I like to have a sit-down meeting with clients for videos like these to solidify their message before shoot day. We go over exactly what they want COMMUNICATED, not exactly what they want to say. Then on shoot day, I ask targeted questions that lead into their desired answers. It’s a lot of buy-in on my part, bc some of these agents don’t even know why they like RE, but it makes the result better. More conversational = better with RE agents. I think you could come up w a similar process if you’re doing more of this style. None of that is on you tho - whether or not a client is charismatic on camera isn’t necessary your responsibility, and some agents are just upside down mops with nice cars (read: dumb). Aside from that, get a lapel mic setup and you’ll be golden. The room verb is distracting imo. (Also, megabarf at “THE praying agent.”)

Amen on the upchuck.

I pray your paperwork gets submitted with no errors.

Good points for sure! Technically this wasn’t an interview, these were points she came up with and wrote out that she wanted to convey. Definitely will note for future videos though and I like being able to offer or convey that involvement with the client.

To me, the composition in the very first scene feels a bit awkward. Having the table on the left taking up 2/3 of the shot, and her on the right with shoulders angled away from the table feels like she's being "pushed" off screen if that makes sense. It might be better in that scene if she was more centered. The same scene later on where she is facing the camera straight on looks better though. Also, pulling back just a little bit to give her a little more headroom and putting her eyes right on the upper 1/3rd line might help as well. The other scenes and b-roll look good. All that said, I am not a pro and I might not know what I'm talking about.

For ME (an amateur) this looks pretty solid to me, altough the only thing that triggers me is the "BJ" not only kinda looks like you're introducing an e-sports player nickname , but also when i see bj only word that comes to mind is blowjob but thats me and my dirty ass mind

It’s her branding and in her email signature lol.

This struck me too, what the fuck is she thinking 🤣

The setup for the primary camera is pretty odd. The table and plates don’t make any sense. I like the side shot better. There is a discrepancy in color correction between both shots. The b-roll show be in slow motion to look more cinematic. You did an excellent job with lighting the scene, especially the on-camera testimonial.

In my opinion she’s not the best on camera. She’s a little stiff, and I’m not connecting with her message. You could say that’s on her and not the video person… BUT your job is to connect her to leads and ultimately try to convert viewers to sales. To further my point, she’s answering the most basic questions, with the most basic answers. Everyone says what she’s saying, in basically the same way. So your job, to maintain attention, is even more complicated now as this video really tells me nothing about her. I would think about ways to spice this up and/or connect with her audience more. More b roll of her talking w/ the ppl she works with and mentions in the video. Maybe touring a house, with a focus on future clients. Anything that breaks up her just talking to camera for 20 seconds straight. Also, this could easily be cut down to 60 seconds and have the same message. That said, your shots are clean and well lit, great job on that side!

I agree, but sometimes you just can't get personality out of a brick. I'm not saying she's that bad, but. You're dead on tho when it comes to picking up the pace and not having such long shots. Lots more B-Roll. After a couple more views I would also keep a disconnect in your B-roll shots. The one where she placed the sign, I might would have had her place the sign and then so back to appreciate her hard work. When she looked directly at the camera it kind of broke the illusion that we were watching her work.

She hated being on camera and never was before. The idea was a 45-75sec quick intro video that can live on her website and YouTube or be shared on SM. While I see validity in your points, this is intended to be a quick intro not a 5-10min in-depth interview. Thank you for the feedback on the shots! This was a one-man show and my main focus was the shot in posting here. I felt her bit about being ‘the praying agent’ was a good way to stand out while keeping it a basic and short intro. You mention cutting down to 60sec. I believe it’s 75-78sec with 5-6 of that the outro slide.

Yeah should have tightened it up even more then. There are some clumsy pauses while she remembers what she was trying to say. Hide those in the edit.

Shots look nice, as does the lighting! B-roll is solid — I would move it up a bit earlier as you want to grab viewers' attention in those first 10 seconds. Audio is a bit distracting. Would echo another comment in recommending a lav mic for some cleaner audio. This could be a bit old school but even for online-only videos I still think title safe placing for the name graphic would look better. Would also help prevent it from being covered by certain video control interfaces (such as the Reddit one here).

Yeah the titling looks distractingly smooshed into the corner and scaled awkwardly.

Odd two of you have mentioned bad audio. May just be the EQ but boom is definitely superior to lav in my experience especially when stationary like this.

Oh, no no - the quality isn’t bad at all, it’s just the reverb from the room. A boom mic will obv have better quality than a smaller diaphragm, but they also pick up everything including reverb from the room like this example. There are plugins for every nle for this. Ime, for these kind of videos, unless they’re a luxury agent that specifically says ‘no lavs,’ they’re getting lav’d. Imo, you don’t necessarily need boom-quality audio for this kind of thing, and negating it on the front end means you have to tweak less on the back.

Could be an EQ thing; definitely it's the reverb I'm noticing though due to the room. And I definitely use booms myself but depends on how close you were with this one, etc. I tend to be partial toward lavs since I shoot a lot of sit-down interviews.

I'm hearing a lot of room. Lavs definitely better in that regard and not something you can EQ out.

Great job! I've done the last two RE videos with my friend with a sit down interview style. I used cove lighting that I learned from Roger Deakins. Keep this up. It's a much higher quality product than most RE videos.

Thank you! That was my main focus here. I understand the ‘story’ is lacking, but the goal wasn’t to have a powerful driving story in this project.

Good choice on the lighting & the focal lengths for the camera setups. I’d run your audio file through Adobe Podcast Enhance. It does a nice job of cleaning up background hiss/reverb for most dialogue recordings.

Good stuff! My advice would be to center your speaker. I get the idea of wanting the nice table in the shot, but it’s a little disproportionate. Maybe pull the speaker out further with the dining area in the backdrop- give some depth and breathing room. Keep grinding!

headspace feels off, mostly in the medium shot, her head feels too high up in the frame, there's just not enough space above her head and her eyeline isn't positioned near a third because of it which makes it jarring when it cuts between the close and the medium shot and it makes it feel as if the cameras are misaligned

Her body is tilted the wrong way in the first shot. She should be angled toward the left side of the frame OR she should be centered in the shot and facing directly at the camera. Her shoulders can’t face the side of the screen with the smaller amount of taking room if that makes sense. And also her name/lower third is way too close to the edge, it gives it an off balanced look. I love the rest tho

The text is out of the safe area. You can use the Safe Area view in your NLE to positon it inside. A strong recommendation.