Part 4 - Rapid Recording
Today’s the day we finally record!
Make sure to come and drop your recordings in the free community for:
1. Congratulations (they will be given generously!)
2.
Feedback (only if you want it)
3.
Getting in front of an audience
In this Part I’ll show you the exact method I use to produce my videos in minutes.
Video production is a HUGE topic.
But the goal this week is to get you started. No excuses.
We’ll continue to focus on one method in order to simplify the process.
We’re removing roadblocks rather than adding more choices and complexity.
Here’s an example of what we’re going to make:
Super super basic.
There are a couple of components:
- talking head (you!)
- background image
That’s literally it.
This allows you to have the article you want to talk about in the background and for you to talk about it. That’s all we need for a simple newsjacking video.
This particular one was about the political biases in AIs. It got around 30k views on Tiktok and took less than 10 minutes to make.
Again, this is not the ONLY technique for producing videos (obviously!). Nor is it the best.
But it is fast and will get you producing without delay. Once you are comfortable producing this sort of video you can expand to other types.
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Recording your first video
First up go ahead and download TikTok.
You do not need TikTok to be your primary channel for growth.
We are mainly interested in it because it has a great video recording interface.
We are (in the next Part) going to be distributing our short video on:
- Tiktok
- Youtube Shorts
- Instagram Reels
- X/Twitter
And anywhere else you want to.
But we’re going to start the video production in TikTok for now.
Boot up the app and press the big + at the bottom. This’ll bring up the record screen and your beautiful face.
Or my weird looking face:
yes…I sit on the floor to work..
Click on Effects and scroll along to Green Screen.
You specifically want the one in the top left with a picture of a photo and an up arrow:
top left = greenscreen with image
Tap that and you’ll see yourself again with the Green Screen interface like so:
Background added
You’ll be able to see all your most recent photos here or upload a new photo.
What we want to do is i) take a screenshot of the article you want to cover and ii) select it here in the green screen tool.
This will bring the article up “behind you” in the video recording.
You can now tap on yourself and pinch to change your size as well as drag to move your image around the screen:
Now I am smol
Now here’s the cool part.
That big red button is your record button.
TikTok has an amazing feature where when you hold that down it records. When you release it stops.
Simple.
But: you can also delete the last part you just recorded - ie. the last button hold.
This allows you to shoot your video sentence by sentence rather than try to memorise it all.
The process is:
- read your script and remember a line. Doesn’t have to be word for word, just the basic meaning.
- Press record button and deliver the sentence. Release the record button to “lock it in”
- No good? Tap delete and do the sentence again.
- Good? Move to the next sentence.
This little feature (+ the easy green screen functionality) is why I recommend starting in Tiktok. It makes recording your short videos so much simpler than if you were having to deliver in one take.
It also means you do not need to edit. You are editing are you go along by removing bad takes.
So simple, so effective.
Continue like this until you’ve recorded the whole script. And you’re done.
Go ahead and publish. And make sure to share your video in the AI Entrepreneurs Community.
If you are not part of this yet it’s free to join here : AI Entrepreneurs Community.
Levelling up green screen
That’s a great start but there’s an even more powerful method we can use with green screen.
Next to the image green screen the eagle eyed amongst you may have seen the Video green screen.
This allows us to do exactly the same delivery style but over a video.
Here’s an example:
This one is on YouTube Shorts (we’ll be talk about this tomorrow) and has around 6.5k views. Again it took minutes to make.
The only difference here is that you need to upload a video instead of a photo.
The main difficulty with this method is getting the video file. You’ll need to get a file saved locally on your phone in order to upload it into TikTok.
How you do this depends on the source of the video. I tend to use this tool: Small SEO Video Downloader.
Once you have the video you can upload it just as you would an image. Then follow the normal steps to record the video as we used before.
This is a more powerful method because it means there’s extra activity on screen. Short video thrives when there’s a lot happening! By having video as well as yourself talking you have more on screen to engage the viewer.
Also, if it’s a particularly cool video - for example a new robot from Tesla - the video itself is interesting in and of itself. You are leveraging the inherent interest in the video.
One word of warning - this is more complex than doing just an image green screen. And we want done, not perfect.
Therefore start with an image version and try this later!
Pulling it together
That was nice and simple right?
As promised we’re covering one method. Keeping it focused. Making sure you act!
In the next Part we’ll look at how we take that one video and distribute it over 5+ platforms.
Here’s a reminder of what we’re covering this week:
Part 1:Small but deadly. Why short form content works.
Part 2:Format focus. What will we make videos about?
Part 3:Content channels. How to get inspired for limitless ideas.
Part 4:Rapid recording. How to create shorts easily and in volume.
- Part 5: Repurposing for fun and profit. Hitting multiple channels using short form.