Cool and Sexy Videos Part 1: How Regina Builds a Video From Scratch

You know you’re supposed to be making videos. Every teacher in this business tells you the same thing: video builds trust faster than anything else you publish. So you set up your phone, hit record, and freeze the second the red light comes on. Forty-five minutes later you’ve got a dozen half-finished takes and nothing to show for it, and you start wondering if some people are just built for a camera and you aren’t.

As someone building a brand from scratch on video, you already know the gap between knowing you should be publishing and actually having published something today. Regina and Mike, who’ve been building their business and traveling full time since January 2014, spent a session at the Unstoppable Mastermind walking through exactly how one video actually gets made, the plain, unglamorous parts most people skip past on their way to the fun parts.

Why does one video need an intro, sound, and B-roll at all?

Regina breaks a video into five plain pieces before she ever presses record: the camera or phone, an intro and outro, sound, the footage itself, and the software you’ll cut it together in. None of it is exotic. What matters is how tight the rules are around each piece. An intro or outro, she says, should run no more than about five seconds, because its job is to get out of the way, not to perform. YouTube even lets you upload a standing three-second intro that attaches itself automatically to every future video you post, which solves the branding question once instead of every single time you sit down to edit.

Sound gets the same discipline. Instead of paying for stock music, Regina goes to the source directly: she finds independent artists and DJs on SoundCloud, messages them, and asks permission to lay a track under her travel footage in exchange for a credit and a link back to their page. Most say yes. That’s a small habit almost nobody else in this industry bothers with, and it’s the difference between a video that sounds like every other affiliate’s video and one that sounds like nobody else’s.

Then there’s B-roll, the extra footage layered over your talking-head shot the moment you mention something you can actually show instead of just describe. Say Regina’s line is about traveling through Prague. She’s got Prague footage ready to drop in right on that word. It sounds small. It isn’t. A video with cutaways feels produced. A video without them feels like a webcam somebody forgot was running.

What if you’re just not photogenic on camera?

This is the objection sitting underneath the whole session, even when nobody says it out loud. Regina doesn’t answer it with a pep talk. She answers it with her own numbers.

the first time I did my very first two minute video it took me two hours to do I think I did about 30 takes and I was sitting in my backyard and it started to get really dark but I finally finished it and it really took me about three to four hundred videos to where I started feeling comfortable

Three to four hundred videos before the camera stopped feeling like a threat. Not three. Not thirty. And she still gets nervous now, she says, she’s just used to it. That reframes the whole fear: the discomfort is proof you’re early in the rep count, not proof you’re doing something wrong, and the rep count is the entire mechanism. It also removes the other excuse people reach for first. As Regina puts it, “you don’t need a fancy pants camera your phone will work just fine for videos”.

What’s actually driving all this effort once the fear wears off?

Before she shoots anything, Regina sets an intention: what type of video is this, what feeling should the viewer walk away with, and what’s the one thing she wants them to do next. That last piece rarely needs to be a pitch. It can be as soft as pointing people toward tomorrow’s video or asking them to have a look at her Facebook page. The point is direction, not pressure. A video with no intended feeling and no next step is just footage, no matter how good the lighting is.

And the reason any of this is worth the effort is the same reason Regina keeps doing it: you record something once, and it works for you every time someone new presses play. As she puts it, “it gives me the ability to spend more time hanging out at the beach.” That’s the actual trade being made here, hours spent once on production against hours you’d otherwise spend repeating yourself live, forever.

Lighting gets one rule worth remembering on its own: make sure the light is hitting your face, not the space behind you. A gorgeous background with the sun behind you instead of on you leaves your face dark and the background glowing, which looks worse than a plain wall lit properly. Regina tests a spot by taking a still photo first, before she ever hits record, so she isn’t discovering the problem on take fifteen.

Most people treat their first videos as a referendum on whether they’re good at this. Regina treats her first several hundred as tuition. Once you adopt that framing, a bad take stops being evidence you’re not cut out for camera work and starts being one more rep on the way to feeling normal in front of a lens, which is the posture change this entire kind of marketing runs on.

