Planning Your Video

Planning a Stubborn Old Gardeners video is a process of setting a narrow topic, fully exploring it orally and visually, and making sure all the tasks that must be done are finished before it’s time to shoot. We’ll help you with that, so there’s no need to obsess over it.

If you want to get started as soon as possible, just jump to Ready To Submit Your Video Idea? and answer the questions. We’ll hold your hand and help you from that point forward.

Here are some things you may want to think about:

  • Keep your subject narrowly focused. You want to pick a topic you can fully explore in a 3-minute video.
  • Make sure everyone who will appear on your video program knows what you’re doing and why. Make sure they know that you are videotaping for a program you’re going to show to other people and that it will be available on the web as well.
  • Be especially careful about including children, because they can’t give valid consent, only their parents. If you need to use children in your video, e-mail Lee Borden and he will fix you up with an appropriate written release to be signed by the parent of any child you use in a video.
  • Stubborn Old Gardeners never produces a video that lasts longer than four minutes, and we really prefer three or less. If the program you want to shoot runs longer than that, narrow its focus. Your audience is typically searching for information on a narrow subject, so they will welcome your focusing on one issue. If you’re planning on having a person talk for most of the video, think about what they will be describing and try to include some shots of it, so your audience can see what they’re hearing about.
  • Give yourself lots of time. Video production is a blast, but it’s far more time consuming than most people realize. As a rule of thumb, plan on two hours of production time for a three minute program and allow for two weeks after production finishes for the videographer to edit it so you can share it with your adoring public.

Back: Introduction to Free Video School

Next: 7 Steps, 5 Hours To Your Finished Video

Next: Shooting Your Video

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