Making Powerful, Credible Testimonial Videos

Testimonials are one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses, but they're often lacking in the "trust" department.  Rather than appearing as an honest review, viewers too often see them as paid advertisements.  So how do you create video testimonials that are compelling and believable?  Over at Hurricane Images we've created three vital guidelines for creating your video.  Rule One?  Make the client real.  Give them time to tell their story-- for the audience to understand the obstacles they faced.  Then take it deeper.

Going Pro: Meeting the Paparazzi

It’s sounds idiotic when you say it out loud, but so much of pregnancy, having a child, is nothing like you imagined from books and movies.  The first sonogram, for instance, isn’t done on a Vaseline-smeared belly eagerly looking for fingers and toes.  That comes later.  It comes now, as a matter of fact.  And it isn’t a quick snapshot.  It’s a paparazzi affair that takes 25 minutes, photographing from every conceivable angle, measuring everything that can be discerned.  The technician is part photog, part judo master—manipulating the belly (and the little one inside) for the best shots.  And they say the photographer should never touch the model.  

It’s as exciting from Mom and Dad as it appears in the movies, but in a different way.  That little heartbeat has been with us for months, so the sense of life-- the reality of the change to come has been ever present.  But the blurry, mysterious images on the screen convey a glimpse of the future, a first contact via a strange language of abstract shapes and barely recognizable features.  We're worlds apart, and we've been signaling our presence to each other through rubs, kicks, and soft voices.  But until now we've been speaking across a galaxy.  And this brings us closer.

Another unexpected reality:  having a child is work:  from the medications to the constant doctor’s visits to the classes… and reading up on the side.  It seems impossible to get anything else done, which I guess is a good prelude to parenthood itself.  How will I get anything done once he/she is here?

Going Pro: Delete the Distractions

Day 24

Started rehearsals for Second Wind’s next production, Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth.  I’m both a producer and an actor in the show. This means 18 hours a week dedicated to rehearsals and another 10 to production logistics.  On top of my 28 hour a week day job, this 56 hour work-week poses more obstacles to getting the company up and running.  Luckily, I don’t have kids (yet... seven months and counting down).  

How do I make time?  Well, for one I watch very little TV.  We don’t own one.  When I find myself surfing the net aimlessly, I re-direct myself towards accomplishing something, anything towards my goal.  And I’m drinking less.  Anyone frightened off?

Seriously, studies show that the “average” American spends 4.5 hours a day watching TV and 5 hours a day online or staring at their cell phone.  Over the course of 7 days we’ll devote almost a full work-week to our televisions, and another full work-week  to the internet for entertainment.  That’s two full time jobs we could devote to our production company without jeopardizing a meal, a date, or a conversation.

You can work two full-time jobs

in the amount of time you spend

on entertaining yourself

So how do you cut back on the consumption of all that sugary time-wasting?  Bit by bit.  Make a To-Do list and put it off to one side where it won't annoy you. That way you'll never "forget" what needs to be done when you've got a free moment.  Then look at your schedule. Take an hour of "open" time that would most likely be spent watching TV or surfing the net and dedicate it to one specific task on the list.  After a couple of days, add a second hour from your open schedule.  Practice clearing your desk of items-- unopened letters/bills, clutter-- at the end of each day.  Advice on how to use your time better can sound preachy real fast, I know, but your time is one of the greatest resources at your disposal. And you only get to use it once.

A quick summary of the other production activities over the past 24 days:

