***We are so grateful to have a community of video and marketing experts to teach us all about the tricks of the trade. As the Wistia Community migrates to Slack, we’ll be documenting some of the most useful conversations from the community on our Blog. If you’re interested in learning from this group, sign up to join the fun!***
Lighting for people with glasses can be pretty tricky, whether you’re shooting video or photos. At Wistia, we’ll usually raise our two key lights up as high as possible and angle them slightly away from the camera to minimize glare. Check out the silent video example below to see the difference it can make! A lot of times this will fix the glare problem, but it can also cause other issues. Watch out for harsh shadows on the talent.
The discussion all started with Chris Pollack, asking a question that many of us can relate to: “Hey there Wistia community… In shooting my video yesterday, I found that I was fighting a lot of glare in glasses. Are there certain tactics for dealing with this?” ###### Daniel Crowe: “If I see glare on glasses, I usually ask my talent to slightly raise the back part of the glasses frame that goes behind the ears. That slight change of angle on the glasses usually doesn’t look weird and removes the glare for me, but I use soft Kino Flos with my lighting.” - @dcrowephoto ###### Siobhan Cork: “Polarizing filters can go a long way. These puppies can remove reflected light, but they also limit the amount of total light hitting your camera, so you’ll have to account for that. Indirect lighting can also help.” ###### Ryan White: “A lot of times, cheaper glasses manufactures will not use actual polarized lenses, but rather an ‘antireflective coating’ on the lenses, which reflects back a ridiculous green (terrible for keying out a green screen). The bigger the light source the better—it’ll wrap around thick glasses. So if you’re using the Wistia DIY-style lights, you’re going to have some harsh shadows around the glasses vs. if you were using a bigger soft box.” - @ryanwhitehq
If you’re having trouble getting rid of that last bit of glare, don’t have the talent take off their glasses, just roll with it. As we see it, the main goal of business video is to convey a clear message in an authentic way. In most cases, your audience will forgive (or not even notice) those little details. Do you have your own techniques for getting rid of pesky glare on glasses? Share 'em in the comments!
LIBRARY » PRODUCTION
Lighting on the Fly
A minimal and flexible philosophy for lighting your video on any budget
from Wistia Blog http://ift.tt/2abY0lv via production studio
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/29R0xO4
This led us to the idea that Slack, the chat app we use at Wistia, could be a good tool to facilitate conversations with the community in the same way that we use it internally. We started a beta of the Wistia Slack Community at this year’s WistiaFest, and so far it’s been amazing! ### What’s new? The new Wistia Community is already starting to hop, and we are seeing way more conversations and stronger bonds between community members. We believe that part of the reason this is the case is because many of us are already in Slack, and it’s much easier to hop into the community and ask a question than it’s ever been before. 
Sharing videos and images is simple and intuitive in Slack, and since it’s built for lively, fast-paced conversation, momentum can build naturally and quickly. We have created #channels in our community for topics like #marketing, #production, #video-feedback, #wistia-feedback, #dog-photos, and more. Feel free to join as many or as few channels as you like. You can control your notifications, so you hear about everything in a particular channel, or you can turn all notifications off and stay passively involved. Whatever is best for you! One of the benefits of a forum that we are losing with a Slack community is the permanence of topical threads. To counteract that, we’ve created a Community Wiki to record information shared about various subjects (e.g. choosing and licensing music for your videos, understanding video metrics, etc.). We’ll also be highlighting interesting conversations and topics on the Wistia Blog. ### We are super excited Selfishly, we are also extremely excited to have a closer and faster connection to our customers and community. We’ve already seen a different form of conversation than we saw in the forum, in support, or on twitter. By lowering the friction to communicate, it really does make it easier to connect and learn from one another. 
### How does this work? To sign up, head over to 
By allowing the audience to define the framing of the camera and change perspective at will, 360 forces us to think of our visual storytelling in a post-shot way. Instead of controlling the viewpoint of the audience, you must build an environment that encourages exploration and allows a story to emerge through a process of user-driven discovery. This shift represents a seismic change from traditional filmmaking, where skills in photography and a keen appreciation of fine art tend to drive the expertise of the most competent directors. However, it’s my contention that 360 video is, compositionally, more like theater than film. ### An innovative ancient art form In recent years, there have been many innovations in the theater world that represent a 360 or VR experience, but in a physical rather than a virtual space. Companies like 
Audience mask from Punchdrunk On the other end of the spectrum, companies like 
Your narrative therefore needs to be driven by “scenes, rather than shots,” in which each scene takes place in a single location, typified by a single placement of the camera for an extended period. You can’t really do fast-paced cuts or quick perspective changes within a single space with 360. Rather, you have to rely on movement from the performers within a single space to tell the story. Your goal is to encourage the audience to autonomously choose to follow a specific line of inquiry. As with theater, however, it’s possible to have two different pieces of action happening simultaneously, forcing the audience to pick which one to watch.
