Welcome to the Muthership Creator Strategy. Happy Friday. The holiday of Christmas is behind us, and we're heading into the New Year. I have to say I'm wearing my crown today. If you're watching, you would see that.

But if you're listening, you wouldn't know. I just have a little princess crown on to celebrate the New Year. We're gonna be queens in the New Year. I'm feeling it, and I'm channeling. Before I kick off with the topic for today, I wanna talk about two products that are unsponsored.

One is a brand and one is a product. And, unfortunately, I'm recording this before Christmas, so I may have way more things to share after the holiday gifts are exchanged. But here are two things. One, I did receive as a gift, and the other, I am giving to someone as a gift. So what we've got is what I'm wearing right now.

Seems basic, simple. The brand is seventy eight and Sunny. It is a cozy sort of a sweatshirt, I guess you would say, but somehow it's more form fitting. It's not so baggy and loose, and it can be worn, I think, in a nicer it can dress up your outfit versus look like a sweatshirt, but it feels comfy like a sweatshirt. I just like it.

I like the neckline. And the brand is seventy eight and Sunny. So let me tell you a couple things about it because I had never heard of this brand before. And their website is s e a s, seventy eight, the the letters for the seventy and eight, s e and sunny, a s. And it spells seas, which I kinda like that there's a little double thing going on.

So you've got seventy eight in sunny. You've got seas as your acronym, and the website is s e a s official if you want to look at it. I'm gonna tell you that they have sweaters. They have sweatshirts and cozy things and also graphics. And this is what I like.

There's there's not it's not like you're buying a crappy sweatshirt that just got a screen printing on it. You have a nice quality item, and then you have kind of cool graphics. I'm gonna give you some examples. One of them says game day. So it doesn't mean you don't have to wear, like, giants, jets, or whatever, but you can wear game day, and it feels celebratory like you're in the graphics game without being team specific.

So this is a great one to give an athlete. I know that we're at past gifting season, but, you know, birthdays are coming up and whatever. And, also, I just think some of these things are nice for your for yourself. Gift to self. Wear something that's like game day so you can be supportive of someone in your life who's a sports fan.

There's one that says Merry, so cute. And that is a different it's shirt, not a sweatshirt. And there's one that's a hoodie, and it says Mommin, m o m m I n. You know I'm getting that from my daughter-in-law because it's so cute, and it's just a gray hoodie. I'm sure it's good quality like this.

So lots of cool things. There's one that says up to snow good for the snow season. And just I guess what I'm what I'm saying is it's it's not a cheap sweatshirt brand, but it's not over the top like a designer sweatshirt brand. The range is in the sixties and seventies, I believe, is where most of them are falling in. Anyway, check it out.

Worth a peek because cool stuff, and I would have never even known about it until I got this gift. The other thing is this, which is called the wand, and it is basically if you know someone who likes to drink wine, and they maybe drink a little too much wine on occasion, this is three pack of silver wands, which removes the histamines and sulfites from your from your wine. So you put it in. It's got a little heart topper on it and another little, almost like a shamrock topper. And you put it in, and it removes the histamines.

And so it takes away the headache, the the congestion that you might get from from drinking, the skin flush. Anyway, this is all comes from the histamines, and supposedly, it works. This is the woman in the store said, I know someone who has these, and they swear by it. So if you are a wine drinker and you don't wanna have the pain of the day after, maybe this is for you. No more wines.

See if they have a website. The website is drinkpurewine.com. Okay. Let's get into today's topic. This is prompted from someone in the studio who is fairly new and was asking me questions about how to know when to use different camera angles on and what a what a camera angles how does she learn about camera angles?

So I thought, oh, that's very interesting because I intrinsically know camera angles from forty years in production. So I will understand when to use a wide shot, when to use a close-up, when to do a zoom. I just I know it almost like knowing how to breathe. It's really weird. But I realized, well, people don't know this.

So I decided today, we're gonna talk about my top editing tips and filming tips. So camera angles and editing tips. I don't know how we're gonna what we're gonna call it yet, but this is what the topic is. Okay. Let's roll.

So number one is when you're in a speaking video, I've said this about a 100 times, so let's make it a 101 or maybe it's a thousand, so it's a thousand and one. Do not leave air, space, button pushing, whatever three seconds on the beginnings of your videos before you start speaking. And I have told people this in audits, like in their own personal audit, and I still go to their videos, and I get I can count one, two, and then the person starts speaking. I don't get it because you're losing your audience. You're you think it's no time, but two seconds is a long time for someone to stare at your phone, and then and then wait, and then they're gonna scroll.