• Joined Professional Photographers of America.  In truth, I should have done this six months ago when my workload as a photographer started to become consistent.  My primary interest was the insurance really—you’re constantly putting your equipment at risk.  Moreover, if you work on location, the routine is constantly changing, making accidents more likely.  I can’t say I’m thrilled with the high deduction for claims—making any single piece of equipment under $800 basically uninsured—but I hope it will be a good investment?
• Continued to expand my database of potential clients.  To do this I looked at client list of a local consulting firm for strategic planning.  I identified non-profits on their list who’s activities were similar to my target group, and prioritized those organizations that had a prominent “Donate” button on their websites.  My video service, remember, is designed to help increase donations, so my best clients will have that as a priority.  Many non-profits also post their annual report in their About Us pages.  This often contains information on both their general budget and their fundraising budget.  Knowing this information makes it clear that I understand something about their needs, and gives me a sense of what I should charge.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Launched my video production web pages.  This is a big milestone for me:  even though it's not "finished," I can now respond to Craigslist and Thumbtack postings because I can refer them to my work.  For the time being, my video pages are a section of my photography website.  This may change in the future, but as long as I have limited examples of my video work I feel it's important to show my photography as supporting imagery.  The video section has three pages: a Home page with my examples; a Process page that explains how I work with clients; and a Contact page.  There are just six videos in my portfolio-- in other words, the bare minimum.   
  Next post: Mastering the marketing language

Going Pro: Reverberation

Day 11:

Our first sonogram.  We heard our baby’s heartbeat. I can’t tell you how awesome (and how frightening) that is.   All of one’s sense of responsibility reverberates in those frantic beats.  160 counts a minute, which (like my own heartbeat in this moment) is a little fast.

 (not my wife, by the way-- a shoot I did last year)

~

Going Pro: Conquering Uncertainty

Because of some complications, I know the exact date of conception of my child. Knowing that isn’t exceptional-- most couples can guess-- it’s knowing on the day itself that life has begun.  People don’t tell you how poor the odds are in those first few days. First few weeks. First few months.  It starts below 15% likelihood of survival.  As the cells multiply those odds ever so slowly grow.  One’s heart is bent around the possible child from the first hour-- pinned to hope as embryos show promise, stall, die, grow in fits and spurts.  It is ridiculously unreliable, our reproductive system.  There were times I wondered how anyone was born. 

By the end of the first trimester your odds are looking pretty good (though frankly, still terrifyingly uncertain).  I had a sensation similar to stepping on a broken escalator.  You know intellectually that it’s not moving, but instinctively your foot falters, anticipating the familiar motion below.  And even as I climb the stairs of my own volition, my feet are not quite steady.  There’s an ever so slight sense of vertigo... the anticipation of movement below my feet.  That’s the first trimester.

But you hope.  And hate that hope just a little, for fear of it all falling apart.  There’s a correlation here, to starting ones own company.  The ridiculous, uncontrollable odds.  The vertigo. The anxiety and fear of failure.  My mantra has become a simple cliché:   more dreams have been destroyed by fear than by failure. 

"More dreams have been destroyed

by fear,

than by failure"

So go out and do it, fear be damned.  People say life is short.  That doesn’t motivate me.  Life is long motivates me.  You’ll live with your mistakes, your fears, your missed opportunities for a long, long time.  So if you’ve made a mistake, fix it.  If you’re afraid of something, push it aside.  If the opportunity presents itself, grab it.  Reasonably.  Strategically.  Passionately.

Next time: case studies in successful super niches.

Going Pro: Doomsday

Day 1 (December 24^th, Christmas Eve):

The decision:  become a filmmaker in 180 days.  I didn’t reach this decision lightly—wait, did I say 180 days? 

 I did.  

A New World in 180 Days

Initially, I planned to do this in just six months-- though in truth my goal was to land my first truly professional job... something that paid close to a living wage.  The gulf between one gig and sustained income is enormous. however, I wrestled with the wisdom and practicality of making this career change at my stage in life. I didn’t reach it of my own volition—I was driven to it. 

My wife was ten days pregnant when my boss sat me down and explained that my job would be ending.  I was grant-funded, and the opportunities had dried up. They could keep me on at 30% time for the next ten months, or 60% time for six months.  After that was a mystery. 

Currently, I was a 70% time employee, filling the rest of my work-week with either theatre production (which I had done part-time and for peanuts for decades) or photography.  I had done a smattering of video work on top of my new part-time career of photography… just enough to wet my interest and make it clear that I did not have the skills to create video at a professional, competitive level.  My videos were muddy, ungraded, with mediocre sound, and choppy edits.  Luckily, they had been created for an organization with even lower standards (and a greater sense of pleasant surprise) than I, so at least the customer was happy.  But they wouldn’t have passed any reasonable critique from even a film student, let alone professional.  I was fifty-one years old, a ridiculous age to start a new career.  I had a mortgage and a child on the way.  I was also tired of getting close to the work and security I wanted from my job only to have it shaken up by outside forces.  