With 360, you can choose to craft intimate spaces (e.g. in a closet), wide open spaces (e.g. in the middle of a football pitch) and play with everything in between. Using a wide selection of spaces adds variety to multi-scene shoot and can be used to create dramatic effects. Similarly, having actors change their distances from the camera during the course of a scene is an effective way to shift your audience’s focus. ### The audience controls the frame and focus In regular video, the viewpoint of the audience is limited by the choices of the director, and this has benefits and drawbacks. The benefits are that you can be highly prescriptive in terms of what the audience sees, and thus structure a very clear message and narrative journey, which is likely to be largely understood. The drawbacks are that this restrictive format tends to leave less room for ambiguity and abstraction than theater, where “experiential” productions are more commonplace than with film. 360 video is more in the theatrical mold here. Because audience members define the framing and perspective, they create a unique journey for themselves, and (as with site-specific theater) no audience member will experience exactly the same thing.
London Coliseum In proscenium arch theater, often an actor may appear on the balcony or in a box and force the audience to turn around to hear and see what’s going on. In immersive site-specific theater, the sound is woven into the fabric of each space—something that shifts according to location as much as the visuals. ### Content is likely to be more dialogue-heavy My expectation is that many narrative-driven 360 videos will end up being far more dialogue-heavy than traditional counterparts. Since you cannot rely on subtext and counterpoint provided by changing shots, narrative and plot need to be created in other ways. Most theater has traditionally achieved this with dialogue. Since Sophocles, characters often arrive onto scenes with the explicit purpose of explaining what’s happened in a different imaginary space, off stage, and this old device will likely be of equal value in the world of 360 film. 
Greek Theater of Syracuse in southeastern Sicily With 360 video, there’s no guarantee that your audience will see close-up facial expressions, which means that you cannot rely on the subtleties and nuance of acting to necessarily communicate important plot points. For this reason also, I think 360 video will include more dialogue (or internal monologue).
When you ignore critical factors, like your video’s surface appearance, you can unintentionally discourage viewers from engaging with your content. And then there’s the video itself. The content might be engaging and well-produced, but what actions is your video driving? You likely have a goal in mind for each and every video you produce. Are you trying to collect more leads to fuel your marketing automation platform? Are you encouraging employees to become more engaged with your career development resources? Raising brand awareness? If your video is entertaining, but not driving action, chances are it’s not helping you take steps towards your goal. In this post, we’ll dive into two main topics: - How to improve your video play rates. - How to drive action directly within your videos. ### Part #1: Getting more people to play your videos Play rate is the percentage of page visitors who clicked play and started watching your video. The ideal play rate is not a flat number, and it varies from business to business, industry to industry. It’s also dependent on factors like where your video lives. Is it high up on your homepage, or is it hidden seven clicks into your website at the bottom of one of your thousands of landing pages? At Wistia, we are pretty psyched when we see play rates over 70% on high-traffic pages. #### Optimize your thumbnail image One major factor that will determine whether or not someone is likely to play your video is your 
Video B. 
The answer is obvious, right? The thumbnail of 
Darwin found that as you see another person’s smiling muscles contract, a feedback loop travels through your brain, reinforcing the feelings of joy and bliss. “Smiling is the outward manifestation of happiness and serves to begin to connect us to others,” 
#### Change that player color Another factor that has a shockingly high effect on play rate is the color of the player button. When you’ve uploaded a new video into your Wistia account, the first thing you should do is head over to Video Actions, and select Customize. Under the Appearance drop-down menu, you’ll notice you can change the player color away from that boring default grey. Perhaps your brand has a specific color or hexID? Throw that in there! 
Can you tell how much I love that grey button? This might seem like an insignificant change to make, but at Wistia, we’ve found that videos with a custom player color have an 18% higher play rate than those that stick with the grey default. This small change can go a long way, if you’re trying to increase your play rate. ### Part #2: Driving action within your videos If you’re not directing your viewers to a relevant landing page or asking for their email to follow up, that could be your last touchpoint point with them. In Wistia, there are three interactive elements you can include in your video to drive further action: our 
#### To gate or not to gate? The most common objection I hear from customers about Turnstile is that interrupting their viewers leads to a poor user experience. While there are instances in which this objection holds true, there are also times where the value you’re providing to your viewer is worthy of this brief interruption. The harsh reality is: If you’re giving away everything for free, you could be missing out on a whole market of leads that you’ll lose to competitors. So, when is the right time? Luckily, I’ve created a set of questions to help you make these difficult decisions. - Is your video reaching people at the top of your funnel? - Is your video >50% promotional? - Is your video short and sweet? If you answer yes to any of these questions, DON’T gate your video. On the other hand… - Will the viewer save time or money by watching your video? - Will the viewer learn something new? - Can you promise (and deliver) the viewer something of value after or during your video? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then there is likely a relevant place for a Turnstile to be incorporated into your video. #### Where should you put your Turnstile? The placement of a Turnstile can make a pretty drastic impact on conversion rates. At Wistia, we analyzed 15,000 videos with Turnstile to determine the most effective location for this tool. Drum roll please… placing a Turnstile in the first 10-20% of the video leads to a 43% conversion rate! 
