279 – Video Marketing Insights From iPhone Video Hero’s Jules Watkins

Podcast: Download (Duration: 35:03 — 32.2MB)

Get Notified Of Future Episodes Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Stitcher | Blubrry | Gaana | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | Anghami | RSS | More

Jules Watkins’ course iPhone Video Hero has inspired many. In this interview, he offers video creation tips that will benefit any aspiring video marketer.

Covered in today’s podcast:

01:50 – Welcome video expert Jules Watkins
02:36 – The idea of factual entertainment
04:40 – Bringing professionalism to video marketing
06:20 – Cutting out the fluff
07:33 – James’ video production tools
09:10 – Making it “visual”
11:02 – Equipment vs. story
13:12 – Who’s doing the filming?
16:55 – Get started making videos
18:47 – Creating videos without the upfront costs
22:58 – Strengthen relationships through video
24:46 – Different style approaches to video
30:39 – iPhone Video Hero’s target market
32:19 – Accessories and apps for the iPhone

Join around 1000 dedicated online marketers in this private forum
SilverCircle is currently OPEN Click Here

Tweetables:

The power of edutainment. [Click To Tweet].
Keep it concise. [Click To Tweet].
How can you grab your audience? [Click To Tweet].
Story before equipment. [Click To Tweet].
Look for visual metaphors. [Click To Tweet].

 Transcription:

James: Good day, James Schramko here. Today, I’ve got another interview. I like to bring these interviews because we get to dig inside the mind of an expert on various topics.

Today’s topic is really close to my heart. It’s something I’ve been involved with, on almost daily basis for the last couple of years, and I think that it’s a huge opportunity for more people to get involved with.

And of course I’m talking about the area of video marketing. And who else could I invite for a show like this than Jules Watkins. How are you Jules?

Jules: Yeah, very good James. Thanks very much for inviting me on.

James: Well, it was just a matter of time because I have two of your products that I absolutely adore. And I think I commented somewhere that iPhone Video Hero is one of the few products where I got access to it, and watched the entire product in one sitting because it was so engaging and so interesting.

And a lot of that comes down to your presentation style and the way that you put the course together. So congratulations on doing such a good job with that.

Jules: Oh yeah, thanks very much for that. Well, that’s exactly right. I did try and put a lot of myself into it, and some of my background which I’m sure we’re going to talk about in a sec.

Jule’s Television Background
James: Yeah. Well we’re not going to go too far into it, but I would love the short background. But just from what I gathered from watching your courses, it seems you like you have a really well-credentialed, proper official TV background.

Jules: Yeah that’s it. The very short version was I actually started off in photography, then I did a little course in multimedia, I ended going for the back door, really, into the world of television.

It took me a few years to work my way up to becoming a television producer-director here in the UK. I did shows like Pimp My Ride for MTV and Biggest Loser. I did some shows for the BBC.

As a freelancer producer-director, you know that was fantastic experience and massive opportunity that I’m really sort of, I guess I learned how to deliver content in an engaging, entertaining way, and there’s a style of TV called factual entertainment, which is basically TV, where you try and entertain people, but there are factual nuggets along the way, so to speak.

Educating While Entertaining
So you know, some of the property shows, you know, they’re quite entertaining, but they’ve also got some information in, or like Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, you might know about that, you know. So again it’s an entertainment reality show but there are little tidbits about business in there.

So I think I’ve sort of brought that into this world of entrepreneurship, and tried to sort of teach people but also make the experience of going through it quite interesting as well.

James: Yes, so I would coin a word: “edutainment” for that style of content. And it’s certainly been something that I’d aimed for. I like to have even shows like this where we’re just chatting. I want it to be easy to listen to, but I also want people to learn a lot. And of course I want action steps, something that people can takeaway.

Because like those TV shows, I mentioned that a lot of them maybe, the government ones, but the commercial ones, they have to make the entertainment compelling enough that people will stick through the content and hang around for the advertisements in between, and that’s part of their revenue model right?

Jules: Exactly right. That’s why I find it such a great link into this kind of world of marketing because it’s all about grabbing an audience you know, right at the top.

Engaging them, as you said, getting them into the ad breaks, making them want to come back afterwards, and then at the at the end, there’s always a big call to action you know, coming out next week, or go check our website, or go by the book of the series. So it’s very, very similar in many ways.

James: Yeah we have a lot of those things in podcasting, we talk about previous episodes, we back seed the episodes that we’ve already done, we pre-empt episodes that are coming down the line.