"Showing irritation is rarely 

to your advantage."

Sitting across the table from my boss, I sighed inwardly.  We'd faced lean times before.  I believe that showing irritation or unhappiness is rarely to your advantage.  I knew the real difference between ten months at 30% and six months at 60% was insurance.  At 60% I would have health insurance.  For a new family that would be $800 a month on the open market.  But I also knew that in my particular field—environmental health education-- ten months had the possibility of stretching longer; we were constantly searching for new opportunities.  

I told him six months at 60%.  One hundred and eighty days of guaranteed employment, and then….

And then.  Before the clock ran out I needed to develop not just a plan for my new company, but book enough production jobs to accumulate the working capital needed to support a mortgage and a child.  In (what later became) 40 weeks, I needed to almost double my monthly income so that I could not only walk away from the day job but have the resources to sustain a new business.  And last week I did just that—walked away.

This is precisely how I did it.

Next post: picking your poison-- the art of the super-niche.

Channeling the Buying Impulse

We all want progress.  Often the progress I most fervently desire is forward movement in my career: more jobs, better jobs.  When I hit a lull, waiting for the next opportunity is hard.  I quickly exhaust my techniques for "goosing" new business into being, and I'm left with this need, this yearning for forward movement.  If I can't get better jobs, I want better tools, better capabilities, better photos.  Buying some new piece of equipment is a nice, easy solution.  It's fast. It doesn't over-commit my time.  It's definitive, cheap progress.

The problem isn't just the rapid decrease in my bank account.  Like cotton candy, the "buying solution" lasts about as long as a sugar high.  Within days I need another fix. Photography is first and foremost about problem solving: how to work with a given light, a given architecture, a given person.  I've already got a robust set of photography tools, so I'm much better off learning how to use them better to solve problems. 

Which is basically the answer to re-channeling my impulse to buy more gear.  Shooting is a lot more satisfying than buying.  The challenge is how to shoot without having the driving purpose of a job.  A job focuses the activity, raises the stakes, and provides a nice clean finish.  But if I know that my impulse to buy more gear is really about a desire for progress, for improvement, than it becomes just a little bit easier to tame that buying impulse.  I can make that conscious effort to put down the cotton candy and make some soup.

8 Tips for Building Intimacy in a Session

When people pay money for a photography session, the expectations are high.  Excitement builds.  The session itself becomes an experience, and adventure.  It's easy to forget how much risk is involved for the client.  They're paying money to someone they don't really know, then putting themselves in a position where they could look "bad."  There's something inherently intimate about photography.  When I shoot weddings I'm deeply aware that I'm often seeing more of the wedding than the bride and groom, and capturing the most intimate parts of it.  And weddings aren't the only "life-changing" experiences that I've had the honor of photographing at Hurricane Images Inc.

So how do you build the trust and intimacy needed to make the client comfortable and the experience memorable?  Here are eight tips:

1. Be professional.  That means be on time, return emails and calls promptly, have a contract, and come prepared.  And don’t look like you just rolled out of bed.
2. Listen first.  Ask questions.  By the end of the session you should know what they’re using the photos for, what they do for a living, whether they have kids, what they’re doing after this, and maybe their hobbies.
3. Share something of yourself.  Unless they ask a specific question, I usually share something about the business of photography-- what I like about it, how long I’ve been doing it, a session that meant something or was funny.  Engage in a real conversation.
4. Develop of list of “supportive” words: that’s great, perfect, looks good, that’s awesome, just like that....  Use them constantly.
5. Show them the back of the camera.  If you like what you see, share it. It builds confidence and gets them excited.
6. Never cross the touch barrier.  Except, well, sometimes you can.  The best and safest rule is to never touch a client or model; instead, mirror how you want them to be physically.  This is a great way to build trust, because it requires a certain amount of silliness.  But it would be disingenuous to say I’ve never moved a client’s elbow or brushed an errant hair out of the way when they couldn’t physically do it for themselves. But you need to have established a lot of trust before that barrier gets broken, and you need to be able to read your client well.  There are some whom I’d never dream to touching beyond the handshake.
7. Don't rush.  I'll take a good hour to shoot a business headshot if the client isn't in a hurry.  Yes, I can do it in 15 minutes, but the only thing memorable about it will be how much those 900 seconds cost. 
8. Enjoy yourself.  They will, too.

