Summary of Steve Stockman's How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The viewer will give the video his time, and the video will give him an experience that he’ll enjoy. If the video gives the viewer a good time, he’ll even pay it by watching its commercials. But if the video gives the viewer a bad time, he wants out immediately.

#2 The first step to preventing bad video is to accept that you must entertain or die. If you don’t, your audience will leave you. You don’t need explosions or nudity to entertain. All you need is competent, compelling video that intrigues your target audience.

#3 Select 10 random YouTube videos and try to watch them all. Stop when you feel like changing the channel. How many seconds have you watched. At what moment are you bored. Why. What kept you interested.

#4 Every video needs a clear intent. The intent is what you’re trying to accomplish when you make the video. A result happens after the video is done, and you don’t have much control over it. If your intent is to show absurd behavior, you can guess that when you shoot something that strikes you as absurd or funny, you’re on the right track.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822536821

IRB Media

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Insights on Steve Stockman's How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The viewer will give the video his time, and the video will give him an experience that he’ll enjoy. If the video gives the viewer a good time, he’ll even pay it by watching its commercials. But if the video gives the viewer a bad time, he wants out immediately.

#2

The first step to preventing bad video is to accept that you must entertain or die. If you don’t, your audience will leave you. You don’t need explosions or nudity to entertain. All you need is competent, compelling video that intrigues your target audience.

#3

Select 10 random YouTube videos and try to watch them all. Stop when you feel like changing the channel. How many seconds have you watched. At what moment are you bored. Why. What kept you interested.

#4

Every video needs a clear intent. The intent is what you’re trying to accomplish when you make the video. A result happens after the video is done, and you don’t have much control over it. If your intent is to show absurd behavior, you can guess that when you shoot something that strikes you as absurd or funny, you’re on the right track.

#5

Once you've decided on an intent, your work will become much more focused. If you have no intent, you might shoot randomly through your daughter's first birthday party. The intent to share with my parents how cute my daughter is will lead you to focus on your daughter's behavior rather than on the adults in the room.

#6

Video is excellent at communicating motion and emotion. It is not so good at communicating facts and figures. If what you have to say is best conveyed with charts and lists, it may not be good video material.

#7

Brainstorming is a business buzzword that people often use to mean we’ll just come up with some ideas. But it was created by an adman named Alex Osborn in the 1950s, with a set of simple rules that still work today.

#8

I want to shoot some videos of my son Matthew’s soccer games, so I’m going to brainstorm ideas. I’ll write down even the stupidest ideas. In order to loosen up, I might be intentionally stupid.

#9

I was ready to make choices. I liked the idea of shooting from