We have lots of engagement things where we, kind of like a callback radio show where we say, “Listen, could you leave a comment on SpeakPipe or on our blog, we red out our comments.” So we’re always trying to do those things.

From TV To Online Marketing
The thing that I can relate to very well with your story is that you’re like this absolute professional in a serious industry, and you’ve come to the Internet space with that knowledge, and you would’ve found a lot of cowboys who are just sort of winging it, or making it up, or theorizing about how to do videos, right?

Jules: Yes. I mean, the market is obviously growing and a lot of people call how the videos being a sort of hot property. So there’s a real spectrum of people out there, I do think there are different people who’ve got different things to bring to the table, so to speak.

But I am shocked sometimes when I hit on some sort of video course and the sales video’s so badly shot, or underexposed. And I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe the trick of it, to be honest. But, there’s a whole range of things out there, but I do agree that, I think you’ve got to choose who you want to be taught by carefully as well.

James: Yes. So I guess, I had a similar background and my business background really helped out with my own line of business and a lot of people lacked that knowledge that I was able to accumulate in the senior role as a general manager. And it gives people like you and I an advantage, but then we’ve setup these causes to help share the knowledge.

You’ve got iPhone Video Hero. I’ve also taken your ScreenFlow Hero Course, which is great because I use ScreenFlow, and with that course, the interesting thing for me is I was aware of most of the things that you talked about in that one; however, I’ve been using it every single day for a couple of years by then and I imagine, it would have been so handy for me to have access to that course when I started.

All About Timing
And I think you can shortcut that learning curve for people. In such a short course too, you really managed to get it so concise.

Jules: Well that directly goes back to TV. In TV, everything’s about timing. So if you make a show, you know, it has to fit within a certain time frame.

Like Pimp My Ride, it’s a half-hour show in MTV; it’s actually 24 minutes when you take out the outbreaks. And you know, within about a 20-second range, you have to get this whole story. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s about car makeovers. And you have to get the whole story of the owner, and the process, and the end result all in that time.

So every second is critical and I suppose, I’ve taken that over to my courses. I know that particularly business people and businesses are really overloaded, they’re really busy. And I try and just to get to the point quick as I can, and make it succinct so that, they’d go for it, and think, I sat down there for three hours and now I’ve got this kind of result.

James: You know the funny thing is, I get a lot of evidence that that is the case that people often comment, they loved my 3-5 minute videos. They’re super short really, in the scheme  of things. And I don’t think there’s much fluff in the video content that I’m producing. And I want us to go into the next step, which is how I’m recording those videos.

The Equipment
My regular viewers would know that I’m using a mixture of hardware, and a lot of it depends on where I happen to be. I range from everything, from just an iPhone, when I’m out and about, and just an iPhone with one plugin, the Rode smartLav actually.

The iPad or the iPhone with the smartLav, is my usual out and about equipment, and I’m using TiltShift video to get the nice blurry effect and to adjust the contrast and saturation. That is all I’m using for most of my out and about videos, and at home, I’m using a DSLR camera.

So I take it up, you know, go up a notch, and I did that because I figured it’s great to have the permanent tripod mount and the boom mic and the proper lighting. And I might as well, if I’m going to be filming at home, it’s not like I can skimp on $1,000 or $2,000 worth of set up, the funds were there, so I actually alternate.

But the interesting thing to me is my audience seems to be OK with it. They permit a change in production value when I’m out and about because they’re far more engaged in the story.

And probably one of the most ghetto videos I made was at the Ferrari museum in Italy, where my son, who was I think was probably 9 or 10 at the time, was holding a camera for the shots. But I still happen to stitch together a short story around that trip and people really liked that.

Jules: Yeah, I’ve seen that video. It’s excellent. And I think what strikes me about that is, the fact that, taking the opportunity to make videos, finding that metaphors in real life that you can actually get a business message out, so you talk about the experience of doing the test drive, and then about the Ferrari brand, and the service.

Whatever you can think of, you can actually combine a business message that you may have. Whatever kind of business you’re in, to something, some real world experience that makes it a lot more visual. That’s why, the big challenge with videos is making it visual, and particularly with business.

Now that’s why when you watch The Apprentice for example, the way that they produced those tasks they have to do are very visually done.

It’s not about, how many shoes can they sell on eBay. It’s more like, can you go out and sell, how many hotdogs can you sell in the market, right? They’re choosing tasks that are visual. Something that people can look out and understand the message.