Envisioning the final image... all the way

Pentax 645D

We're always told to envision the final image before we press the shutter.  Frankly, I'm not quite sure what that means.  I mean, I'm evaluating the scene prior to picking up my camera; I'm looking at a little rectangle image in the viewfinder;  I'm placing my subject artistically in the frame; I'm evaluating my exposure; if Athena the God of good judgement is with me I'm checking the edges of my frame, not just my subject.  Does this qualify as "envisioning the final image?"

A nagging doubt makes me suspect not.  I'm often surprised when I see the image on the back of my camera.  Sometimes I see things there I didn't see in the viewfinder.  How three dimensions mutate when compressed onto two dimensions.

Having obviously not mastered the basics, I'm still foraging ahead to what I now see as the next level: envisioning the image as the viewer.  Not as the photographer.  As the viewer.  What emotions will it evoke?  What is it's use?  Will it be used for marketing? Education? Pure enjoyment?  How do these things relate to what the viewer sees?

And here's the point.  We (the photographer) take the picture. If we're professionals, it's for someone else. That person sees it not just as a picture, but as a tool.   It is a memory enhancer, or art to go on the wall, or a seller of product (shoes or dresses or beer), or a seller of brand (sexy accountant-- no, sorry, dedicated accountant).  If we want to excel as photographers we need to be knowledgeable in these areas, too.  Not just light ratios but marketing, adult learning theory, and social networks.  That's how our images are being used.  When the client looks at our pictures they're thinking, "does this sell, brand, remind, or beautify?" Most often it's the first of those: "does this image sell my product?"

That's not as grim as it sounds.  Seeing the image as the client isn't about adulterating your art with marketing schmooze.  Knowing marketing (and by extension the customer being marketed to) is simply another tool, another lens filter.  Consider this:  Shooting for a magazine you'd naturally consider negative space.  Your "dedicated accountant" wants to exude knowledge and assurance-- emotional qualities you might have pursued in your image anyway.  Negative space, emotional content-- those are important considerations in marketing. If you've ever done either of those two things, you've envisioned the image as the viewer.  But that's just the tip of the monster.

At Hurricane Images we posted a blog designed to help Etsy sellers use the videos we made for them.  When we work with merchants and artisans we start with the question, "what does our client want to express?"  We finish with the question, "what do their customers want to buy?" The client looks at our videos and images not as sellers, but as customers.  What are they really buying?

If you think about that question you realize they're not buying a handcrafted piece of jewelry.  They were buying the experience of being the subject of everyone's attention in the room. They're buying an object that takes everyone else's breath away.  Our video wasn't about jewelry, it was about breathlessness.  Shoot that.  Think about what the background should evoke. Is it intimacy or expanse, warmth or a winter night?  Is it a cocktail party out of focus? A hand submerged in fur on a cold night?  It's not a ring, it's an experience.

We also shot a set of testimonials for a center that provided holistic therapeutic massage.  No one wants therapeutic massage.  What they want is to be their younger, healthier self again.  The object (massage) isn't the subject.  The subject is what the customer wants.  

That's thinking like a marketer.  That's seeing the work as your client. 