The full session goes further than the outline above, including Regina’s live camera setup and the actual bridge video she shoots on location before the next session picks it up in the edit. Create your free account at empowernetwork.com/watch to watch the complete video and download the audio.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

Hey there, Regina here, and in this module you're going to learn about cool and sexy videos from thought to finish. And what you will learn, or what you will find in here, is an intro to this video thing, a breakdown of what elements to incorporate into your video creation to get to your end result, some starting thoughts. I'm going to let you get into my head and give you an idea of the things that I think about as I'm creating videos. You're going to learn snippets from my footage and walk through a live example.

And I'm going to show you how to integrate your video into your marketing workflow. Now, other than taking out a pen and paper to take notes throughout this module until the end, the best way to learn is to do it yourself. So an intro to this video thing. Well, why do you want to do videos?

Your audience, or the people that you're trying to attract, are going to be your potential buyers. So you want them to get to know, like, and trust you. And doing video is the best way for them to do that. Because not only are you going to be able to do that, but you're also going to be able to do that.

So why are you doing that? You're also automating yourself because you only really have to record things once, in theory. But by creating it once, and once you put it out there, people can play it over and over and over again. So you're basically automating yourself.

So I love this because it gives me the ability to spend more time hanging out at the beach. And why not? Why not? Video has been such a huge thing, and it's, you know, it's growing bigger.

It's growing bigger and bigger, especially with the, you know, with, you know, the new. So there are different types of videos that you can do. You can do any kind of video, really, but this is just what I do. Tutorials.

You can do sales. You can do motivational. Interview. Or you can do some just for fun.

And you can do some just for fun and directly tie your fun videos in with your brand. Because, you know, we're huge on branding. Because, I mean, think about it. A lot of people that you may be working with are going to be promoting the same offer, right?

So what's going to set you apart from other people is to get branded. And I'm not going to get into that, but I just wanted to let you know that you can still have these fun videos, tie them into your brand, and still have some sort of call to action at the end of your video. Breakdown of elements. You can use a camera or a phone.

A phone is absolutely just fun. It's absolutely just fine to use when you want to record stuff. Especially if you have, you know, the latest smartphones. The latest smartphones are really good.

Intro and outro. Sound. Video footage. And software.

And I know some of this is pretty obvious, but I just wanted to show this to you anyway so that you can get an idea of some of the elements that you need to be able to create your video. Now, intro and outro. An intro and outro are basically the first few seconds of your video and the last few seconds of the video. So the intro can have a title, an introduction, you know what, it's an introduction to your video.

And an outro could be your credits or your call to action. You don't necessarily have to have this, but sometimes it's good to have. And personally, I change my intro and outro up depending on the video. I just like to make things a bit different each time.

But, just as a rule of thumb, you ideally want it to, you ideally don't want it to be more than five seconds. You don't want to be too long because you really want to cut to the content. And with YouTube, YouTube allows you to do three second intros. And you can actually upload these three second intros in YouTube.

And what it'll do is it'll place these intros in front of all of your videos. Sound. Your voice. Music or sound effects.

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Gemendo is a mix of free and unpaid, royalty-free music. And Audio Micro, there's just some examples that you can kind of check out yourself and see what you think of those. If you know any independent artists, any indie bands, or producers, or DJs whose music you like, you can always try to find them on SoundCloud or YouTube, and what I do is I even message them on SoundCloud or find them on Facebook, or find them somewhere, and I email them and I just say, hey, I was just wondering if I can use your music for my videos.

Mike and I travel. We've been traveling full-time for a bit since January 2014, so I'll just say I'm doing some travel videos and just wanted to see if I can overlay your music on top of my videos, and I send them a link of my YouTube videos. Sometimes I send them a link of my Facebook page. I send them a link of my Facebook fan page as well, just so they can take a look at themselves and see what it's all about, and they can make the decision there.

And I just say, you know, I'll credit you however you want me to, or I'll just credit you. I'll put the link to your SoundCloud page or whatever. And generally, independent artists are pretty cool about it, and of course, you know, they want people to know their music, so usually they say hi. Sometimes they don't.