I think that when you are making your videos, always try to find these metaphors. And you do that really well, sans the production values. I think, absolutely, you’re right. Again, a lot of TV shows are not like that. You’ll get the big, glossy set pieces.

I have done reality shows with five cameras in a studio type of environment, with loads of lighting and a big production and yet the actual footage of the contestants running around and jumping in taxis and doing all kinds of stuff… are shot by sometimes quite junior people with quite small camcorders getting into the action and being around.

The best camera in the world is the one you got with you. If something is happening and you got your camera, it’s far more valuable than waiting for a crew to turn up, or so to speak. So, again I think people are conditioned to be able to accept these different styles as well.

James: There must be some kind of evolution that people go through because it fascinates me that the biggest question I get asked all the time is equipment, equipment, equipment. What video you are using, and then they ask, what lights, what microphone.

Story And Emotion
The next part, the least focused on part is probably far more important, and that’s stuff like the story and the emotion. And the really advanced stuff that I’m really experimenting with now is the music and B-roll. I found some fascinating things in my video stats. I am using the Wistia player which I absolutely adore.

Interestingly, a recent video that I made which was a video for my live event of where I spliced in roles of surfing, and of all things, a seagull walking around and going like arhk arhk – that part of the video gets replayed more than any other part of the whole video.

It’s this little breakout between phases where there’s this seagull walking around squawking and a bit of background music. These things are really fun to play with but it seems like a lot of people are stuck with step one, equipment.

Jules: Yes. You’re right. There is a huge obsession which camera to get, which lens, which microphone and you’re gonna get swamp by that. I think you could have kind of break out from that.

Just try watching other people’s videos, learning from them, watching TV shows a little bit, are incredibly valuable and definitely, a lot of people are just sitting there and talking to the camera, it’s always better to actually show what you are talking about.

It sounds a little bit obvious. You can try and find other footage and get what we’re talking about. Think a little bit out of the box. Something that might be not obvious, but something that kind of relays the symbolism of that message.

I think you’re going to stand out, you know. Because a lot of entrepreneurs are making the wrong videos and not doing that, and by doing that, you’ll instantly, you will stand out.

James: In my live event video, my real specific goal and the premise of the event is come and live like I live. Come to the same beach that I live at, enjoy a Sydney summer surf, meet other people in a great relaxed environment and I wanted to inject that.

So with my other friend who was right in this stuff, Ryan Spanger, he was giving me some tips on the documentary aspect and storytelling aspect. I actually got some bits and pieces from different cameras. Everything from my phone to the Canon 60D. I had a go of editing it in ScreenFlow.

Outsourcing The Work
There is also the other option of paying someone to come and film stuff and edit it. And I’ve done that for clients as well. That is a super awesome idea, it is a relatively easy to do. You just pay someone and they do the work and then you get the results. But that’s probably for the higher market and I found for corporates, that is definitely the way to go.

The last thing I want to be doing is walking around with an iPhone and sitting here on ScreenFlow for hours. So that’s the kind of spectrum that I’ve worked with, filming and editing my own stuff through to having someone else to do it for a fee.

And now I found that little ground where I generally do the filming but I just put the raw file into Dropbox and my assistant has now got the same software.

She’s got ScreenFlow so I was actually able to export my templates to her and she’s able to edit it and she’s got real value from your course because she’s not me and she shortcuts the two years of editing by just watching the course which you kindly organized for us.

I wonder where most people sit in that spectrum. I suspect a lot of people are doing everything themselves.

Jules: I think you’re right. The advantages of doing it yourself, filming yourself, you can be very reactive and do it a lot quicker. You do not have to pan a headlight and say, this is going to be my video today. You can kind of react to the news happening or events that happens.

I think having the skills of filming is very valuable. Just on that note you are talking about, one very thing about the iPhone is the fact that it’s with you, you are building a library of footage.

Slices Of Life
You talked about surfing and seagulls. I think everybody should be capturing their life, just building their own library of footage, of stock footage because you never know when you come to make this video, your about me video or your sales video, you will be able to go in, find stuff and just go list it in keywords so you can find it later.

It can be shots of your kids or behind the scenes or something like that. Just having this archive is very, very useful. But going back to what I was saying, filming yourself is very, very useful but having an outsource to actually do some of the editing, definitely, if you got the budget for that, then that should be the way to go particularly when you are juggling a lot of stuff in your business.

James: Yeah, we started with podcasting and moved on to video and that sort have been the natural progression. We even offer the service now for a lot of people where they just have to put their raw stuff into Dropbox. We do the editing, whether it’s the audios or the videos.

I think there is going to be an increased demand for that sort of stuff but it is kind of difficult to organize on of the background. You get a lot of questions. Where to I hire someone? How do I train them? What equipment do I need?

There are a few obstacles to getting that done but I think the most important point is to be making those videos. Start making them.

The Advantages Of Today’s Technology
It is a tremendous boost to my business to be able to be on the screen to be out there and publish your own stuff is so liberating because it would have cost a fortune to have the equipment that we use now and take for granted at home.

Even what comes standard on an iPhone 5 is probably giving you as good an output as you might have had a few years back in a TV studio.

Jules:  Absolutely. The quality is astonishing. It’s definitely high quality. I used to, about 12 years ago, be making shows for SkyTV, shooting them myself and the camera quality is probably half of the quality that you got with an iPhone. The technology made it easy. It’s so liberating.

I find that having worked for TV with a lot of people above me, like the executive producers, series producers and channel managers – all having their own input, helping and interfering the creative process. The whole thing alter by the time you get to the end.

Also, I make videos for clients as well, more like the business type videos for clients and normally, if you get to the company, you will have a sales manager involved.

You talk about the script and the vision you have will suddenly become altered down and it will be compromised whereas I think a lot of business owners don’t realize what power they’ve got not to have a lot of people above them.

The fact that you can actually make those decisions yourself, what you’re going to say, how you’re going to film it, what kind of style it’s going to be and publish them all on the same day without too much interference. That is absolutely liberating. That is what really excites me about this whole space.

Jules’ Courses in Action
James: What are some of the best ways that you’ve seen people apply your courses?

Jules: Well I will give you examples – one would be a dog trainer in my membership site. She actually got hold of, she’s using an iPad. She doesn’t have equipment and she doesn’t want to invest a lot upfront but she has an iPad and what’s called a Swivel.

Swivel is a device where you fit in your iPhone or an iPad, and basically, where you move, it moves. You mount it in there and you have a sense of it everywhere. That has got microphone as well and as you move around, it goes with you.

So, this is the perfect solution when you are walking your dog up and down in the field and you don’t have the resources for a camera person. This machine will actually work for you, so you will always be in the shot. That is just one way.

Somebody would just get going with it and get the product out there because she had the equipment already. The iPhone or the iPad is the sole camera you already own so you suddenly eliminated that upfront cost of several hundred dollars to get a camera, you own that.

Then you could maybe use a bit of budget for the other bits, like microphones, lights. So I just think that that’s inspiring people to do that. Another one would be a horse trainer, or an animal, certainly it’s about animals…

James: So basically any kind of trainer.

Jules: Yeah. A horse trainer in somewhere American Midwest, not clear really, but basically, they hand the iPhone to their staff. When the horse is… so basically they talk about horse behavior.

So when the horse is doing something weird, as they do apparently, hands the iPhone to one of his hands, you know, one of his assistants and says “quick grab this,” and films it just as it’s happening, so they can then use that video later to do some training for their products.

So many different examples of people just getting started and using the flexibility and be able to shoot whenever they choose.

James: Even some of the basic tips that you never think of, but you taught how to hold the phone correctly, which was a fantastic tip. And I use that tip now to swivel, and to zoom in and out, I’m not even sure the technique on that, is it panning and stuff, pan and zoom?

Jules: Yes.

Making It Personal
James: And just holding the iPhone in a sturdy way is great. And also, I quite often make videos for my team. I just turn the video into self mode, and I’ll make a little video and then email it to my whole team, like on a Friday, saying “great week, well done team.”

And you can also send personal Christmas messages to clients. So there’s a lot of internal uses you could have, but it just helps you get that video to a good minimum standard of quality.

Jules: Absolutely and I do the same. I tend to make videos for occasions. For example, I had a kind of Christmas party, it was basically a webinar. I felt, a lot of people sitting at home, don’t get invited to Christmas party. So I had this party, but I made a video invitation for that just to do something a little bit different. So I think making those kinds of things are great.

And I also supported some stats, where if you use a video in your subject line, then it can have higher open rates than quite a lot about the subject line.

Obviously, you’ve got to test that yourself, but I’ve noticed that myself, by just saying: my latest video, or you might like this video, have you seen this video? Things like that just tend to get big open rates, so there’s something that does stand out in the inbox as well when you’re offering a video.

You’re also having a still frame in the embedded that you can click through. So I think people could definitely, you know, rather than, next time you may be doing an email or a blast, an email blast, think about what could you actually with that as a video.

James: Well I never do blast, that’s a word forbidden in our business. You don’t want to blast a customer. I find the words I made you a video, or your video is ready, that sort of stuff is very personalized.

I’m certainly sending a lot of thumbnails out in my email broadcast because probably in my general database would get 2-3 videos a week, and my community members of SuperFastBusiness and SilverCircle get a personal 10-minute video each week as a group of course.

But it’s me just talking to the audience and explaining what the best things that happened that week were. I found that the heavy use of video, I have felt such a strong relationship with my audience.

Jules: Absolutely, that’s one of the great powers of it. And also, we were talking before we came on, that we’d actually, never spoken to each other before but we’d seen each other on video, and we felt we’d sort of had spoken to each other, and this is again, when you get  used to people’s voices, you can visualize them.

And it’s happened to me where, I’ve gone to some meet up here in London, you know real world meet up, get out of the house. Went to a meet up and people have said, I think I’ve seen you; I’ve met you before right? And they feel that connection. They come up to you and they want to talk to you. And that’s one of the great things about video.

James: That’s such a strong thing, and I really did have to look into our Skype chat to see if we’d spoken before. I feel like we’ve emailed back and forth, I’ve consumed your causes, you’ve been watching my videos.

It’s funny how we expand our universe by putting ourselves out there. So just a couple more topics and then I think I’ll let you enjoy the rest of your day off. I hope it’s a beautiful, warm, sunny day there in wherever you are.

Jules: You have got to be kidding. This country is sinking in the water, haven’t you noticed?

Different Video Styles
James: No. I went for surf today. We’ll just leave it at that. So, let’s talk about the different styles that people have with videos. You might have seen that people are using videos in different ways. Let’s talk about the different styles of people’s approach with whether they…

You know I would consider myself quite a gentle marketer. I’d rather just talk about things that are happening in a more conversational way, share stories, offer up value, let people know when there’s something that they can go and buy. But I wouldn’t call it hardcore.

I’m not doing these videos without player controls and all of that stuff. But I know a lot of people who are. What kind of styles have you seen people use, and what sort of opinions do you have about it?

Jules: Well I think, I quite like a bit more pacey in style. But you have got to realize that I just can’t get this kind of MTV thing out of me and sort of TV thing going on. So I quite like energy in videos. I like music; I like fast cuts and transitions. Just sort of, take people along quite quickly on a ride. That is my own sort of preference.

You do see a lot of people picking up on those sort of influences, but I do appreciate that doesn’t suit every audience. I think actually, you’ve got to think of your audience first of all, what would they like to watch.

For example, if you’ve got a slightly older audience, then you’ve got to approach it in a way that’s going to suit them. Let’s say you got another audience like James Park…

James: Well I do actually. If you look at the stats, most Internet marketers are actually in their 40’s and 50’s. It is an older audience, and for that reason, we bumped up the font size on my site.

And also, I was just thinking that if you do like the fast pace and the music etc., I reckoned you’ve started to attract the audience who likes that style, and I’ve seen people who tested speaking slowly and clearly, versus high energy and faster and more intensity.

And sales increased with the high intensity one, because it  moves people, it gets their pulse raising, it gets sense of urgency. There must be a lot of science in this and I’m not the guy to tell you about it, but I do think it’s fascinating.

TV As Research
Jules: Exactly right. I would say what you can do is watch a popular TV show that the audience is watching right? Because you have got to realize that there’s so much money that goes into research.

James: It has to be Breaking Bad, right? Because everyone in our community is talking about Breaking Bad.

Jules: Yeah, I have watched that a few times.

Jules: You know, the way TV shows are made, is they’re tested. When I was making TV shows, basically, we would test ideas first, more like we would do a rough cut of it and show it to a test audience. And say like, what’s working and someone would say, oh we don’t like the presenter that much. Could you make it with less presenter?

And we would say, oh my God with all that money was paid, and make it less presenter? We would take it out on board, before it was over, cut and edit it and put out there. Because on TV, unlike the Internet, you have to get it right first time otherwise, the way it works is that TV shows get axed.

So a lot of thinking goes behind what’s going to work, what kind of pace that’s going to work best, the music style. Really, to shortcut it, just go on and find a show that your audience might be watching and liking and just try and borrow ideas. Think about what’s easy, how fast are the shots, how short are the sound bytes.

I think you can learn a lot from that and apply that to your videos. You’re right that it is a big diverse style. I am just saying that you are right about documentary. There is a trend about that kind of documentary styles.

I watched one the other day. It was a hardcore Internet marketing video. It was all shot like a reality show with five people testing whether they can make some money online. It was sort of before-and-after, who are they, getting their story. They were out for the day. At the end, you see the results.

It was just like you would see The Next Top Model or something like that. That is appealing to a certain audience who are kind of on a diet of those kind of shows.

So to them, it is an easy transition to watching the marketing video turned into that style. It does the job. It doesn’t get in to a bunch of text on the screen for the whole video. It will be weird. You think, you play around with different styles and experiment.

James: Yeah. It would have been interesting on that particular documentary if they cut on the hotel scene at 3 in the morning when the staff would have been sending traffic just to get the right amount of sales for the next morning’s big reveal.

Jules: You think the actual, the owner of the products, sends emails less?

James: If only if it was that easy, it would be wonderful. I always wonder why they bother making video telling us about this and selling a course instead of just doing that. But that’s just me being cynical.

Anyway, I think that the documentary style works because it really puts the sales message down a few pages and people’s resistance lowers. It gets you into storytelling. Where I’ve had the most success with that is injury lawyers who are typically nicknamed ambulance chasers, and car dealers.

Pretty much one of the most least favorite people of the public’s list of places to walk into is a car dealership. They reckon that it has the same reaction as going to the dentist. So by using documentary will be able to get them some humanity and get their story across out and their real reasons for being in their business other than just commercial reasons.

Jules’ Target Market
So, it’s been an interesting discussion. I think we should just cover off who is iPhone Video Hero and ScreenFlow Hero designed for? Who’s the typical buyer of these products?

Jules: I’d say there are different categories but people like Internet marketers. Business coaches. Social media coaches. Fitness trainers. Anybody who is trying to leverage video for business is not, and I mean this specifically, is not for people who want to become Hollywood moviemakers or make arty videos or shoot videos of rippling water or things like that.

James: Or funny plastic bags.

Jules: Exactly. No offense to that. But it’s not… You can use the shots later as B-rolls but it’s not about arty videos or trying to be the next Tarantino, so it’s not for that. But definitely, if you want to shoot high quality video and if you feel confident about your video, if you’re making anything for your business, for your blog or products. That is one.

The same for ScreenFlow Hero. They are very complementary products. Again, the same kind of people are using that.

James: I like both of the courses. I got a number of takeaways from both of them. The iPhone one is particularly mind-blowing as you say, everyone is already walking around with a content creation device and just a few little tips help people use them so much better.

Favorite Apps And Accessories
I’m gonna ask you what is your particularly favorite app or accessory for the iPhone for bringing out the best videos.

Jules: Wow. I think probably the one I keep in my pocket most of the time is the Olloclip Wide Angle Lens. It’s a clip-on the lens for the iPhone and that’s very handy for what we are talking about getting these behind the scenes turned reality style clips.

Because the iPhone with the lens is fairly narrow in the sense that if you have a group people in front of you, you have to step really far back. This gets you wilder field of view.

If you’re doing something like shooting a beautiful beach, if you happen to have a beach next to you. Nice wide shots. And also using wides for is getting into the action, picking up the sound better, getting close to the action is recommended. So I think about $50, $60, $70 lens, very well-fit, very small as well for carrying around.

James: Nice. So that’s a hardware item. My favorite hardware item is the Rode smartLav microphone. Just gets the sound a little closer to the person. Have you got any software or app recommendations?

Jules: App recommendations, I suppose is iTimeLapse. For doing time lapses, iTimeLapse. You just stick your phone on a little tripod or use whatever you got, and you just stick it out there, it could be outside of your building if you’ve got business or it could a landscape.

You just stick it there while you are having a chat with somebody, and you’ll just get beautiful time-lapse so you’ll get the clouds rushing over or the sun getting up or down. Just getting little touches like that, having that money shot in your video is something that’s just a little bit different.

Very easy to do. Not a lot of people do it. And just very easy to use as a transition inside your video is a better way to make them more exciting.

James: What a great recommendation. My favorite app is the TiltShift video app to get you a little blurry background and a little bit of on the fly editing. So, I’ve gotta head out now and download iTimeLapse.

I really appreciate you putting a little bit of time for our listeners, to share the concepts around video, how it could be used, who it’s for, what are some of the differences out there in the marketplace are in approaches. This is really an interesting conversation. Thanks so much for stopping by Jules.

Jules: Thanks James for inviting me.

Subscribe on iTunes and enjoy more episodes

Please comment below.