And I will tell you what how long two seconds is. In production and in TV commercials, we used to always have to have the product shot up for a minimum of two seconds. So two seconds to us was so long. It would sit there for two seconds. I think it might have been three seconds even, but it was still so long to have this product shot sitting there.

And we always had to leave. So even if it was a thirty second commercial, it was actually a twenty second twenty seven second commercial. If it was fifteen, it was actually twelve. So you've always had to leave this three second mandatory ending on toy commercials in particular because there was a lot of rules with kids in toy commercials. So to me, three seconds is like an eternity.

And if Som's staring at someone's screen and they're not talking for three seconds or they're pushing the button or they're saying hi guys or whatever, I'm out. And I know that 90% of the people who scroll on social media will also be out. Okay. Next. When you're speaking and you have big breaks in your sentences, these first two are about speaking videos, and then we're gonna get on to camera angles.

Sorry. I should have said that at first. Okay. The next one is to tighten up your clips. You if you have if you're just recording and you're blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, guarantee you can take out a whole sentence somewhere, and it wouldn't even affect the impact of what you're saying.

But you certainly can take off when you're breathing, when you're thinking, when you're saying a lot of people say Take that out. It takes two seconds in your it's in editing to go cut, cut, delete. Cut, cut, delete. It's three seconds. One, two, three.

I mean, it's so fast. Just take out those middle sections. Camera angles. Now we're gonna get into the why of camera angles and when to use certain camera angles. Okay?

We used to always, by the way, in production have to have this is another rule. There had to be an establishing shot for toy commercials in particular because a lot of rules around children's advertising to children. So you would have to have a three second I think it was a three second, actually, establishing shot, which means it's a wide shot that shows you everything that's going on. The setting where the kids are sitting at the table playing the game, what's what the pieces and parts are. It was called as an establishing shot, and it was had to be in every commercial somewhere.

And granted, sometimes we would start with a close-up close-up close-up, and then we'd go to the establishing shot, but there always had to be one. So a a wider setup shot can be used not necessarily it doesn't have to be used at the beginning of anything, but it is a good idea if you are trying to do a storytelling thing to have covered that. So you wanna get a wide overview of what of what you're seeing. And a lot of times, it's helpful when you're shooting a wide shot to let the action move in the scene and not worry about your camera moving so much. Because a lot of times, we try we think, oh, we have to keep the camera moving and make this interesting.

But, you know, let's say I'm shooting in New York City especially, and there's a biker and a taxi and a car and a bing and a person about all of that action is way more more engaging than me sliding, whipping pan one to to the you know, zooming and panning. It really can be. So using using your head to think, okay, is there action happening in the scene? Because if so, I don't need to move the camera. Now let's say you're panning a landscape and you wanna move across a landscape.

Obviously, then maybe a nice camera move is helpful. So you would move your camera. But move it slowly because people get seasick if you're trying to show something and you're trying to fit it in three seconds. So you're like, one two three. No one's gonna wanna watch that pan because it's it's jarring and it can make you it it can mess with your your, equilibrium even when you're watching videos that are constantly people swinging back and forth and trying to show you things.

So understanding film, this is like such a bigger discussion, I know. I'm sorry. But is to understand when the shot should move and when your camera should move, and how quickly the camera should move. Because I'm here saying do a slow pan, but I'm the queen of a swish pan as well. Because there's also times where I'm on something, and then I wanna quickly get to something else.

And that is a good time for a swish pan where it's like I whipped from it's like a whip pan. You could call it a whip pan or swish pan, whatever you wanna call it. You whip to the next thing, and that can be used as a transition. So we've got, you know, the slow pan where you can let's say you're showing you're on a house tour, you're a real estate agent, you're showing a house, you would slowly travel through a room, slowly pan a room. You can, if you need to tighten that, show the beginning of the pan, make a cut, let the camera go, cut again, and then the rest of the pan and cut out the middle.

Your audience will think you panned the whole room. If you start with a little bit of it, then cut out the middle section, and then pick it back up where you're continuing. It will feel better than speeding it up or rushing through it in the pan. That's gotta be fast. So pans, slower is better, but taking out middle seconds middle sections.