It just depends on them and their manager as well. Video footage. The video you shoot. And B-roll.

And I have to be honest, I only fairly recently knew what B-roll was, like the technical term for it, but basically what B-roll is is the secondary video footage that you use usually to overlay your video when you're talking, and if there's some of these terms that you don't quite understand, that's okay. You'll get the idea, and you can just listen to this training over again so you can get an idea. I love that. It's a great way to get an idea of, you know, what things are and things will click at some point.

So, but B-roll is, you know, and I do all the time, B-roll is just that extra footage. Let's say, for example, I am doing a bridge page. I'm doing a bridge video, which I'm actually going to show you live. You're doing a bridge video that bridges you, your brand, and the offer that you have, and let's say, for example, for me, I'll just say, hi, I'm Regina, and you found this video.

And then I'll say, hey, I'm Regina, and I'm going to show you a bridge video. And you might be like, okay, so you want to show me a bridge video. And I'll just say, hey, I'm Regina, and I'm doing a bridge video. And then I'll say, found me here, here, and here.

And I, you know, my husband and I travel the world. And when I say things like, you know, travel the world, I can overlay B-roll footage of, you know, maybe some footage from Spain or when I was in Prague or somewhere in Europe. Royalty free video. You can go ahead and take a look up, look at royalty free video.

You can go ahead and look that up. There are, I'm sure there are a ton of places that offer royalty free video for you to use for your videos as well. Some software you can use. TechSmith Camtasia.

Camtasia is generally known for screencasting. And you might know what that is by now. And if you don't, you know, it's good to know that Camtasia is really good for screencasting. I got used to using Camtasia.

As an editor. And I really liked it. I recently moved away from it. And I will show you what I use now.

But Apple iMovie comes standard with Macs and Apples. And it's really easy to use. Very, very intuitive. There are templates.

You know, there are title templates and all different types of filters that you can use that are pretty cool. Apple Final Cut Pro. Now, I've used Apple iMovie. Before when I first got my computer.

And now, I just moved from Camtasia to Final Cut Pro, which I really like. And I really moved to Final Cut Pro. You know, I'd always wanted to learn how to use it. But I really moved to it because I needed some more features that Camtasia didn't have to offer.

At least Camtasia for Mac. You can use Microsoft Movie Maker or Adobe Premiere. And of course, if there are… If these here don't appeal to you, then there are a ton of other applications that you can use to edit your videos.

So some starting thoughts in my head. Oh, man. Okay. Are you ready for this?

So I generally set an intention or an outcome. Especially if the videos that I'm doing are more tutorials, more instruction-based, or even interviews. What are the kinds of… I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Yeah. So it's just… I set an intention so that I think about as I'm going through the process. A lot of times, when I'm just doing videos for travel, I just shoot and I set the intention when I start to edit that video.

So you want to think of what type of video you want to create. And you want to think about the feeling that you want to convey. And this is actually quite interesting because… And I might even sound a bit silly to you because…

Yeah. …I think it's interesting. Yeah. to you, but think about it.

If you are trying to think of what feeling that you want to convey, the feeling that you want your viewers to see, it'll give them a good sense of what they're supposed to feel like because your videos or any type of content that you do, whether it's blog posting or any of your emails or whatever, the feeling that you want to convey, if you actually feel those feelings, your content is an extension of who you are. So your viewers are going to be able to feel that. And what is your call to action? I think of my call to action and my call to action doesn't necessarily have to be click the link now or it doesn't have to be super salesy.

I can do a video series, maybe a three-part video series, for example, and maybe after the first one, I'll say, you know, in this video, I talked about this. Tomorrow, I'm going to be talking about this. So come check me out when I, after I release my video. And have a look, watch it.

You can also use a call to action as simple as, well, check out my Facebook page. So it can be anything. It doesn't necessarily have to be super pitchy. You know, like I say, like I do a lot of travel videos and quite often I'll just be saying, you know, next week I'm going to Barcelona and check out some videos there from Barcelona when I release them.