While this data point is pretty astounding, it also makes sense. Provide a quick and compelling introduction, in which you tempt the viewer with just enough information that leaves them wanting more, and then present them with a super quick email collector. #### Should you make your Turnstile optional or mandatory? In the same study, we looked at data comparing Turnstiles with the option to “skip” vs. no skip option, and found the conversion rate to be 20% higher for mandatory forms in comparison to those with the “skip” button present. Moral of the story: If you’re going to ask for an email address, go all in. After accumulating some traction, you can assess your video’s engagement graph, and reassess. ### Driving action with CTAs If collecting emails isn’t your thing, incorporating a powerful CTA could be your best bet for nudging your viewers to take the next step towards the goal you’ve set. While there’s an entire 
The same goes for action words, with the exception of “buy.” 
Yet, both power and action words are underutilized in CTAs. Around 68% of CTAs do not have power words, and 58.3% do not use action words. Yikes! There’s so much opportunity to increase action by using compelling language. ### Provide additional resources with annotations Perhaps you’re using video to teach a course or train your employees, and you want to give your viewers some additional resources that pertain to the content of you video. This is one of the many instances in which adding a subtle annotation link works wonders. Similar to CTAs and Turnstiles, annotations can be added anywhere within your video. There’s something really wonderful about being able to add a subtle link to your video. You’re not disrupting the video, you’re providing more content instead of making your video painfully long, and you’re driving action that’s easily trackable within 
How could he not book a call after seeing this? Now that you’ve learned a bit about driving plays and engagement after uploading and embedding your videos, check out our 
You can use a video project as a way to bring those crucial folks together and develop relationships that will last for years. 
You can even use your MacBook (or PC!) camera to record short responses to community members, and encourage them to respond back on video. That face-to-face interaction makes it easy for your members to relate to one another, creating a community that grows stronger by the day. ### The benefits of video analytics Community videos can be low-risk, as they are relatively easy to produce, and the 
Cara speaking at 
Once you create these pieces, your sales team is armed with answers to questions like “How can your company help me increase leads?” The format for this content could be case studies (“How [Insert interesting company] did [Insert common business challenge] with [Your product]”), blog posts, or pages on your website that address the frequently asked questions. This all falls under the umbrella of “evergreen” content that has a long shelf life and gets used often. To source this content, sit with your sales or support team. Have recurring meetings to understand the questions they’re getting and what they need. At Optimizely, we put all of this content in a spreadsheet called the “Content Matrix” and organized it by selling stage and intended audience. That way, we could see we had all of our bases covered.
I like how their Resources drop-down menu on the homepage shows you the pillar pieces and saves you from unnecessary clicks. Like Help Scout, the topics Betterment covers are extremely clear. They just really want to help you learn how to manage and save your money, and their content shows it. Shameful plug: I’m in the process of switching from Schwab to Betterment, and their content has been a large driving factor in that decision. 3. 
I would start by testing how you position a high-traffic blog post, an e-book, or a webinar. Use clicks to measure the blog post, downloads to measure the e-book, and signups for the webinar. ###### Wistia: How do you find the best opportunities to test? Are there quantitative or qualitative cues? ###### Cara Harshman: In order to find great test ideas, you have to be open and humbly accept that the current experiences you’re delivering may not be the best. With that, I have a few specific ideas… Quantitative data helps surface specific pages that need optimization love – for example, pages with really low time on page or high bounce rate, or funnel pages with high drop off. Google Analytics and other similar tools show you where to focus, but the qualitative data will show you what to focus on and why.
Hearing from actual users is hugely helpful because you can answer questions that a bunch of numbers can’t. Google Analytics won’t tell you why people aren’t converting, but in a user test, someone could take one look at the page and say “nope, I don’t trust it.” And now you have a thread of A/B testing ideas to pull from. Then there are heat maps – very interesting visualizations that show where most people scroll to, hover, and click on your site. If you are open to change and actively seeking input, the ideas will come naturally. Prioritizing them will soon become the hard part ;-) ###### Wistia: What are the most common mistakes people make when trying to optimize their content? ###### Cara Harshman: I’d say the top mistakes are: - Coming up with ideas out of thin air and expecting them to have a huge impact. Doing research to inform your test will absolutely increase its significance. - Making subtle changes and expecting them to have a huge impact. Especially if you don’t have a lot of traffic, you need to be more radical in your tests. - Failing to come up with hypotheses for tests. This goes back to the first mistake on running uninformed tests. Your testing program will be better if you have a hypothesis. ###### Wistia: Have you done A/B testing with video? What are some elements that you would try testing first? ###### Cara Harshman: Wes Fleming, our brilliant video producer, has performed some testing. I asked him what he has done, and he said, “The only real testing I do is in the timeline. For instance I will post a video, and if I see there is a certain drop in engagement somewhere, I will then inspect what is there (music, graphics, talking head, etc.). We’ve made a few editing adjustments based on this, and I’ve increased engagement by a few percentage points. One example is one of our product launch videos. I changed the music, and it improved engagement slightly.” Things I would recommend testing are: - 