Walking into a glass door can be unpleasant – a unique combination of shock, pain and embarrassment that’s hard to match. Oddly enough, that’s the exact combination of emotions I felt the first time I tried to make a video.
I thought it would be the process that would get to me. It wasn’t. There are a bunch of online tools that have made it really easy to put a video together. You get beautiful templates, nice fonts, snazzy animation; all of this in relatively easy-to-use interfaces.
The shock, pain and embarrassment I felt was brought on by the realisation that it wasn’t the tools I was struggling with, it was the story itself.
As someone who had written and edited articles for a living for a couple of decades, this was hard to understand: why was I finding it so hard to translate coherent thoughts into a compelling video?
Over the last few months, as I’ve watched people use ChopChop to create videos, I’ve noticed a fair number of them go through a similar struggle.
What I want to attempt over this series of posts is try and break down why this happens, and what tools and devices we can use to overcome this block and make great video stories.
A few things we’ll look at in detail:
How to tap into your inner storyteller
Why making a video is hard
The importance of a clear storyboard
How to think visually (without overthinking visuals)
How to use voiceovers effectively
… and a bunch of other stuff that keeps popping up as I write!