But when you are trying to transition from a scene to another scene, then a whip pan could be handy. Oh my gosh. My phone is going crazy today. I don't even know if you can hear that, but it's like bing bing bing. Okay.

So swish pan could be good for transitions, and I want to in the New Year or somewhere soon. I'm gonna have a tutorial on how to do a swish pan successfully as a transition because they are so easy to do. You could do them anywhere. I will sometimes shoot and swish pan, and then I always know I don't need to use the swish pan, but I always have it if I ever want it. Next, close ups and Zooms.

Let's start with close ups. When you wanna emphasize something, so you're having a wide shot, you establish that there's two people having a conversation, then you're gonna cut to one, close-up. So you can film a close-up of this person talking, a close-up of this other person talking, and you can cut back and forth. You can also do two character videos in this way by looking at one side of your camera and looking at the other side of your camera for the different characters. And when you cut those together, it will feel like your camera is doing this, pointing to one, and doing that, pointing to the other.

So a little pro tip on if you're trying to shoot a character video. But close ups are key for emphasis, for making a point. A lot of people will do a talking head video, and then suddenly they cut to a close-up or they zoom into a close-up when they're trying to emphasize, and it's like an eyebrow raise or like a double take. That's a technique that adds emphasis. So think of your close-up as your emphasizing point and your wide shot as your overview.

So I'm gonna use Chrissy as an example here. I'm gonna try and remember to tag her. She did a setting in her classroom where she had the elf on the shelf moving around to different parts of the room. It was such a cool video that she created because it was for high schoolers. And so the high schoolers got even got into moving the elf around, which is so cute.

The story in itself is adorable. And I I can remembering it now that she was wide shot, wide shot, wide shot. I can't remember. Itch did she go in and do some close ups? My guess is probably yes, but I I almost am picturing it mostly as wide shots.

So that might have been a good place for her to do. She's here he is, and he's up on the rafters or something, and then it's a zoom in to him over there or a zoom. So there's opportunity for adding emphasis by doing a quick, you know, spread your fingers on your phone, pop zoom in, or you could shoot it as a wide shot and then a cut to a close-up. So it's like boom boom to emphasize. So you see where he is, and he's on top of, like, the calendar, or he's hanging from a light fixture or something, and then cut in.

So you've established it, but it's a quick cut in to emphasize it. So close ups can be used for emphasize emphasizing things, and and zooms can be used for, to disrupt the flow, to like zoom into something. So those are your four basic shots. Now I could get into way way more I I mean, or I can go deep into the film thing as you probably know because of my background, and I'll give you an example. If you're doing a conversation, there's an over the shoulder shot.

So you could be the camera could be behind and get some of someone's head while the other person's talking. And a point of view shot. So you could be doing a cooking video and your POV, and I know people didn't even know what POV stands for, but point of view. So POV is a point of view. So a POV shot is would be me filming this microphone, not with me in it.

So it'd be my looking down at this microphone is my POV and what I see here. So the POV shots, you're usually not in them. It's your point of view of something. So you could say, well, everything's a POV when you're filming. In a sense, yes.

But let's say I wanted to do a POV of this water bottle, and I wanted to just do extra emphasis on it. I could put the water bottle like in front of the video and kind of travel with it. And so it'd be a little bit of a water bottle POV, a cheat kind of. But it's my POV of watching my water bottle travel through the day. You could put a camera around your dog's collar, and then you would be creating a dog's POV shot.

So the POV shot is usually from the point of view of the thing. So the water bottle POV that I'm describing, if I put the camera here and faced it and didn't see the water bottle, that would be the water bottle POV. But if I put the camera here and I'm seeing the water bottle, it's technically my POV of traveling through the day with my water bottle. So those are the differences in those two things. Hopefully, that's clear.

There are you know, we've got overhead shots. You've got through the glass shots. We I've shot something recently where I had to do looking at a a woman in her in the locker. Like, so she was opening up a locker and taking things out of it. So I put my phone inside the locker.

So it was a locker POV. There's also was a trend recently about opening up your refrigerator door. So it's like the camera's inside the refrigerator, and then it's capturing you. So it's like from the refrigerator's point of view. So there's a lot of different ways to use POV shots.

And there's also the term POV when you say POV, I'm at the movies and I'm thinking about being at the club, and then you cut to John John Hamm. So that's a way of using POV in your text and on screen title, but a shot itself means it's from the point of view of whoever is filming. That was a long way to get to that shot. That explanation. So I guess what I'm trying to say here is you can think about a I can get deeper into what shots are, and maybe I will do that in my studio for my studio members.

