Gearing up for the shoot
An agency's guide for creating quality Web videos in our Web 2.0 world.
You will need the following equipment to create quality videos for the Web. On the plus side, Washington isn’t Hollywood. You can get everything you need for less than it probably costs to cater a week of Hollywood movie-set lunches. When you’re done, you’ll need to decide where to post your videos. If you embed them on your agency’s Web site, consider using captioning tools. Otherwise, distribute them on as many video-sharing sites as possible. Options include YouTube, Yahoo Video and Google Video.
- A video camera. A good digital video camera will cost $3,000 to $5,000.
- Microphones. At a minimum, you should use a shotgun microphone and a handheld or clip-on microphone to pick up voices.
- Lighting. In conjunction with the video camera’s light, a positional box light will sufficiently illuminate most subjects. You also might want to use a reflector to direct sunlight.
- Editing software and a computer workstation. All videos need to be edited on a computer using a suite of specialized software.
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