For Love by Eddie Rayner and Brian Baker

The new camera - Sony FS100

Well, there we are. Beautiful new camera, and combined with the Atmos Ninja, a new workflow. Initial tests look fantastic. It was very easy to grab some great shots at a community meeting yesterday that was poorly lit. The results are clear and lacking in noise despite the camera being on auto gain. This bodes well. Am currently using the stock lens but will soon be able to use our nice Nikon glass. Just waiting for the adaptor. The Ninja seems very promising, besides giving us a very accurate and larger screen and long recording times to HD, it records via HDMI to Apple Pro Res in a 4.2.2 colour space. A big leap in quality. Exciting times ahead, very confident in being able to supply high quality for business, and have the scope to move into music videos and documentaries.
Will post videos to show results soon.

Thinking about video production for your business?

Video.  It’s the now form of communication, and it’s powerful.  Being a part of the team at A Tractor Productions has given me an inside look at just how important this mode of communication is for communication between people, for informing people, and for operating in a market place.  A lot of us are semi-permanently plugged into the net now, and this is where we go when we want to know something about where we should go for fun on the weekends, learning about how to do our jobs better, finding the best ink for our printer or school shoes for our kids, what we might cook for dinner, and a million other things.  But seeing how A Tractor Productions clients use video, has demonstrated why this tool is so important for communicating in a web based marketplace.    

But how do you decide if professional video production is the right thing for your business?

There are quite a few things that your video could do for your business.  A video for your business can find new customers in a number of ways.  It can help your business to be found by your customers by maximising your search engine.  It can help you to stand out from your competitors by being a point of difference, and help them to spend more time on your web page, and thinking about your product.  It can help your potential customers to feel good about you, and confident about using your product.  If your customers have seen your video, then they have already met you.

There is also a range of benefits of video production for existing customers that can keep them happy and coming back to you, or also for use in training and supporting your staff so that they are able to do their job in the most effectively.  Some products require video manuals to help the customer get the most out of the product.  Alternative regular video information newsletters keeps customers engaged and interested, and can even help customers that are fans of your service to refer new customers to you.

There is more to professional video production than finding a person that can use a video camera.  Professional video production will allow you to present what you want of yourself and your business.  This is done firstly by; understanding your business and where you want it to go, and working up a script for the video shoot that uses tried and true communication and marketing methods.  To be proud of your business, and find an identity for your product that you are proud to promote.  This presentation of your business will impact on every person that views the video, and make that vital first impression of your product or service on your customer.  While there can be a place for home made video production, depending on your interest and skills in this area, professional video production is worth consideration.  Professional video production can limit delays and avoid mistakes in production, (ie lighting and audio are actually important folks), give you a clear costing on the project with no unforseen expenses and get this right for you the first time, in a timely, painless, and cost effective way.

I hope this article can help you decide how to move forward with marketing your business.

Katerina Baker

Goona Warra Winery Video

Finally done and it's a ripper. Now to do more winery's. Anyone out there know of a Melbourne (or thereabouts) Winery that could benefit from a beautiful video made about them?

Songwriting

While I've already entered one song into the Vanda and Young Songwriting Contest I've had a mate contact me to see if we could write one together to enter. With only days to go it will be a challenge, more so since he's in NZ and I'm here in Melbourne! Still, we have a chorus so it can only go forward from there.
Will publish when it's cooked!

Testimonial Videos

I have a few testimonial videos up on the site - this really working well for me. It's simple with regards to filming and video production but extremely effective in that when a client is happy enough with your services to stand up in front of the camera and say so, this is a really powerful message about trustworthiness and the ability to deliver a great job.
I advise anyone with a presence on the net to consider using this simple but effective tool. The videos don't have to be long, in fact more than a sentence or two is overkill. This has the added benefit of being not too expensive to produce. In fact, why not make a morning of it - get a sausage sizzle going, get 3 - 5 valued clients together and celebrate a bit! I filmed mine traveling to the clients offices and it only took an afternoon.
Cheers for now - Brian

Using YouTube to deliver video drafts

We've been doing this for about the last 12 months but I thought it might be worth a mention in this blog.
We utilize You Tube  to deliver ongoing drafts of projects to clients. It's great and makes it instantly available for the client to view the latest changes and come back with more tweaks. Especially good with TV commercials where we're often running up against deadlines and need client approval fast. The trick is to upload the video file and make it unlisted. That way no one can see it unless they have the actual url or link. The file can't be search for or accidentally found either. Once it's uploaded we simply email the link to the client. When we do an update we delete to existing video on You Tube and create another one.
So there you go - instant digital delivery of video files to clients for approval. Don't you just love this stuff!!!