But those are your basics to think about how you want to tell your story, or if you wanna when you're recording yourself speaking, if you wanna do an emphasis shot, you can do a Zoom by tapping on if you're on TikTok, you can press your thumb, TikTok or Instagram or Snapchat at this point. If you're recording and you're holding your thumb down and you slide it up and down, it zooms in and out, so you have that little technique you can use. There's lots of ways to do these techniques, but I'm just explaining to you what the techniques are and what they're used for. Alright? The other thing now we'll go back into editing.

So that was about filming. Now we're gonna jump back into editing. There's a good way to keep your audience engaged is by using jump cuts. So cut cut cut quick cuts are gonna keep people's attention. Too many cuts are gonna be annoying, and there's a little bit of a nuance with what makes good jump cuts and and not good jump cuts, and you can watch that girl in the bathroom who does the singing.

She's amazing, and her cuts are just so on point, and she's so skilled at editing, or whoever's doing her editing. So it really is, You almost want to study it and and watch closely how people do it to really understand. Because doing Too many jump cuts could drive people crazy. Doing them right could really, you know, nail your video. Doing transitions.

The magic of that video, you know, happening where you change outfits. I love doing them. To me, they're the easiest type of content to do, and for most people they are a difficult, a difficult type. But when I am in a rush for something, I'm like, oh, let me just do a quick transition video. And someone else might be like, quick, that's like the longest video I ever have to make.

But I tend to find those very easy and satisfying, so that's why I like to do them. And I also like to teach them, so if you wanna learn, come into the studio. Now, two more tips that you can keep in mind for making good content and getting better at the editing thing, is when you're sitting on your phone editing for a long period of time, you start to lose it. You start to not even see it clearly. It's like you're in so deep, you can't even see the forest for the trees.

Is this a good edit? I don't even know anymore. A good idea is to put your phone away, go do something else, and then come back and look at it with a fresh eye. Because I will sometimes do a transition, and I think, ugh, that sucked. I can't really get it right in the editing.

And then I walk away from it, I come back, and I look and I go, oh my god, that was perfect. What was I complaining Because you start to over criticize and over analyze, and it can get worse. So I'm telling you right now, take a break, walk away, come back, look at it, and go, I'm a genius. That's what you should do. Okay?

And the last thing is practice makes perfect. It sounds crazy, but if you edit a lot, editing will get easier. Just like anything you do. If you walk a lot, walking gets easier. If you go for a light jog and you do that every day, jogging gets easier.

If you to go the gym, you start lifting weights. I always relate things to exercise because that's what it is. If you do something, you'll get better at it. If you practice writing, you know, handwriting or doing crafting or whatever, you're if you do it, if you love it and you practice it, you're gonna get better at it. So that is just how it goes, and if you hate editing, you know, you're not gonna get better at it.

So I think let's say you go, I love everything about doing this, but I hate editing. Think about what type of content you can make that requires less editing, and just do that first. Basic. Because really editing a speaking video is probably the easiest thing you can do. It's just blah blah blah blah blah, and then cut.

Those are there's not a lot of tricks to that. You don't have to do magic of transitions. You don't have to. It's so straight straight up. So those might be the easiest things to edit.

The other thing that's really easy to edit is just a vlog where you're not even gonna speak on it. You're just gonna put music and some shots. Those are the two easiest type of videos to make. So if you really don't like editing, just start with something simple so that you're not getting aggravated, and you're not trying to add an overlay, and put on text, and move the text, and all the things. You're just gonna get annoyed, and it's gonna make it no fun.

And let's think about how to make the new year a fun type of content creation year. So look at the things. We're doing the content challenge upcoming. If you're not in it, read the show notes and get in the challenge. Thirty day content challenge.

You're gonna have lots of ideas. You can pick and choose which ones are right for you. You can do them all, or you can do a couple. But it will give you It will start to help you see what type of content you like to create the most. And then, when you get done with the monthly challenge, then you can lean into the things that you really like.

And that's gonna help you become a consistent content creator. Because guess what we like to do in life? We like to do the things we like to do. And guess what we don't wanna do? Things we don't like to do.

So try and make the content that you like, so that you enjoy making it, so that you want to do it. Happy New Year, and I will be back next week.