People often ask us, “How long should my video be?” Our answer has always been, “Less is more.”  I suppose a couple caveats to this could be: 1. If you have a captive audience, like at an event, maybe you can extend the length; or 2. You have something really compelling that you know will hold the audience’s attention longer. Here are a couple of points to consider, however, if you expect...

We had a recent conversation with a client of ours who was clearly feeling a bit frazzled.  His boss had assigned him to be the video point person for the organization, and his basic problem was too little time and too many things to do.  He put on a brave face, but he probably wished he didn’t have this responsibility. If you are considering a video project for yourself, but the idea gives you similar...

So I’ve begun reading a rather informative book, YouTube and Video Marketing, by Greg Jarboe, and for those interested in video optimization, I just came across a small section that I thought I’d pass along. Actually, it makes sense to start with a couple of definitions, according to Jarboe: Video SEO: optimizing video for Google Video and other video search engines. YouTube optimization: optimizing...

Restrepo is a documentary film that all non-military civilians ought to see.  We often hear commentary about the divide that exists between those serving and those who don’t; we civilians cannot understand the experience of soldiers serving in America’s recent wars, nor can they explain it.  A 90-minute film can’t fully depict the life of a soldier in Afghanistan, of course, but watching...

Here’s a practical note that might be of value to some folks out there.  It’s not unusual that a client or prospective client will have a short event that they want captured, and they ask us about the feasibility of filming for a couple of hours.  Our answer is always that it’s feasible, but if they want our help for that short time, they aren’t taking full advantage of our services. Not...

Over the holiday break, I used a bit of quiet time to catch up on some office organization, which included archiving video footage from a number of different projects. While doing that, I happened to come across some outtakes with one client that made me laugh. Reflecting on this a bit, I realized that basically all of our clients have been a lot of fun, which is why we enjoy working with them...

I talked a little before about the difference between hiring a single videographer for video production rather than a crew. I must admit that I can’t speak with total knowledge about the benefits of hiring a single videographer because we typically send a crew of three people on our shoots – a producer, a cameraman, and a sound person.  And on some occasions it’s a bit larger with a make-up...

In a time, not that long ago, Reflection Films’ website was a thing of absolute neglect.  No need to get into all the ugly details, but it’s worth mentioning that we absolutely dropped the ball with our website’s SEO. In addition to getting the help from the fine folks at Flyte New Media, we’re also learning a lot on our own.  For those of you who might be interested, we thought we would...

I’m rather bad at remembering much beyond what happened yesterday.  Recently, I was trying to remember that “really great mountain movie with the British guys.”  With a little Googling, my memory was jogged and I realized it was Touching the Void. For the heck of it, I did a little exercise and made a list of some of the other documentaries we’ve found very worthwhile.  Rather than overwhelm...

In an earlier post, we mentioned a conversation we had with a fundraising consultant about the wide discrepancy in video production costs she gets from production companies.  We recently were one of three companies speaking to an organization about producing a series of marketing videos, requiring ten days of filming. When we spoke to the marketing director, she explained to us that she had received...