Well, this is unfortunate.
The Big Ten Network hired me for my skillset, but they won’t publish my stuff. Doh!
When I first started working for the Big Ten Network, I felt like I was out of my league. My producers had won multiple Emmys, and they were throwing around terminology and equipment I didn’t understand. When it came time to create a short film of my own, whoa, I had work to do.
I created maybe a dozen versions of one short film, only to keep getting rejected. I just didn’t know what was good and what was bad as defined by the BTN.
Once they said I could create only ONE MORE version of the video, the pressure was on. It had to be good, and I locked myself in our dark editing room for hours. I realized in that moment I found a trick to upping my video game that I want to share.
I watched a film from the BTN that won an Emmy, and looked at every part of that video, second by second. I noticed the following:
✅ they would show a wide shot of the University of Illinois campus, and then show the buildings at a closer shot;
✅ every shot had something going on. People were walking, or the camera was moving;
✅ and they would switch back and forth between tight and medium shots in the interviews. A tight shot shows a person’s shoulders and up. A medium shot shows their waste and up.
After that, I tried to replicate this piece as closely as possible, second by second: I put shots of buildings after wider shots of campus; I used shots that had some sort of movement; and I switched between angles for the interviews.
And it worked. The piece was much, much better, and my producers were very impressed. 😅
If you’re not sure what your next video should look like, use this approach. Find a video that you like and study the visuals and their order. The video can serve as a reference, and it can keep you on track with your ultimate goal.
Too many organizations don’t complete, or even start, videos, because they’re concerned about what the video will look like.
They believe the video won’t be good or that it won’t be liked, so they just don’t create any video whatsoever. 😥 I understand it would be nice to win an Emmy on every video, but your skills won’t get better if you don’t keep creating.
Reference videos make it easier to create videos, and the quality of your videos will improve significantly.
Once you get comfortable with creating videos, you can experiment, but this is start.
If you want to learn more tricks to creating a great video easier, download my Free Video Marketing Guide. It goes over all the things you need to succeed.
Oh, here’s how my film with the BTN turned out.
