- Welcome back, Loyalty Loopers.
This is a very special,
behind-the-scenes episode
of The Loyalty Loop from
right here, in my home office.
(electronic pop music)
Hey, Loyalty Loopers, welcome
back to a very special episode
of The Loyalty Loop.
It's special because today,
we're gonna go behind the scenes
of shooting The Loyalty Loop.
Why am I doing this video?
'Cause a bunch of you have asked me,
what gear do I use to
shoot The Loyalty Loop?
And while yes, I am
gonna show you the gear,
I also want to talk to
you about the process
of shooting the videos,
just to help you see that
it's not just about the gear.
I think it's just as much
about the pre-production
and the process as it is
about the equipment you use.
So we'll get to that in just a second,
but let me answer the burning question,
what gear do I use to
shoot The Loyalty Loop?
And we're gonna do that
(word pops)
from this camera, actually.
Okay, so you can see right
here what I'm shooting with.
I'm shooting right now on my GoPro HERO5,
which you can probably see
in this camera right here,
and this, I really like this camera.
It's great travel size,
and I use it for lots of
time lapse and B-roll,
and we're walking around, it
also has pretty good audio.
You can hear the audio here,
and I like shooting on this a lot.
Now it's attached to a little
tripod and a little JOBY,
a little JOBY.
I have a little JOBY,
and I have a big JOBY.
I'll show you that in a second,
but the GoPro HERO5 is a
great camera for B-roll
and for travel.
Now you can probably see the lights
that I use when I'm at home
to shoot these videos in my home office.
I'll put the link to these lights below,
but they're really great LED lights
that give me the ability to shoot
very nice soft light on my face,
and I have some Softboxes on
and that I'll show you down below as well,
but keep in mind, I
don't have these lights
when I'm on the road,
but I do have the GoPro
and the camera that you see
probably over my shoulder.
Now this is the camera that I use.
It's a Panasonic LUMIX
G something something.
I think it's a G85, but
I'll put the exact link
in the description below
so you can find out
exactly what camera it is.
On top, I have a really nice
RodeLink Wireless microphone system.
I'm using that mic here as well,
and I've got a belt pack on for that mic,
so you can see that right there.
I used to actually use
a wire, a wired mic,
plugged into the G85,
but I kept walking away and
pulling the camera with me,
so we fixed that problem
with the wireless system,
which is very helpful.
Now the camera is sitting
on an MeFOTO Tripod,
which is actually a really good tripod.
It's a little heavy,
but I like to travel with it occasionally
because having a tripod is
better than not having a tripod
or using a JOBY,
so I like this tripod.
I'll put the link below,
and I use it in the studio all the time.
Now very often, when I'm on the road,
(light electronic music)
I'll use one of these as well.
This is a little Rode
microphone that fits on top,
in the shoe of the LUMIX G85
(clears throat) and gives
me really good audio.
When I'm shooting at an
event, I use this mic.
It's a really good directional mic,
and it allows me to pick
up all the right stuff.
It also has the little squirrel on top,
which keeps the wind noise down,
so I really like this mic,
and I'll put the link
below for that as well.
Now keep in mind, all of these things
have different chargers and batteries,
and so, I travel with a travel backpack.
I'll shoot a picture of that
and add it here (imitates popping).
All right, here's just a quick
view inside of my travel bag
with all my gear in it.
We have my camera right here.
Usually, the JOBY Tripod,
which I'm using right now, goes here.
I have a charger, charger for
different charging elements.
This is my boom mic, my
Rode Wireless mic system,
an extra battery for charging things.
This is a hard drive to
handle all the video.
My GoPro, which I'm shooting
with, goes right here.
(travel bag plops)
This is all the cables
and connectors I need,
some batteries, extra
stuff for on the road.
It's my just-in-case stuff.
So that's my travel bag.
Now, once I'm done shooting these,
I take all of this stuff off the cameras
and the little SD cards or SD micro cards,
and I put them on my laptop
so that I can edit them in Final Cut Pro.
Now, I like Final Cut Pro.
I've been using it for a long time.
It's a really great tool,
and I use a bunch of really
nice templates and plugins
that I've got from LenoFX
to help me with the effects,
and I use music from
Epidemic Sound, usually, so,
those things really help
the production come together
as well as the gear.
(chuckles) Okay.
Please forgive how messy
my desk is right now,
but when I'm on the road, a lot of times,
I shoot with this setup.