It just doesn't make sense. And for a live example, this is going to be fun. For this live example that I'm going to do for you today, I'm going to, well, my intention is to, for this example, is to connect my brand to my offer. So I'm actually going to do a really simple bridge video for you.

And this is actually perfect for you, not only for, you know, the editing standpoint and video creation, but also for, just like what I said earlier, I'm going to do a really simple bridge video for you. There are going to be a ton of people that are offering the same thing as you, and this is the best way to connect your brand to your offer. So that's what I want to do in this video. And the type of video this is going to be is going to be, you know, the basic bridge video with B-roll.

And the feeling that I want to convey is inspired action. And the call to action I'm going to give is, I'm actually going to give click the link below or click the link to the next video. So one of the important things of doing a video, especially for, well, for this bridge video or even just any sort of instructional video or anything really, is picking a place to record. I say relevant to your niche because, like I said, as a traveler, I'm not going to necessarily do a video inside an office in front of computers.

Even though that can show authority, that's not what my niche is going to want to see. So I generally do my videos outdoor, especially my bridge videos. I'll do them outdoor in a really cool place. Maybe I'm out in the garden somewhere.

Maybe I'm out canyoning in Spain somewhere and I'm wearing a silly wetsuit. You know, I'll do videos there. Maybe not for a bridge page. But even if you, even if you do, if you are a stay-at-home mom, stay-at-home dad, you work at home, sitting in an office is fine as well because, you know, that's what you do.

If you want to, if you are a professional or you tend to dress up more and that's just your style, there's nothing wrong with doing your videos inside. I just, my preference is, outside because it's a lot nicer and people expect to see these pretty sights. So you want to be aware of your background when you're picking a place to record. So you can have this amazing background, but it might not come out right.

So the lighting in the background behind you might be too bright and when that happens, you're going to look too dark. So you want to make sure that there is some sort of light that's hitting your face. Not necessarily too bright, but if you're indoor, you can probably get a spot. So you can kind of take a spot light and have it shine on your face.

If you're outside, make sure the sun is facing you. Or if there is no sun, which is probably one of the best lighting conditions is when it's cloudy, but it's still a bit bright. Make sure that there's light in your face and that you're not in the shade. So do a couple of tests.

Sometimes what I do is I'll take a photo of a certain area of where I want to be recorded and that will give me an idea of what the video will actually look like. look like so yeah make sure that there's light on your face if your video is perfect from the beginning and there's something wrong or you're a magician I mean don't get me wrong I'm sure a lot of you are really good with videos and you might be really great with videos and that's totally fine but for the most part a lot of us just don't want to do videos at first and it took me about well the first time I did my video the first time I did my very first two minute video it took me two hours to do I think I did about 30 takes and I was sitting in my backyard and it started to get really dark but I finally finished it and it really took me about three to four hundred videos to where I started feeling comfortable and even now I still get nervous talking on video but I'm used to it and you know I know that I want to be able to get my my point across I want to be able to get people to know me and it's okay to feel that way too and it just shows that you're human.

So you don't need anything fancy like I said earlier you can just use your phone and make the intention to get better each time you don't need a fancy pants camera your phone will work just fine for videos and yeah you'll get better and better each time. I know that I did a 90-day video challenge and one of the intentions that I made was to to shoot when to shoot only one cut for each video every single time and it didn't start out like that in the beginning but I got better and better and to be honest when I started editing because I taught myself how to edit I didn't know how to do it before but when I started editing it was actually my crutch because I what I would do is I would shoot a video and then I would say okay well I don't have to worry about that I'm just gonna edit it out later but the thing is I still try my best to shoot a video and make sure that it's a good video.

I make sure that cut is somewhat decent because sometimes it takes less time to reshoot something than it is to actually edit something is that editing can get quite tedious and sometimes it doesn't really quite work out that way so trying your best to shoot it you know shoot a good video once or you know all the way through is you know really great intention. Take a ton of extra footage of course traveling for us you know everywhere we go we go to some pretty cool places so we have we have so much footage we have enough footage to last us years I think but it's use it's useful for b-roll and it's just useful if you want to do little fun clips as well things that you're doing so now I'm actually gonna get into the live example are you ready for this all right let's go