Reasons why you need to have video as part of your business marketing

Video today has become a bigger and bigger part of life on social media and if you are not leveraging that as part of your business marketing then you can be loosing out. Here are some of the reasons why you should be using video.

Video Increases Sales

Studies have shown that adding a product video or an explainer video on your page can increase the likelihood of a sale by 80%. Over 60% of businesses have started using video as a part of their marketing strategy and over 80% of those feel that having video has become an important part of their marketing strategy.

Mobile Users Love Video

Almost 90% of mobile users will watch video on their phone. People are more likely to stop and watch a video then stop to read an ad. Plus the number of smartphone users keeps growing every year.

Video is More Personable

When users watch a video they get to see your personality and passion for what you do. Sure you can read all about a product or service, but to have it explained by you will get you a lot more engagement.

Video can help your ranking on Google

Google now owns YouTube so having an embedded video on your website will increase your chances of showing up on the first page of Google search.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the reasons why video is so important for business and brands these days. While hiring a video production company to make these videos for you may not be the cheapest option your return on your investment will be well worth it. David Spector media has all of the proper tools to help you produce, shoot and edit a video that will help your business grow. If you are interested in having a free consultation to discuss options to help your business with video please visit the contact me page and fill out the form and I will get back to you to schedule an appointment.

New name, Same business

Hi everyone happy Sunday and I wanted to share with you some exciting news. Since my business is expanding into video I decided that I wanted that change to be reflected in my business name. I gave this a lot of thought on what to change it to and I finally decided on David Spector Media.

I was thinking about David Spector Productions or multi-Media but after talking to a few friends of mine and they all said the same thing "Keep it Simple" I decided to go with David Spector Media.

I kept the same logo design and just made the changes to the text. This will keep some consistency as returning visitors to my website will see basically the same logo. I want to play around with some of the themes that Squarespace has and see if there is anything I like better.

Now the next steps are to change the name on all my social media sites and order new business cards. I will continue to keep www.DavidSpectorPhotography.com linked to the site for a while to let everyone get used to the change and update their bookmarks. 

So that's going to wrap it up for this weeks blog post. I want to get back to work on the site and other changes I need to make. I will see you all next week.

My biggest investment in my business

Hi everyone I apologize for missing a blog post last week but I was away in Atlanta visiting my sister and her family. If you read my blog post from a few weeks ago you may remember how I was investing in a video camera as the video side of my business was expanding and I needed to have a proper video camera in order to be able to do more jobs with a camera that has a lot more capability then my Sony A7II.

I did a lot of research on cinema cameras before I decided what to buy. I looked at Canon, Black Magic, Sony, Red and I decided on the Sony PXW-FS5. The main reason I went with Sony is that since I already own a Sony camera with Sony lenses I would be able to use those lenses on the new camera. Another main selling feature was the price point. At $6450.00 for the kit that I bought is the best value for the buck in terms of performance and features. Yes $6450 is a lot of money to spend but compared to the bigger brother to the FS5 the FS7 mark ii we are around $12K for that camera and even more for some of the other camera's

Another selling feature to this camera was the size. It is a very small compact camera which is perfect for run and gun style filming and is a great documentary camera which will become the main camera for my film I am doing on abandoned buildings. The body weighs in at just over two pounds so even with the lens and the handles on it I can easily handhold this for long periods of time. 

The Sony FS5 is also filled with some unique features as well. The biggest feature in the built in variable ND filters. Now most cinema cameras have built in ND filters but this camera has a variable ND built in so you can gradually increase or decrease the amount of ND in very small increments. Other cameras have hard stops of ND.

Another great feature is clear image zoom. This allows up to an extra two times of zoom on any lens including primes. Sony has figured out the math to do a digital zoom without any degradation of the picture quality. This means that even prime lenses are now zoom lenses. 

Super slow motion on this camera is really good to. I can do up to 240FPS super slo-mo in 1080 HD at 8 second bursts. It can go up to 960FPS but it is in SD and the picture is not usable. 

I have been spending a lot of time playing with this camera and I have a lot to learn still with it. I have shot one video with it for the Peace Camera YouTube channel and I then shot a video about it that I will link below. I will see you all next week.

EPK videos

Hello and happy Sunday everyone. It's a cloudy Sunday and the weather cant decide what it wants to do so today is a good day to stay inside and get caught up on things. 

I am happy to say that I am finally all caught up on my client work. I am waiting to hear back from one client on some changes they want made but that should not take me long to fix once they send me that information. 

So recently I have been filming EPK videos otherwise known as Electronic Press Kit's. These are short videos that a person or business can use to promote themselves or their business. I really enjoy making these videos for people and in today's social media world I think it is one of the best ways to promote yourself.

These video will range from 3 to 10 minutes depending on what you want to get out on the video but 3 to 5 minutes is the sweet spot. So my friend and fellow photographer Lauren reached out to me to do one for her business and I drove out to her studio in Smithfield and spent a few hours with her doing an interview and then capturing video of her working shooting a client of hers. 

Then it was time to figure out a way to tell her story in the best way possible. This is what takes the most time. I have to go through all of the footage to pick out the best clips and then put them together in a way that best tells the story. For Lauren I tried three different edits before I decided that I was happy with the flow of the video and then I had to had all of the B-Roll and effects and then send it to her for approval.

