Video production is exciting and fun because you have an opportunity to bring your brand to life like never before. Your website, newsletters, and flyers are all important pieces of marketing material, but...

We live in a time where just about every business owner has a smartphone in their pocket. Most smartphones have cameras that can capture videos...

We’ve all seen videos that should have been professional, but something didn’t quite work right. It can be difficult to pin down just what makes a video stand above the rest.

There's one thing that everyone should know, but almost no one talks about, when it comes to starting a video project. Long before you buy expensive videography equipment...

Are you the greatest [insert your job title here] of all time? Probably not (I’m sure it’s hard to believe, but I’m not the greatest writer of all time). This isn’t a bad thing though, it just means that there’s always something else to learn. By constantly reaching out for new knowledge you can improve, increase your value (for both yourself and your career), and keep your brain active.

Although similar to the process for creating animated videos, creating live-action videos have their own unique process. The basic skeleton of pre-production, production, and post-production is still there, but the inner pieces may be different. Even among live-action video, there is a difference between narrative and interview style (especially in the pre-production stages).

Short-form videos for social media are becoming increasingly important to businesses. One of the best ways to get real, authentic content is to shoot with your phone. But how do you make it look like...well...not garbage? Here are ten easy tips for shooting better videos with your phone, whether it’s a cheap prepaid smartphone or the latest and greatest offering from Apple.

Time is a lot of things. It’s a Pink Floyd song, the fourth dimension (except maybe not), and a finite resource (unlike money, which there are ways to make more of). You are allotted 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, for as many years as you’re alive (sorry to be depressing). You can’t buy more time, can’t craft more of it at home, can’t borrow it from someone else. The only way to “make” more time is to better manage the time that you have.

Often, bosses will come in with an idea: let’s make a video! And...that’s it. That’s the end of their idea, but there’s so much more to it. Knowing precisely what kind of video you need helps tremendously to actually get it done. Not every video is equal. If you want proof of this, just look at the filmography of John Travolta (sorry Mr. Travolta).

We’ve all been there: staring at the blank sheet of paper with no idea how to start. There’s a massive project, but where do you even begin? Sure, twirling in your chair eating Goldfish crackers for an hour was a nice distraction, but that doesn’t mean you’re any closer to the project being done. I’m going to use writing as my main example, but the concepts can be applied to almost any kind of project. 

Videos are made up of two main components: the visuals and the audio. But, in a time where auto-play videos are muted on social media, what’s the best way to effectively use audio in your videos so that your message isn’t lost on mute, but is improved when included? How do you know which options are right for you to use for audio in your video content?

It can be tricky sometimes to navigate the business world and stay completely ethical. Maybe you found out a piece of information no one else knows that you can use to your advantage. Maybe you don’t correct your boss’s incorrect assumption about a co-worker who’s also up for a promotion you’re trying to get. Maybe you stay on the clock after you’re done with work to answer Facebook messages. Keeping a strong sense of personal ethics is more than just not stealing from the company (which is also a no-no), it’s about being honest and doing what’s right in all aspects of business.

What makes video such a powerful medium? Why is it that even small toddlers natively understand videos? Why are “how-to” videos more popular than “how-to” books? Why are movies and television more popular than radio or novels? They’re easy for any human to comprehend, even children that can barely talk seem to just absorb Elmo videos (over and over and over and over again). Every single day, 1 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube.

If there’s one universal truth about marketers, it’s this: we’re all trying to sell something. It might be a shiny new product, a service to a business, or a political candidate, but it’s all about sales, right? Not quite, because marketers need to understand it’s not just about selling something. Understanding what your audiences really want is vital to your success. 

Not everyone in the business world studied English in college. In fact, I think it’s safe to assume most didn’t. Unless you’re a writer, editor, or just have a random passion for grammar, it’s likely that once you slogged your way through Macbeth and To Kill a Mockingbird (or at least watched the movie versions or skimmed the Sparknotes), you felt free. Because of this, the professional world is rife with grammatical errors, misspellings, and other things that make English teachers’ brains twitch.

Adding a new employee to a company can be an awesome, exciting event. It can also be an awkward nightmare. There’s a fine line between a good and bad experience for a new hire, and balance is absolutely vital to welcoming the newcomer while not scaring them away either.

Celebrities love to post pictures of their healthy meals and videos of them working out with their personal trainers in the middle of the day on Instagram. It’s easier to stay healthy when you have the time and resources of a celebrity. But what about the rest of us? How do we stay healthy while typing on our computers for hours and sitting through way too long meetings? How do you maintain a healthy lifestyle in an office?

Keeping up with the latest and greatest fashion trends is exhausting (not to mention prohibitively expensive for those of us that don’t have our own line of rocket ships). Luckily, in a workplace setting, we’re not being judged on the same level as if we’re walking a runway in Milan. Still though, you don’t want to be known as the office slob, so here are some super easy, basic tips for dressing professionally and looking good at work.

Usually, when people hear the word “animation,’ they think of cartoons. When we talk about animations, especially for businesses, we mean so much more than just cartoons. Animation can be 2D, 3D, a blend of both 2D/3D, or things like motion graphics. Animations can be used to announce products or services, explain complicated processes, tell stories, or even just to make a fun, lively showcase for whatever message you’re trying to share with the world.

With the increases in identity theft, cyber crime, and hacking these days, it’s best to keep yourself as protected as possible. Although sentences like these are usually followed by ads for expensive anti-virus or online protection services,