An Evolution of Thought

Blogs are hard to keep going. A few years back, I loved reading PetaPixel, DIYPhotography, and Cheesycam for their innovative how-to pieces and educational posts.  Great places to learn. Over time, though, they became centered on product reviews and "look what someone else has done." I don't mean to diss them.  I still pop over and check them out from time to time.  But they've changed.  They're no longer about educating photographers.  Truth is, finding new things to teach is really hard. I started my blog as part of my 100 Learnings in 100 Days challenge. As I studied something new about photography every day, I realized that if I wrote about it I'd be more likely to remember it.  I actually learned 100 things in about 80 days, and the challenge generated about 85 "Day X/Learning Y" posts.  And then a few more after that.  Slowly, other types of posts started to creep in.  Philosophy. Gear reviews.  They stopped being so educational.  And the frequency of posts slowed down.  To a dribble.  Then a drip.  Strangely, I can't say my learning has slowed to a drip.  I'm still learning something new almost weekly.  It just hasn't felt as "shareable."  I'm a writer, and I like content to be coherent.

I'm hoping to change that.  (Not the content/coherent part, but the dribble-drip.)  One reason my output slowed is that I was adhering to a specific type of technical learning around photography.  My "challenge" kept me focused on skill-set learning.  I'm still going to post those types of things, but I hope to expand into other photography related material.   It's one thing to learn the technical skills necessary to become a photographer.  Staying  a photographer is an even bigger challenge.  It involves the business of photography, marketing, equipment, and learning from experiences.  My work is also expanding into videography, so expect some posts about that as well.

We're evolving.

Musings on the Death of Photography

I can’t think of one art form that has died; perhaps this is because art, by definition, depicts an enduring aspect of the human experience. I have no worries that photography will be the first to perish.  But there is something gnawing at its soul that I find intriguing.  A few things, actually.

Photography is probably the most accessible “art” form we have.  Everyone takes pictures.  Many, many people play an instrument, but it’s unlikely that you’ll record your friend or family member’s playing and listen to it daily.  We do that we photographic images, though.  Our walls and refrigerators are plastered with photographs, most of which were shot by amateurs.  It’s an art form whose price of entry is almost nothing, which makes the price of being “exceptional” very high.  The talent, equipment, and dedication required to rise above the ocean of camera-wielders is astounding.  

And it’s a spectrum: Aunt Sally’s images blend into the enthusiast’s, which blends into the talented professional, which blends into top 2% of photographers.  This blending makes it difficult to evaluate and critique, two necessary conditions of any art form.  That’s a nibble, I think; a gnawing.

So many photographers, working on so many levels, makes it difficult to find paid work: full-time photographers are undercut by part-timers who will do the job at half the price; part-timers are undercut by Freebies.  All of this is being discussed endlessly and hopelessly.  The unspoken challenge is that less work also means slower improvement; even the best photographers improve by virtue of working. 

Unlike ever before, artists are working in an environment where “free” is a common price point.  There’s free music on the internet; free books in the library; free news; free concerts; free performances; and apparently “free” (but often stolen) images on the web.  And when things aren’t free they can be “bulk rate.”  Netflix gives you unlimited movies for a monthly, bulk fee.  “Free” art is less common among artists who produce a physical object that can be hefted around your apartment—like a painting or sculpture; but if it can be turned into something intangible—a song, an image, or a movie—then there is a growing expectation it can be had for free.  Munch-much goes Death on the ankle of Photography.

The accessibility of photography also leaves us drowning in images in a way that has never happened in the history of our or any other art form.  Our hard drives are clogged with unprinted and forgotten images.  I worry that this surplus devalues truly exceptional images.  My mother passed away last year, and each of the limited number of photos of her are a treasure.  I don’t think I would feel so attached to them if I had inherited a hard drive with a thousand images.  Worse, I don’t think those few would have stood out in a sea of mediocre images. Historically, painters have had the same complaint of museums: hang a work of art next to twenty other paintings and what do you get? A mind-numbing experience.  I can think of few things more chilling than my work contributing to the numbing of the public’s response to photography.  Munch-munch.

On the bright side, there has never been more of a demand for images.  With the internet, we live in an increasingly visual world. This means opportunity for more money, creativity, and excellence.  Two forces are clearly at play here.  How will we navigate them?

Day 88, Learning 88: You're a Screw-up. So am I. Deal with it.

