wants to focus on whatever is being seen closest to the lens.

If someone walks in front of the camera, or you are in a room where people are smoking and smoke drifts in front of your camera, the camera will focus on the person in front of the lens, or will focus on the smoke. Then the camera will try to focus on you on the stage once the objects closer to the lens are out of the way.

This may take several seconds and the camera will drift in and out of focus during this time. This is another sign of an amateur video.

If you can focus your camera manually, zoom in to as close of a shot as you can (before you start the actual taping). Manually focus the camera. Now zoom out to where you want your shot to be. Keep the camera on manual focus, If someone or something now gets in front of your lens, the camera will not drift out of focus. It will stay in focus throughout the whole zoom-in range of the camera.

3.) If you have a manual "white balance" option on your camera, use it. Most consumer camcorders have some pre-sets for white balance, which is the way camera sees whites and adjusts colors under different lighting conditions.

Some room lights make your camera see a red tint. Other lighting causes a blue tint and still others, a green tint to your video. I'm sure you've seen this before on some of your videos when you've recorded in certain lighting conditions.

If all you have is automatic white balance or some white balance pre-sets (usually an indoor or outdoor setting), try them both to see what reproduces more accurate colors.

If you do have the ability to manually white balance your camcorder, here's how to do it.

-Find a piece of white paper, poster board, etc. and place it in the area on the stage where the light will be hitting you.
-Zoom your camcorder onto the white card until white fills up your screen.
-Push the manual white balance button on your camera.
-Your camera will make the white look white in whatever light you are in. If white is balanced correctly, all of the other colors will be correct as well.

There you have it. Some of the biggest "technical" things you can do to help you make a visually good looking demo DVD video.

As I mentioned in the last post, the MOST important thing is to have a good act! Be honest with yourself. Have others give you feedback on your show before you waste time (and perhaps money) putting together a demo. If your act blows, no video is going to help that. (unless you're Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie).