Doubtlessly a key ingredient in Cali Lewis' success is that she just is durn cute. I know that's why I looked up her podcast in the first place.
But it is also a good podcast (vodcast, videocast, whatever). It's entertaining, and often has interesting information. I watched a couple of episodes of it on my iPhone 4 over lunch in a café yesterday. (It really is an amazing new world.)
I had been vaguely wondering just how amateur or professional the production actually is. And the most recent episode tells the answer: professional! Wow, the lights alone...
I find it interesting that anybody can make decent video, even pretty good, with just an iPhone or iPod Nano. But at the same time, if you want it to be really professional, it takes a lot more work and money. Almost paradoxical, the amount of effort it takes to cross this little bridge from "good" to "really good".
Part of my day job is working in the video production department of an electronics retailer. We started out shooting product videos using green screens and big softboxes, expensive lavalier mics, and a very fancy camera. After a year or so, we were told to make the videos "look more like YouTube," i.e. purposely lower the production values.
ReplyDeleteThaz funny!
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense. For the same reason, people are more prone to "listen" to a sloppily-written, conversational copy, than to well-edited, professional copy. It sounds more conversational, "hey this is just a guy reviewing the last game or whatever, not a company trying to sell its stuff". In the age of user-generated contend, being "too good" distances you from your customers base.
ReplyDeleteThere's something to that.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, I visited a controversial church. And I was debating with myself whether they were scammers or what. It actually helped when I saw that the public toilet was old and tiny! :-)
I figured if they were scamming people, they would have invested money in things like that being modern and beautiful.
(As it turns out, their international management organization is scamming the small churches, so they can't afford renovations!)
That was fun to watch. She didn't even mention the equipment for sound! Sound is another area where you can spend a tremendous amount of time and money to get from good amateur to professional quality. And it's another area where home made quality can make a video more "believable."
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