Alex Kaufman spent three years at Sunday River in Communications before two years as Mt Bachelor’s Marketing Director. He’s not a “videographer who sees himself as an artist, [he’s] a marketing communications pro who just happens to also be able to produce branded journalism in the video medium.” A unique perspective indeed and one I love to see.

Recently, Alex posted a “Cheapskate’s Guide to Almost Professional Video” that I really wanted to pass along. If you’ve got an in-house guy or gal who’s making videos for your resort, I’d recommend passing it along to them. Alex’s list is simple, to the point, and focuses on the elements of video that practice (and/or a small budget) can make perfect, rather than the intangibles that only a seasoned veteran of the lens could capture.

As someone who finds himself in the same boat with video (although Alex’s work is much better than mine), I wanted to add two more DOs of my own:

#11) DO create a storyboard before you start shooting.
This doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just draw out some grid lines on a blank piece of printer paper and use each square to sketch out what that clip would contain. Brainstorm and illustrate all the clips, in sequence, you’d like in your video beforehand. You’ll find these sketches will save you hours of time shooting and editing.

#12) DO use the “rule of thirds“.
The rule of thirds is incredibly simple but adds some nice balance to your shots. It is especially useful for shooting people. Put your subject’s eyes on the top third line and their nose on either the left or right third line. Same goes for other shots, try lining up your subject on third lines and see what happens.

Okay, enough of my yapping, get on over to Alex’s post for the real goods:
http://mediawithak.com/2011/07/18/a-cheapskates-guide-to-almost-professional-video/

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.