Feltpad

Video is one of most powerful tools to share your message, but producing a video can be a pricey undertaking for a small business. On the low-end, if you’re lucky, you might have a professional friend who could get a video shot and edited for $2,500 – not counting paying actors, renting physical space, and wardrobe. Even “cheap” services like Epipheo or MotionCrafter will set you back a minimum of $4,000.

The alternative that Feltpad chose was to produce a video using an old version of iMovie, free software programs Gimp for image editing and Audacity for audio, and stock photos from Fotolia. The total cost of the video was $55 for the photos plus approximately 7 hours of development and experimenting time – but you also gain some knowledge along the way.

Here’s the result:

While it might not be as pretty as a video with a $5,000+ budget, it gets the job done for whole lot less money.

Here are the general steps that we took to produce the video:
1. Layout a basic storyboard on paper
2. Simplify the storyboard, think about what you want the images to look like
3. Write a script
4. Start looking for images on Fotolia
5. Take your time and pick the right photos
6. Revise your script
7. Use Gimp to edit the photos as needed
8. Drop the photos into iMovie, add transitions, etc
9. Record your voiceovers using Audacity
10. Use Audicity’s “Noise Reduction” tool
11. Export your audio files
12. Import your audio files to iMovie
13. Rework the timing of your video in iMovie
14. Export and upload to YouTube

Tags: hacks, video

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 at 7:31 am and is filed under Business Hacks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.