Everyone makes mistakes.  Frankly, it’s how I got into the business.  I’d been taking pictures basically since childhood, and in later life was blessed with working in careers and environments that put those talents to use.  Before I ever considered myself a professional, my images appeared on the cover of International Musician and Engineering Magazine, several CDs, brochures, and marketing materials for numerous theatre companies.  It wasn’t until a friend-of-a-friend asked me to take their picture on the spur of the moment that I started down the path of considering myself a professional.  Because the picture I took really sucked.  I was rushed, should have switched lenses, the color was off, the shadows were grim.  In short I screwed up.  So I challenged myself to learn 100 new things about photography over the next 100 days.  And I did.  It took some elbow grease, but it wasn’t all that hard.

The hard part isn’t ingesting new information, it’s regurgitating it.  You’ve seen a penny tens of thousands of times, but I’ll bet you can’t remember which way Lincoln is facing?  That’s because the mind goes through two different processes in learning: taking it, and synthesizing it.  It’s the same reason that you can check your watch, but if your friend asks you what time it is a moment later you have to look again.  I knew that my “book” learning wasn’t of much help without practice.

The smart choice is to call upon your friends and family to act as your subjects.  I was never very good at that, so I looked for opportunities to volunteer my services for low-pay, low-stakes jobs.  That required throwing up a quick website of my previous work.  After a few jobs—and the realization of just how much even a low-stakes job required, hours of prep and digital editing--  I realized I needed to charge something closer to a professional fee.  So last January I re-vamped my website and officially hung out my shingle.  I’ve been both cautious and ambitious in the jobs I’ve sought and taken.  Over the past 10 months I’ve shot for two marketing agencies, a wedding, three CDs, several corporate events, and half a dozen individual sessions.  My clients have included the international companies Illy Coffee, Levi Strauss, and Kromtech; local musicians, actors, and models; a Pulitzer Prize winner; fashion start-ups and more.  Each has been a challenge and that has kept me engaged and energized.

And then I screwed up.  This isn’t ancient history, something I can look back on with a rueful smile; this was a couple of weeks ago.  I was shooting a highly personal “life event.”  A personal project dealing with loss and death.  It was, in some respect, a ritual.  My beloved Nikon 35-70mm f2.8, my work-horse and go-to lens, developed a loose internal part in the focusing mechanism.  The result was a fractional bit of random “jiggle room” in the focusing mechanism, and a varying degree of blur depending on where in the jiggle you were.  At its best the blur resembled defraction; at its worst the images were unusable.

I didn’t notice it.  We were shooting outside on the beach.  There was bright light, sand getting everywhere, we were working around the waves, and I was managing the pressure of performance.  It wasn’t until I returned home and saw the images (about half of the shoot was with this lens) and investigated my quipment that I realized what had happened.  I was beyond mortified; I felt sick to my stomach.  I could say it was just a mechanical malfunction, but in truth I should checked my LCD for more than exposure and composition when I was in the field; I should have brought a loop to shield the glare on the screen; I should have slowed down and I should have mixed up my lens choices more. The problem wasn’t purely mechanical.

Learning number 101 ain’t pretty.  But the lesson here is in how to both prevent failure and deal with it.   

There are drawbacks to continually checking your images (or crimping), but there’s also a way to do it.  

1     .       Take your time setting up your shot and lighting; let the client know

2     .       Shoot a series of shots before checking your LCD so you don’t destroy the flow of a session

3     .       When you do crimp: 

a.       Check your composition

b.      Check the aesthetics of your exposure

c.       Check your actual exposure using the histogram

d.      Check your focus at 100%

4     .       Bring a loop to outdoor sessions

So what do you do when you fail?  Here’s what I did.  First I prioritized the digital editing from the session so I could finish the images ahead of schedule.  With careful editing I was able to fully redeem about 80% of the session; the remaining 20% was “passable” but below a professional level.  I sent the images to the client ahead of schedule, explained what had happened, and offered a re-shoot if they were dissatisfied with any of the images. 

This is what I did.  Luckily, my client was so pleased with the first 80% that they didn’t mind the shortcomings in those 20%.  But I’m not patting myself on the back anytime soon.  Almost every session is a ritual of sorts, a special occasion, and as such is un-repeatable.  My failure took something away from my client that cannot be replaced.