Courses

Corporate Video Essentials: Post-Production

In this third installment of the Corporate Video Essentials series, Rich Harrington and Amy DeLouise detail the post-production process. Once you’ve finished shooting, you need to take all the information you captured—both the actual footage and any intellectual knowledge or project experience—and turn it into a polished, final product for your client. Rich and Amy cover the major aspects of post-production, starting with reviewing deliverables, using interview transcripts to propel your workflow, organizing your footage, and assembling a rough cut. From there, they show how to build a soundtrack with interviews, voiceovers, background sounds, and music. Amy and Rich also cover working with graphics to both convey information and give your film a refined, professional look. Finally, they show you how to polish up your rough cut with color correction, transitions, and reviews, how to export your work for client review, and steps you can take to future-proof your work.

Corporate Video Essentials: Production

When you’re shooting a video for a corporate client, there are a multitude of considerations you need to address before, during, and after the shoot, and many of them have little to do with the actual shooting of the video. In this course, instructors Amy DeLouise and Richard Harrington share their proven strategies for a production workflow to help you ensure your next corporate shoot goes as smoothly as possible. Amy and Richard cover the entire timeline of the video, from preproduction logistics, equipment choices, and time and locations, to planning and conducting interviews, getting releases signed, and keeping your media files backed up and stored safely. There are many factors that go into a successful corporate video production, and with Richard and Amy’s tips you’ll be able to prepare better and avoid common pitfalls.

Corporate Video Essentials: Preproduction

Planning is a critical step to creating successful corporate video content. You want to avoid budget surprises, build an accurate schedule that works for key stakeholders, and ensure that what you shoot tells the best possible story to your target audience. In this course, instructors Amy DeLouise and Richard Harrington share their proven strategies for a preproduction workflow that will help you map out your project and be ready to go into production. Discover how to properly scope the project, research your subject and find your story, identify your crew, set your schedule and location, and transition to production. These useful tips will help any video creators who want to break into corporate video production ensure their shoots are more professional and efficient by planning ahead.

Launching Your Creative Business

Launching, or re-launching, a creative business can be a challenge. You want to focus on the creative work, but there are business considerations and strategies to address. In this course, instructor and “serial entrepreneur” Amy DeLouise shares tips and tools to get you ready for your creative business launch. Amy shows you how to get the right experts in your corner to support your business. Before launch, you need to identify your target customers and how your business uniquely solves a problem for them. Amy steps through important networking dos and don’ts and offers several tips to make your brand more visible. Amy goes over strategies you’ll need to achieve financial success, such as defining your overhead, making sure you get paid, and planning for the future. She points out the importance of being able to reinvent and adjust to keep your company relevant, then concludes with strategies for a smooth launch week.

Running a Video Production Business

Get a crash course in running a successful video production business. Whether you are managing a team within a larger organization or running an independent firm, this course can help you get strategic with your productions, solve on-set problems, and deliver results to your clients. Rich Harrington and Amy DeLouise are experienced production company owners who also consult regularly with top in-house teams. They kick off the course with some advice on defining your market and your mission and building out a solid customer base. Rich and Amy also show how to build an effective team of contractors and full-time staff, and establish a technical workflow for smoother productions. Plus, get tips for creating detailed proposals and competitive pricing to help you land more jobs.

Producing a Video Crew

Getting what you want out of a video shoot is often a juggling act. You need to avoid budgeting issues, get your crew on board with your creative vision, and plan logistics for the day of the shoot, among a myriad of other tasks. In this course, instructor Amy DeLouise steps through this process, sharing what you need to know to successfully guide projects using outside production teams. Learn how to choose the right team and gear, select your video and audio specs, determine your shooting location, plan your production schedule, and ensure that your crew works well with your internal team. Plus, Amy shares day-of-shoot technical and logistical checklists that can help you reach the finish line with everything you need.

Multi-Platform Video Producing

Become more confident in your multiplatform delivery strategy and discover how to be more creative with your content. This workshop is designed to help video producers who find they need to deliver video content to multiple platforms simultaneously, including web, large screens, mobile screens, and more. It can help you make the right decisions—before shooting—to reach the broadest audience possible. Instructor Amy DeLouise shows how to use the many tools and platforms available, plan for a variety of delivery formats, and improve the audience experience on a range of devices, including small and large screens. She also shows how to increase your reach by ensuring accessibility and maximize distribution opportunities by future-proofing your project. Plus, learn how to scope your projects appropriately by setting a budget.

Freelance Work Strategies for Video and Motion Graphics Creators

To be a successful creative freelancer, you need to mesh your artistic abilities with managing a small business. In this course, Amy DeLouise helps creative video professionals learn the strategies, tools, technologies, and skills they need to survive and thrive in a gig economy. After helping you determine if the freelance life would be right for you, Amy explains how to define your brand identity. She then dives into several essential business concepts and shares marketing, sales, and networking techniques for growing your freelance business. Plus, learn how to manage relationships with clients, set your rate, ensure that you get paid, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Video Editing: Moving from Production to Post

With projects moving at lightning speed, “fix it in post” is no longer possible. (If it ever was!) However, learning smart production strategies will streamline video editing and maximize your creative choices. Watch this course to learn how to prepare your projects, including interview-driven, multicamera, and asset-driven productions, for editing in Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro.

Amy DeLouise reviews production planning, on-set strategies for effective media management, and tips for creating transcripts, editing scripts, and asset lists for editors. During post-production kickoff, she talks about managing your client’s expectations: balancing their needs with the realities of production. With any luck, you can reconcile the two in post, using Amy’s instructions for setting up Final Cut and Premiere Pro projects for success. The final chapter includes bonus post-production strategies for future-proofing and exporting projects.

Script Writing for Nonfiction Video

Content creators are producing more reality-based videos than ever before. Nonfiction video can promote advocacy, fundraising, training, and even “edutainment.” But producing any video without a solid script is a challenge. Even corporate or documentary films. By learning an effective script writing and script-to-screen process, producers can lower their overhead costs and improve storytelling impact and audience engagement.

In this course, you’ll learn how to write nonfiction scripts that work with a variety of budgets. Taught by Amy DeLouise, a passionate educator who has scripted hundreds of award-winning videos, it’s packed with tools and tips for every level of writer and producer. Her script-to-screen workflow will help you develop your story goals and structure, create a narrative arc, work with sound bites, find the right tools to write your script, and pitch your script to clients and stakeholders.

The Art of Video Interviews

Don’t get caught up in lighting and camera work and neglect the interview itself. Producer Rich Harrington and communication specialist Amy DeLouise team up to show you how the pros prepare for, organize, and conduct great video interviews. Learn about performing background research before you “set foot on set,” positioning the subject in front of the camera, building trust, avoiding common mistakes in questioning, capturing secondary audio for use in a podcast, and much more. Amy brings years of interviewing expertise to this important subject, while Rich offers tips that will help make editing easier and reduce the amount of money spent in post-production.