How to Create a Storyboard

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Storyboards are one of the most essential steps when it comes to creating a quality video production, which is why video production companies invest so much time in ensuring that they come up with a solid storyboard before they begin filming. Like a script, a storyboard helps guide the production in terms of how scenes need to be arranged and what it’s ultimately going to look like. Storyboards are essentially just scripts for the video production team.

Now that you know just how important these storyboards are, you might be wondering how you can get started on creating one for your next production project. Our video production team here at Fusion 360 Studios can help you on your storyboarding journey, so here are some tips to help get you started.

Start with a Template

Before anything, you’re going to want to set up a template for your storyboard. Without a starting point, it can be hard to know what you should do first, but templates act as the starting point for any video production project. Usually, this template will just be a bunch of empty rectangles in which storyboard artists fill in shot by shot. You can make your own or you can find templates online that you could print out.

Add the Script

The reason video production companies spend so much time on storyboarding is because it’s so much more than just drawing pictures, it’s providing ideas and visuals for the director and scriptwriters. Sometimes, these images are accompanied by short blurbs that end up being used in the script. Under each rectangle, you should add a line of script or dialogue that corresponds with the specific scene. This will help in the next step — sketching out the story.

Sketching

Once you’ve filled in your template with the script, you’re going to want to sketch out what each scene will look like. This will help your team know what they need to include for each scene in terms of props, actors and which location you should be shooting in.

Add Notes

No good storyboard is complete without notes. These small additions can go a long way in ensuring a smooth production, and they include things such as descriptions of what’s happening in each scene, camera angles, movements and special effects.

Video production companies understand the importance of a good storyboard, so if you need help bringing your next video idea to life, don’t hesitate to call us here at Fusion 360 Studios. We have our video production game on lock and we’re ready to help you create something revolutionary.

The Importance of Storyboarding

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How would you describe the importance of sending an email to another colleague or client? Could you get by without it? What about advertisements of all forms — billboards, social media posts, online and television commercials, magazine ads, etc. — how easy would it be to find products that are best for you needs? Both of these examples depict what different forms of communication contribute in our everyday lives, and when it comes to storyboarding at a video production company for a film or video, directors and video producers rely heavily on what the storyboard communicates.

Storyboarding is a Form of Communication

When it comes to films and video productions, people look at directors as geniuses that envision everything, but what people don’t realize is how much directors rely on their team. One of those teams within a video production company is the storyboarding team. While a director may be responsible to make a piece of work come alive, they work out their ideas onto paper with the storyboard teams in order to see if it will work. However, a lot of the ideas for a video or film may originate from the storyboard because the artists can sometimes develop and visualize a concept or idea better.

Similar to how directors feed off of the storyboarding, the writers of the production do as well. Video production companies understand that the storyboard artists are often the original source of an idea, and that is partially why their contributions are so important. When people draw out an idea or thought, a lot of the unknown pieces come together. Finding those unknown pieces help complete everything that is needing to be communicated in a video production. In a way, storyboard artists are simply great communicators.

Can Films and Videos Survive Without Storyboards?

When people think of storyboarding, they often think only of pictures, but it is much more than that. Storyboarding effectively sets the blueprints of a film or complex video.

The question you might have is, do you really need storyboards to make a video or film? To answer that though, it might be good to ask, can companies live without email? It might be a possibility, but the overall efficiently would drop significantly. So too with storyboarding. Proper video production companies storyboard their films and even some videos because it makes the overall production run smoother, clearer and provide much better results.

If you have an idea for your company’s brand film, commercial or some other product/company-related video and need help bringing it to life, contact us at Fusion 360 studios. We are a legit video production company that has what it takes to produce exactly what you need.

 

Creating a Social Media Plan

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Whether your company’s line of work can build hundreds of thousands of followers or a couple hundred, utilizing social media is a terrific way to build brand recognition. However, with social media still in its infancy compared to long-time business owners, how to market a company successfully on social media can be challenging for older, established brands. What we’d suggest is building a social media plan!

As a social media marketing company, we see companies jumping into the thick of it without a clue about what they are doing. Before creating an account and posting random content without any direction, make a concrete plan first.

Assess Where You Are

The first thing you will want to do is assess what kind of social media presence your company currently holds. Unless your accounts are a complete disaster, don’t scrap everything and start from ground-up quite yet, you can learn a bit from your current following. For example, you can learn what has worked and what hasn’t worked with your posts and what kind of people follow you already. This kind of information can guide you as you continue to develop your plan.

Identify Your Target Audience

Every company should already know a bit about their audience through other research the company has performed, but they might not know how their audience behaves online. Social media marketing companies aim to help their clients reach their existing audience and find additional ways to contact new potential consumers. In order to do this, these social media marketing companies figure out when certain demographics use their social media, what social channels they are on, how often they click or swipe on an ad, and how often individuals buy from or interact with companies. Figuring out these things and optimizing the information you gain will significantly raise your social media game plan.

Determine How to Measure Success

Once you understand what your capabilities are and how your audience behaves, you can start setting goals and deciding what success is for your company. Having a large following may be nice, but it does not define social media success. In fact, things like the ratio between your following and the interaction they have with your content is a better measurement of your success. Decide for yourself what your company wants to see in terms of success and goals.

