Four ways to create a better Zoom meeting or recording

Here are a few simple tips to create a better quality Zoom meeting.

Generally speaking we want to think of it as as nice of a studio setting as you can get it so that it's comfortable for you and you're listening audience and that it's well lit and the audio is good quality and there are minimal distractions.

One of the best things you can do is test it yourself whether you're on a computer or a tablet or a phone test the setting that you're in and make a mock meeting and see if you think it looks good and sounds good and the other people will respond favorably to it.

1. Create a “studio” space

The studio space does not have to be an expensive or elaborate professional environment. Creating a studio space means creating an environment that is pleasant, comfortable uncluttered, well lit, and that has good sound quality without too many distracting sounds. Think of it like it's an interview set and you're going to be having some very special guest sitting down talking to you so you want all the things around you to be pleasant. Maybe there are some plants or nice pictures eliminate all the clutter or junk hanging around or if you have a nice pleasant color wall or some thing that's neutral that just makes it a nice calm environment.

2. Focus on audio & sound

Try to think about how you're recording your sound. Are you using the computers microphone for example, or do you have a nice external microphone you can plug-in that will improve the sound quality of your zoom meeting? And make sure when you're speaking that it's not a echo chamber and then it sounds sharp and that you're speaking loudly enough but not too loud so that people can hear you clearly and keep an eye distractions and he sounds around you that may be distracting to the call. Dogs, cars, cell phones, televisions, radios, or anything else that will make distracting sounds during your zoom call can be very distracting.

So as they say in the movie business “all quiet on the set.” Oh and one other great tip for sound is using your Smart phone voice recorder to record your sound as a back up. Simply start your app and start recording and leave it there facing forward and you can record your audio as a back up in case you need better quality audio. I have personally recorded hundreds of podcast episodes myself using my iPhone voice recorder in a walk-in closet where the sound is dampened and nice and soft and it comes out excellent.

3. Be sure to work on lighting

Lighting is constantly changing in very important. It's very important that people can see you so you can have a good digital conversation. Do you want to make sure that the environment is neither too dark or too bright. And you wanna watch how lighting changes so for example notice how bright sunlight or a cloudy day affects the lighting in your recording area. Or notice how lighting changes when you turn on certain lights.

4. Preparation is important

Preparing for any meeting or event is always a good idea so that you know what you're talking about you're comfortable in the setting and it just makes for a much smoother conversation and guarantees that the point of the conversation or meeting gets across.

So preparing your environment which is you're setting your lighting and your sound is equally important in preparation as is the material you'll be discussing. But it's also important to relax tonight over prepare. So just prepare enough for a fun relaxing and rewarding conversation.

Helpful videos:

1. How to create better video: Scenery (Short video) https://youtube.com/shorts/aDBsoQWQk8g

2. How to create better video: Audio (Short video) https://youtu.be/M3O53e--RLA

3. How to create better video: Lighting (Short video)https://youtube.com/shorts/6PHVVq4BalI?feature=share

4. How to create better video: Testing (Short video)https://youtube.com/shorts/FtAmRfTdezc

How to create better Zoom Calls and video (15 min. video) https://youtu.be/3KGJTD62j6M

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About Mitchell Creative Group

Mitchell Creative Group, LLC is a micro-virtual creative agency outside of Boston— leveraging over 25 years professional experience with some of the biggest brands in the world, providing high-level creative support— quickly, and at a fair, flexible price. Branding and identity, marketing and advertising, packaging, web and print, film and video, podcasting and new media.

The Art of Animation

Some ideas, guides, and thoughts on animating content

By todd@mitchellcreativegroup.com

I grew up inspired by animation masters like Disney and Looney Tunes. We all marveled at the screens as characters, scenery, and storylines blended with sound, music tracks, and voice into emotional experiences that kept us coming back for more. It literally brought imagination to life. And it continues today.

Commercially, it’s not much different. Bringing stories to life helps elicit emotion. It sells products, brings awareness to situations, events, and worldly affairs. It builds community, teams, and excitement. Animation is an art that brings imagination and creativity to life— through the senses.

As technology has advanced over the years, we are able to create animations much easier, and much quicker than we were ever able to. Powerful computers, robust software, and well tuned designers can create amazing animated material—faster, better, and less expensive than old-day “cell animation” with huge teams hand-drawing animations—then, about 24 drawings per second of animation.

There are still companies today that do that— and do quite well, and create a unique niche in the industry. Claymation, stop-motion, and many other nifty techniques can be used to deliver a real unique personality to an animation.

This animation created for QuickPivot involved a small key team to develop a fun project outcome and what turned out to be a very successful campaign. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J0qhHnemd8&feature=youtu.be

There are many types of animation modern technology allows

Modern tech, also allows creative folks to multi-purpose material, and bring animation into the realm of recycled-content possibilities. For example, turning a static infographic into an animated version of it. Using the parts and pieces of the illustration and adding motion, effects, sounds, and music to it literally peels it off the static page and into motion. An exciting, engaging, and different format that can be used on multiple platforms—and now, you end up with 2 formats simultaneously.

In commercial design specifically, although imagination can take us anywhere, there are three primary types of animation that can be created to present content or data in an engaging, active manner— or to promote an idea, service, company, or product:

The three primary types of commercial animation:

1. Standard motion graphics. Here, we take any content, and simply add motion to it. It can literally be as simple as an animated Powerpoint document, or text and graphics with motion added in sequence, with or without effects or sound— on more upscale software like Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro, or even Apple’s Motion or iMovie.

2. Up-leveled animations and motion graphics. Here, content is put together and created with animation in mind. For example, an infographic is created— text and graphics. They then are “animated,” or put into motion, so as to walk the reader through the storyline, with sounds, music tracks, and captions to help create an emotional, engaging story.