It's a more sturdy, like a JOBY tripod.
I'll shoot with the LUMIX G85 that I have
and my wireless mics on top.
It's really, really a great little setup,
and right now, I'm gonna use this setup
to explain the keys to actually
the pre-production process,
getting ready to shoot these videos,
which may be more important
than the shooting itself.
You see, when I first
started shooting videos,
I just started shooting
with a script in hand
and went down with it,
and it took a long time
to do the production
and the post-production.
I've started to get more
efficient with this,
and I kind of think it's
because of the process.
Number one, here's what I do.
I do a ton of research, so
if I wanna tell a story,
if I'm thinking about a problem,
I actually spend about an
hour to two hours a week
doing research for future
episodes of The Loyalty Loop.
The second thing I do is I
script every week's episode.
Now, I don't always write
a script on the computer.
I usually end up writing
them on note cards,
lots and lots of note
cards, over and over again.
The reason I use note cards actually,
I've found is it helps me a lot
to write like I speak, number one,
and number two, it allows
me to reshuffle elements
as I realize things need to
be inserted or in a new order,
and third, it's very portable,
meaning if I'm in a location,
if I'm in Toronto like I was last week
or I'm in Philadelphia
like I was last week
or I'm in Chicago like I was last week,
I can walk around with these note cards
and very easily figure
out what I need to shoot,
so the note cards help a lot
and the script helps a ton.
Number three, I start to
gather some B-roll elements.
Now B-roll is the second
track roll, B-roll.
(word pops)
A-roll is me talking.
(word pops)
B-roll would look like this.
While I'm talking, you see
that awesome shot flying by,
and one of the things you need to do
if you're creating video
is make sure you have some B-roll to use
because video is a show me medium.
It means you should show me
instead of tell me whenever you can.
So when I'm going through,
I'm writing the script and
going through the story,
I'll make little notes about
what kind of B-roll I need,
like I'm gonna use a
picture of Frank Gehry,
a picture of Giorgio Armani.
I need to gather those elements
and actually add them so that I know,
when I'm doing the
production and shooting it,
what they'll be seeing when
I'm talking about those things,
so you gotta gather the B-roll,
and sometimes, that can
take a really long time.
Sometimes, I have to shoot the B-roll,
so I have to think ahead
for this week's video.
Let's get a time lapse of
Toronto and insert it here,
that kind of thing.
The fourth thing I do
is I run through the script
a few times out loud,
and usually, I try to time it
to see if I can get a good
sense for how long it is.
I also know that when
I don't script it well,
I just go on and on
and on like this video,
so I just keep going, I have no direction,
and the video ends up
being 10 minutes long,
and while I think people stick around
and my YouTube Analytics
show me that they do,
I know that I could be more efficient
with my words and my pictures,
and it shouldn't have to be this long.
The fifth thing I do is I edit the cards,
meaning I actually,
when I hear it out loud,
realize I'm saying something twice
or I don't need that piece
or maybe I should find a
better way to say this thing.
So I'll actually cross it
out or even write a new card
and go back with it,
and then, the last and final thing I do
is shoot the video using the
gear you've seen here today,
and that's where production ends.
Here's the key.
The key to being successful
in creating videos
is to think like a video editor.
Instead of thinking like
a director or a writer,
think about the edit.
How are they gonna put
together these elements
in post-production?
And it helps if you give editing, a shot.
So I use Final Cut Pro
(logo pops)
for my editing.
I've edited my first year's
worth of videos myself
and kind of tried to get the feel for them
and figure out what I needed,
and it makes me a better producer for it,
and now, I have someone named Christina
who helps me do my
editing every single week,
so that's my behind-the-scenes
Loyalty Loop episode.
(upbeat pop music)
I hope you're tuning in
to every episode of The Loyalty Loop.
Right now, I've gotta
actually take all the stuff
out of this camera, put it on my laptop,
and actually start the editing
process and uploading stuff
for Christina to start editing this week,
so I'm gonna start doing that,
but I hope you have a wonderful week.
If you have any questions about
the gear that I showed you,
let me know, just put it
in the comments below.
Don't forget to let me know if
I can help in any other way,
and if you have any questions
about anything you've seen,
I wanna see 'em there.
All right, have fun.
Thanks.
There's always something
distracting to keep me from,
actually, I gotta, let
me open up Final Cut.