Create, Post and Follow Your Relevant Content

It is near the end of your social plan that you should start planning what kind of content you want to post, how frequent you will post and by what means you will create your content. Within all of this, just as social media marketing companies do, you should take advantage of helpful social media tools and analytics that help you schedule out and track your content.

Seeing the Results

In the end, once the wheels are turning, you need to continuously review your content and make sure that your plan is working. Even if you see some followers unfollow you and your growth plateau, don’t stress it, you still might be succeeding. If you need help with your social media plan, contact a social media marketing company like us, Fusion 360! We will be able to help you see the results you want and secure your social media success.

What is Digital PR?

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Today, everything is online. From products to news, you can instantly find and order anything on the internet — this is crucial when it comes to advertising methods. Marketing companies need to stay on top of their online marketing techniques if they want to thrive in the world of digital advertising. One of the best ways to do this is by embracing digital PR, a modern and evolved version of traditional PR.

What is Traditional PR

Instead of targeting only print publications, digital PR takes it takes aim at online publications to increase brand awareness. Marketing companies use digital PR every day with things like publishing articles online, working with influencers and writing web copy.

Digital PR is the new norm.

Types of Digital PR

As mentioned above, here are some of the most common types of digital PR that marketing companies use daily to yield results:

  • Press releases containing newsworthy content
  • Creating and sharing infographics
  • Offline press events
  • Blogger events
  • Influencer marketing
  • Affiliate programs
  • Creating and publishing blogs and articles
  • Creating and publishing brand videos and other video content

How Does Digital PR Help Brands?

Digital PR not only helps brands raise awareness for their business online, but it also has a positive impact on a website’s SEO. In order for marketing companies to achieve this, however, they have to have a working understanding of Google’s guidelines and ranking signals to improve their client’s website visibility in the search results.

SEO campaigns and digital PR go hand-in-hand, and if you don’t utilize digital PR, your SEO campaign can prove to be useless. Marketing companies like us here at Fusion 360 know how to make sure that your brand is making a mark in your industry.

A good digital PR strategy will help your business generate leads that are going to promote your product or service in front of relevant audiences. Marketing companies know that making sure the strategy is solid before putting it into play is important because the more people engage with your brand online, the more leads you’re going to generate, which will help our brand grow.

Digital PR is crucial if you’re looking to really make an impact in your respective industry, and marketing companies can help you put together an effective strategy. If you’re looking to up your digital advertising game, make sure to give us a call here at Fusion 360 Agency.

5 Video Lighting Tips

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Lighting up your video is just as important as writing it, filming it and editing it. All of these aspects of video production need to be executed properly on their own in order to bring them together to create one finished masterpiece. Video production companies work hard to ensure that this happens, and today we’re going to be talking about the top lighting tips to help make sure that you get the best possible shots while filming your next video project.

So, if you’re struggling to get adequate lighting while on set, you might want to take the time to read this blog on the 5 top video lighting tips.

Use Three-Point Lighting

Using three-point lighting is going to help when you shoot interviews, promo videos, webinars and other related content. Three-point lighting is a common lighting setup that consists of a key light, fill light and a backlight. The key light is the main light used to brighten up a subject. The fill light offsets the key light’s brightness by taking away the shadow cast on the subject. This is accomplished by placing the fill light opposite from the key light. The backlight separates your subject and the background and creates depth to prevent flat shots. Having all three lights is ideal, but you can live without the backlight.

Check You Locations for Lighting Opportunity

Video production companies also like to scout out their shoot locations to make sure that they know exactly how the scene can and will be lit. Depending on your location, scouting it in advance could save you money on lighting as well. Indoor locations are trickier because you could get good natural lighting in the venue or you might have to light up more area to give you the brightness you’re looking for.

Utilize Soft Lighting

This lighting technique requires more lighting equipment, but it’ll help create a softer appearance when it comes to facial features in actors, hosts and interviewers. The closer a light is to your face, the harder that light will be, meaning that you’ll have strong angles and your face might be too well lit. Soft light is achieved by placing lights farther away from the subject.

Determine Your Budget

You’ll be able to achieve decent lighting no matter what your budget is, and while not every filmmaker has the budget of successful video production companies, lighting is something that you should definitely invest in. Basic lighting can cost you as little as 10 dollars each, while mid-range and high-end lights will run you anywhere from 100 to 500 dollars. As mentioned previously, you don’t need to shell out hundreds of dollars, but it will certainly help your next video production.

Don’t Mix Lights with Different Color Temperatures

Have you ever noticed the different lighting in places like a doctor’s office, your living room and a store? What you’re witnessing is called color temperature, and different light temperatures are used depending on the location. When filming, it’s important to look out for this color temperature, as you don’t want to mix two different temperatures. For example, you should make sure that all your lights have the same bulb to ensure that you’re using the same color temperature for each shot. You should also take the natural lighting in your set into account to determine if it’s negatively affecting your shot.

These five lighting tips are going to help your next production significantly, and if you’re looking for a video production company to help you get started on your next project, give us a call here at Fusion 360 Studios. Our award-winning video team can help answer any questions you might have as well as get the ball rolling on your production.