3. High end animation. This varies quite a bit. This range can be a custom-built animation on a designer’s desktop computer— with graphics, text, voice talent, and music— on up through something Pixar might produce as a major motion picture. Nonetheless, either one can net a beautiful, exciting, emotional, and highly engaging product. These higher ended projects take more time, planning, creativity, and imagination to develop— but for the right reasons, are well worth it.

The cost to create animations

Before the cost is established when creating an animation, it’s important to think about the “goal” of the animation. Roughly, WHY are you creating it? Is it for fun, personal use— or is it to bring awareness to an idea, set up information, service, or product? Are you looking for new and exciting engagement content for your audience? Or maybe you’re on a mission to be the next Academy Award winner… the “why” and the goal helps you start off the right foot.

The cost in developing an animation can also vary—depending on four key factors: The importance of the project (simple stuff, or for something real important), the budget of the project (little to invest, or have more to invest), the size of the project (how big it is), and it’s value (what are you getting from it). And each of these factors impact the outcome. For example, big company, big budget, real important information, and a huge audience with engaging content— vs. simple data to a small audience will each warrant a different strategy. So step one is determining the four key factors.

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The four key factors to developing an animation

1. Importance. How important is the project? (not very, moderate, extremely)

2. Investment. What would an ideal ballpark budget range/investment be possibly? (under $1000, $5000, $10,000, $100,000, etc…)

3. Size. What size project do you envision? (simple and small, average, or major production— how long is it?)

4. Value. What is it’s value? (a lot of people will see it, not many people will see it, or millions around the world?)

So cost-wise, animations will vary depending on the four key factors above. Expect anywhere from around $1000 upwards of $10,000 plus— and with major motion pictures, documentaries, etc… upwards of $millions! Yes, a wide range of cost, but that’s the importance of pre-planning the project to know clearly what the goals are.

For basic to moderate animations, such as animating an infographic or even a slightly more advanced animation with voice talent, sounds, music tracks, and effects, expect an average range of $2500—$10K.

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The basic steps to creating an animation

Once you determine the general goal, or consider factors to developing the animation there are a few basic steps in getting started. Following these steps help you organize and ensure a successful final product. It also helps save time and cost, as well as help you fine tune it and craft it along the way to avoid costly and timely changes later on.

WARNING: Before you begin, consider the “team.” Who will be involved. Who will review, who will approve, provide funding for, etc… and ALWAYS work with a solid, experienced creative person on the team. Experience, talent, and high caliber creativity has a huge effect on the outcome. And having that creative expertise along the way helps keep it on the right track. Think of it as if Steven Spielberg or any other famous, successful director were producing or directing it… you’d want his/her input all along the way. Team up with a good creative professional.

This example illustrates the importance of “theme” to create an interesting and engaging concept behind content. https://youtu.be/Czi860QTImE

Here are the basic steps to consider in creating an animation, this is AFTER going through the four key factors to developing an animation:

1. Theme. What is it about? What’s the basic story line and idea. The “main pitch.”

2. Style. What flavor, type, or feel does it have? Fun and lighthearted, dark and spooky, animated cartoon characters, or a lot of video footage? Describe the style of it, and provide examples of what you might like here. Will there be voice talent, what kind of music? Describe it as best yo can here.

3. Rough storyboard. Storyboard the project. A rough walkthrough of the animation, describing scene by scene of what’s happening. Team can review and discuss the general flow and idea to hash out the best outcome.

4. Initial creative. Develop or sketch the basic artwork for the project to help the team envision and hash out the “look” of the artwork. There are many styles, and types of artwork that can be created so it’s imperative to work that out up front and make adjustments before final content is created.

5. Develop final content. Storyboards, script, screenplay… Write the actual script for the voice over, develop actual scene artwork. Add descriptions on each scene to walk through what’s happening. 

6. Get team sign off. Important to not have any costly and timely surprises later. Make sure everyone that needs to be on board, signs off and agrees on what’s to be done.

7. Development. Full gear creation here. Assign assets, get the voice talent hired and recording, artwork gathered and created, music and sound research, getting those assets in hand… work efficiently at getting done. Done promptly, but done well.

8. Review and fine tune. Team or client review to make any adjustments or fine tuned changes. There shoudn’t be many here, but expect a few to tweak it and get it accurate. Fine tune it and finalize!

9. Publish and promote. Get it out there! Upload to YouTube, Vimeo, or otherwise. Be sure to incorporate meta data, descriptions, and other SEO-related criteria to help make it more visible. Promote it on website, by direct email, and on all social media channels. This step is critical so it reaches its original objective—being viewed! Promote, promote, share— and promote!

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Here are some samples of our animation work:

Quick pivot example 1
https://youtu.be/brK7sKNhaog

The US Market Is Ready for Contactless Payments
https://youtu.be/xQVyrKStV9U

SAP -  Use Technology to Chart a Better Course for Your Business
https://youtu.be/Czi860QTImE

Data Dynamics. Manage Your Data
https://youtu.be/b9_vdXrl6XA

Adobe Digital Transformation
https://youtu.be/fCxNyMXiPaY

Quickwin 2 segmentation
https://youtu.be/0J0qhHnemd8

The Secret Sauce for Accelerating Indirect Sales
This example is from a presentation…
https://youtu.be/X2KeCwz3ATU

AAP seasons greetings
https://youtu.be/0QDMm2uYTcY

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Simple, practical, and inspired creative solutions. Free consulting. Free advice. Free first project for qualifiers. Creative strategies and solutions—made easy.

Get creative. http://www.mitchellcreativegroup.com, todd@mitchellcreativegroup.com, (508)494-8182.

© Copyright Todd Mitchell, Mitchell Creative Group, LLC