Video marketing can intimidate anyone new to the digital realm of advertising and promotion. Is your company struggling to maintain a digital appearance? Are you looking to create capturing video content that will draw in new business? Below, we will explore the top video production equipment categories to help you create a high-quality and clean-cut video.
What is Video Marketing?
Video marketing is the production and implementation of video on your website and social media platforms to market and promote your business, brand, or service. This marketing technique offers countless applications, from building customer connections to promoting a new product or explaining a service.
Top 5 Video Production Equipment
There is such a vast array of video production equipment that highlights different filming and editing needs. Therefore, to help those who don’t know where to begin, here are the top five video production equipment categories for you to pay specific attention towards.
#1. Camera
As the most important component of video production, you need a quality camera to make a successful video. An iPhone or Android phone will not suffice for all your filming needs.
For those who are already exploring the abundance of camera types, chances are you read the thousands of differing opinions concerning which brand and model to go with. You might even feel pressured that you might select the wrong one.
Instead of sharing which specific camera to go for, we wanted to provide this disclaimer: as both your individual and business needs will shift over time, so will the available equipment change. Therefore, a camera you select now might feel outdated or misaligned with what you need five years from now.
To help you decide which camera to go with, here are some questions to consider:
- What is your budget for a camera?
- What level of video quality do you need? Do you need 1080p, 4K, etc.?
- How many lens attachment options would you like to have for your camera?
- Which additional features must be included in the camera?
- Will you need more than one camera? If so, do they need to include different features and capabilities?
- What will you mainly film? Will your video apply to marketing, documentation, or another avenue?
- How do you plan to edit the video?
#2. Stabilization
Tripod
Regardless if your camera promises high stabilization, a tripod is still considered an indispensable piece of video production equipment. Even the slightest movement or shake will appear visible on screen when trying to capture video. Therefore, tripods turn even a basic camera into a much better video production tool and improve the video quality from any camera as a result.
Gimbals
A gimbal also acts another form of a stabilizer for your camera. Using pivots and weights, gimbals stabilize your shot while in motion. They come in various models and sizes, allowing compatibility with cameras as small as your iPhone or as big as a professional-level video camera.
If most of your shots will be stationary, then this video equipment may not be considered an essential for you. However, if you plan to capture a lot of moving videos, it’s worth the investment as the bolstered quality will be notable.
Before selecting your gimble, verify that the model you want is compatible with your camera. Although there are multiple attachment mechanisms, with most of them being universal, use safeguard of always double-checking.
Sliders and Jibs
Sliders are a unique tool that allows to enhance the quality in capturing video. Although a tripod can tilt up and down and pan side-to-side, a camera slider allows for smooth horizontal movement. Likewise, a jibserves as a condensed version of a camera crane and breaks the vertical plane giving filmmakers a tool to move the camera up and down on a single axis.
Sliders and jibs are great video production equipment options that help stabilize the camera while allowing for wider shots. As a result, this helps to help break up the standard view that creates a polished final product.
#3. Computers
Like cameras, computers are one of the things that cause the most disagreements between filmmakers and videographers. Should you go PC or Mac? Although the debate between PC and Mac will continue, one thing is constant regardless of which computer you work with: RAM and screen-size are extremely important for the entire video editing process.
If you find yourself constantly working with heavy video editing, it will be in your best interest to upgrade your hardware. Although many top videographers use Apple hardware for their video editing, Windows PCs also offer an impressive graphics processing power, too.
Overall, the most important component to pay special attention towards is finding a computer with enough graphics power for you to edit at full speed. Lower-end graphics cards and laptops may prove difficult and frustrating when making changes to very large files, which in turn slows down your computer.
Ultimately, editing on your current device proves sufficient for most, at least temporarily. If you notice that the process is slow and think you might benefit from something faster, then consider it time to make a change to either your computer, software or storage.
#4. Sound and Audio Equipment
A film with poor audio quality is equivalent to scratching your fingernails down a chalkboard! Although video production equipment offers better audio pickups than phones, they still leave much to be desired as those devices are not designed to capture high-quality sound.
An essential piece of video equipment, external microphones drastically enhance the quality of your audio output. This is especially important when filming video lessons, courses, interviews, or anything else that mostly comprises of speech.
Furthermore, it is crucial to consider which types of sound equipment you will need on a regular basis. Options include:
- Handheld Microphones: Ideal for creating an ambiance by picking up the surrounding sounds.
- Dynamic Microphones: The perfect choice when recording sounds in noisy environments.
- Shotgun Microphones: Handled by a boom operator and is among the most popular audio tools used when recording sound in videos and films. Thanks to its directionality and shape that prevents it from picking up the excess environmental sounds, it specializes in collecting specific sounds.
- Omni-directional microphones: Captures sound from every direction, while shotgun and directional mics focus sound capture on a specific direction.
- Lavalier Microphones: Also known as a “lav,” these microphones are fastened on your costume, perfect for when the person talking into the mic is in constant motion.
- Built-In Microphones: This microphone comes installed on a camera.
#5. Lighting
Good lighting can drastically improve the final product of a film, therefore also making this list of the top video production equipment. However, to get your lighting right is complex due to the different environments and equipment available. Therefore, you need to consider different types of light, foreground and background lighting, shadows, and equipment.
Unfortunately, lighting equipment can quickly get expensive. For those who are looking to start their video and filming career, you can start with a reflector and take advantage of ambient light. Entry-level reflectors are an affordable and effective way to begin providing better lighting for your videos. You can get a 5-in-1 reflector with translucent, white, black, gold, and silver surfaces.
Over time, you can accumulate various lighting equipment including but not limited to:
- Softbox: Large cloth boxes that cover bright bulbs for lighting control to give you a soft fill light. They take up a lot of room but provide the best light.
- Tungsten Lights: Best used in film studios and are the preferred choice of many professionals.
- LED Panels with a Diffuser: Safer than tungsten lights as they don’t get nearly as hot.
Regardless of how you choose to light your video, make sure both the lighting and those positioned in the shot do not create harsh shadows or bright glares. It makes a huge difference.
According to Franklin Media’s Robert Wolfe:
“When I shoot interviews, I never put the subject straight up against a wall and I always make sure I have a backlight on the subject. That creates separation between the subject and the background. The background in the best-case scenario needs to be able to show Focus Fall Off. This is when there are things in the frame close to the subject and things far away from the subject that go out of focus.”
Professional Video Production with Franklin Media
If you only need these tools for a few video projects, why invest in all the required video production equipment when you can instead rely on professional video services who already owns all the equipment?
We understand the significant value of implementing effective video marketing. That’s why at Franklin Media, we devote our services to creating a clean, clear, and high-quality video product for your business or organization by listening to your goals and desired outcome.
Our professional video experts are ready to travel to where you are and assist with your video marketing and other digital marketing needs. Contact us today to see how we can help grow your business or practice and to receive examples of our work!