you're hired - making your video

You’re Hired!http://www.facebook.com/youarehired

Helen Curry

The Competition Your challenge: Make 3-5 minute TV advert for employers

on why they should hire an English student

Your judge: Liz Warner – the woman behind Big Brother, Grand Designs, Location Location Location and other TV shows

Your reward: the winning individual or pair will get work experience at Liz Warner’s TV production company Betty TV

How to win: Make a compelling case for how the skills and experiences gained

through an English degree can be transferred usefully to the workplace.

Creativity of content and visuals. Reaching the target audience effectively.

Treatment

Give some thought to these elements before you start filming.

The message (the audience)The plot The charactersThe styleTechnical considerations

Message - Slogan

How refreshing! How English!

Cheat’s tip, use: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi?word=english

What is the one thing people will remember from your video?

Storyboard

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/326264479/

24 seconds is too long…

Plan to include a few different shots on your storyboard. As you can see from this eye-tracking study, people’s attention will wander from a fixed shot.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/video.html

Shots - ideas Presenter Interview Relevant action shots – e.g. a person at work Irrelevant action shots – e.g. close-up of coffee mug Walking to the location Close-ups – face, hands, details Cartoons Stills Puppets Noddies? Cats??

Technical ConsiderationsEquipment

Digital camera, mobile phone, ipod, webcam…

Test first – focus, range, image quality, stability, file format, camera orientation, sound. These can be hard to correct later.

Lighting You need lots of light for these

small portable cameras Outdoors in the daytime is good

for bright, flattering, diffuse light

Sound Proximity to mic – what can it

pick up? Outdoors bad for background

noise…

ContinuityIf you find you are missing a section

or need to re-film a bit, it can be difficult to match the lighting and background Take plenty of shots Repeat shots Take filler shots while on

location

Setting Avoid busy backgrounds

The legal bit

People Ensure individuals visible in the video

have given permission to be included and put on the web (keep email agreements?). Use release forms?

Copyright Be cautious about using images, music

or film clips you find – all have inherent copyright restrictions.

Make your own. Search Creative Commons

http://search.creativecommons.org/

Location Ask permission Do you need a permit?

RecordDirect from your mobile

http://www.youtube.com/mobile Via app, or mobile web on m.youtube.com

Webcam, digital camera, iPod, video camera Windows Media Video(.AVI) .3GP (mobile phones) .WMV (windows) .MOV (mac/iPod) .MP4 (iPod/PSP) .MPEG .FLV (Adobe Flash) .MKV (h.264)

Upload and edit

Upload to YouTube http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en-uk&answer=57924

Edit on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/editor

• My Videos

Alternatives and extras

Editing Video hosting

On your computer Apple iMovie Windows Movie Maker

Online, free editors JayCut

http://jaycut.com/ (VideoToolBox

http://www.videotoolbox.com/ )

Music editing Audacity

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com

Add subtitles

Overstream http://www.overstream.net/

Helen Curryhelen.curry@careers.lon.ac.uk@helencurry