She sent me some changes that she wanted done and after I made those changes she was happy with the video. 

So if you think you would like to have one of these videos made for yourself to promote your brand or anything else please feel free to reach out to me through the contact me page on my website or email me at David@davidspectorphotography.com. Prices start at $500 for this service. I will link the video below for you to watch. 

Investing in my video business

Hello everyone in this weeks post I want to talk about a very exciting purchase I made on Friday evening that I hope will take the video side of my business to the next level. Since I have been doing video more and more I decided that I want to invest in a proper video camera. My Sony A7ii is a wonder camera for video and I love it but it has it's limitations. For me having a 30 minute recording limit is the biggest limitation. When I am shooting an event or wedding and I know that after 30 minutes I will have to stop and restart the recording and potentially lose an important moment or have to wait for a pause in the action to stop and restart the recording can be very stressing. The 2nd biggest factor in purchasing a true dedicated video camera is audio. While my A7ii has a mic input and i have a shotgun mic on the top of the camera I also have to use an external recorder to try to capture cleaner audio as I cant always be right on top of the action and depend on the mic to capture good audio. 

4K video is another option that I wanted to have. My A7ii can only shoot in 1080HD and since 4K is getting more mainstream these days I wanted to have that ability so shoot 4K video.

So what did I decide on you may ask? Well after doing lots of research  I decided on the Sony PXW-FS5 camera. For my run and gun shooting style this seemed to be the perfect fit for me. It's a lightweight, modular 4K cinema camera. It shoots full 4K video in 8 bit format but I have an option to upgrade to full 4K raw output to an external recorder at 12bit. 1080 HD video up to 240FPS in 10 bit 4:2:2 which is what I will be doing most of my recording at gives me a lot of flexibility.  As far as audio it has 2 XLR inputs with separate audio control for each input and will allow me a lot more flexibility. 

The camera also has a ton more features that I wont go into detail about now but I know this camera will allow me to do so much more and can open up a lot more jobs for me. 

I hope to get the camera in my hands this week and start playing around with it. Once I get is in my hands I will do some videos on it and upload it to my YouTube channel as well. 

This was an expensive purchase for me as the camera comes in at $6500 with the options that I choose but I hope to make it all back within the year or less. I will do another post on this once I have it in my hands and I can do a full review on it. until then have a great week and I will see you next Sunday.

Editing, Editing and more Editing

Hi everyone happy Sunday. I am releasing this blog post very late as I wasn't very functional for most of the day today. Jeannie and I got up at 4:30 am Saturday morning to drive to Charlotte for a shoot that she had that started at 8am. While we had an amazing shoot by the time we got home we were both wiped out and I crashed on my couch for a few hours and then went over to her place to crash some more. When I woke up this morning I was still feeling very tired so I got home and sat on the couch napping on and off for most of the day. It's 3pm now and I am feeling awake enough to get some work done.

So the topic for today's blog as said by the title is all about editing. If you read my blog post from two weeks ago I talked about how video work is taking over my business and the amount of video editing that needs to get done almost seems unending. I am getting close to completing the wedding video that I shot a few weeks ago. On Wednesday of this week I shot a corporate video that was an awards ceremony and i have to deliver that in a few days. That video is 98% complete as I am just awaiting a few clips from the client that I hope to have tomorrow and I can then finish up the video. On Friday I shot an EPK video (electronic press kit) for a photographer friend of mine to promote her business and I am now copying all of the data over for that as I type this.

Needles to say I have a lot of work ahead of me sitting at my computer in Adobe Premiere pouring through the footage from all of these events and putting them together to tell a good story. After I finish the wedding video I still need to make a 2nd video that will be a highlight reel about 10 to 15 minutes in length. The main video is almost two hours long.

So with that said I am going to end this blog post and get back to work even though there is a Star Wars marathon on TV and I would love to watch that instead but I need to get this workload decreased. Have a great week and I will see you next Sunday.

Is video taking over my photography?

HI everyone in this weeks blog I wanted to talk about how doing video is starting to take over the photography side of my business. Last year I got the opportunity to do the behind the scenes photography on two short films and I completely fell in love with the filmmaking process. I had been doing video for my YouTube channel up to that point but working on the set of those films really ignited a fire in me for filmmaking.

Fast forward to the last few months and I was put in charge of creating a YouTube channel for the camera store I work at Peace Camera and I put out a video every single week. So each week I need to come up with a topic to talk about then plan, shoot, edit and then publish that video which takes a lot of work but for me it's quite a lot of fun and I decided to add videography as part of my business plan.

My friend Steve recommended me to do the videography at a wedding that he was doing the photography for and the client hired me over the phone and I am currently in process of editing that video. I also will be shooting a EPK (electronic press kit) for another photographer friend of mine in a couple of weeks. A EPK is a commercial to promote yourself for those who were wondering and in today's age of social media I think this is a fantastic way of doing this.

While I still love still photography and it will always be my first love expanding into video is the right move for me. So if you think you would be interested in hiring me for any photography or videography work please feel free to contact me though the contact me page on my site or send me an e-mail at David@DavidSpectorPhotography.com

This is going to do it for this weeks blog. I am sorry it came out so late and that it is so short but I need to get back to work editing this wedding video. I will share the highlight video once it is done.