8 Tips For a TV Interview Guest

1. The main point is being relaxed enough to come across naturally. That’s sure easy to say, but for some folks that’s their main hurdle. A good interviewer can help the guest be comfortable, but even so, some folks freeze when the cameras goes on. If that is a potential problem for you, one thing to do is put all your attention on the interviewer and focus on the conversation, which should help you ignore the cameras. If you are able to take a short walk before the interview, that can be beneficial. (However, be sure to coordinate with the Director or Floor Manager, as you may be asked “not” to go away if it’s too close to starting time.)

2. Knowing the material that you are going to be interviewed about is another way to support coming across naturally. However, even if you have a list of “talking points” from the interviewer beforehand, don’t try to memorize what you will say, which can make you appear stiff and unnatural. Just answer the questions as you would in a regular (off camera) conversation.

3. Related to the first point, even if you aren’t afraid of cameras, lights and TV studios, generally speaking, you still don’t want to look into the cameras when they are rolling. Simply look at the interviewer (and not the cameras) in the same manner that you would anyone else you were having a conversation with.

Note: There are certain instances when a person will intentionally look into the camera.  For example, the host of the show “may” look into the camera to speak directly to the audience at the opening and the closing of the program, but that generally does not apply to a person being interviewed.  Even if that were desired for some reason, you would be specifically requested to do so.  However, that would be rare.

4. The interviewer may have some notes to refer to during the discussion, but you won’t. Unless you are specifically required to cite some reference as part of your interview, don’t bring notes onto the set. The information you are imparting as part of a conversational interview should come from your head, not prepared notes.  In fact, bringing anything on the set can be distracting to the audience.  For that reason, even if you are the author of a book, which is the subject of the interview, in many cases it will be the person who is asking the questions who will physically handle the book itself.

5. Short answers are best. Even though you may have a lot to say in response to a given question, you don’t want to speak more than a few sentences at a time. This keeps the dialog going back and forth, which makes for a more interesting program for the viewers. Also, unless you are confident that your program is being produced for a specialized audience, you will connect better with more viewers by avoiding technical jargon, as well as avoiding terms specific to your industry.  Use simple language that will be understood by a broad audience.

6. If the video interview is being conducted in your home or office, instead of a TV studio, you’ll want to use chairs that do not swivel. Interviewees, in particular, tend to move when they are uncomfortable and this is noticeable on TV.

7. Another point about interviews in a home or office is that it’s best to use a room that has as little outside light as possible. Unless the Director specifically prefers to have natural light in the background, it’s trickier to balance the brightness of inside lights with outside light. Furthermore, outside light (daylight) has a blueish cast compared to most lights used inside, which would also require added effort to balance for the camera and lighting crew.

8. Get plenty of sleep the night before, so that you are well rested. Also, have a good meal beforehand so that you are well fed (but don’t eat so much that you become groggy). You may also want to have water readily available so you can start the interview without being thirsty.

BONUS TIP! If you are able to interject some appropriate humor at an apt point or two in the interview, that will help make the conversation more enjoyable for the viewing audience. However, unless you are a comic, or are doing a comedy show, there is no need to go overboard on the humor. For most interviews, the idea is to keep things light. This can help, at times, even if the discussion is about a serious matter. (However, “appropriate humor” is the operative term here as well as good judgment).

By the way, if you are interested in how to dress, you may want to check out this article on What Clothes To Wear For A TV Interview.

It’s worth re-stating that the main idea here is to present yourself on camera at ease and naturally, which contributes to the ease and enjoyment of the viewing audience.

Answer: It depends on the purpose of the video and who it’s for.  The following are guidelines and you could find exceptions for each.

1) “Introductory Videos” are short: 30 seconds to 2 minutes, and no more than 4 minutes. If you want to expose a brief message to as many potential viewers as possible, who do not otherwise know you, the shorter the better. Anytime someone clicks on a video they are making a small time commitment and a shorter video just makes it easier for someone to make that decision. If they like what they see, then they may be more inclined to watch a longer video from the same creator.

2) “Content Videos” or marketing videos should be less than 10 min. These are videos that have good info and can even be condensed highlights from longer videos. They have the potential for being passed along to others should the content be valuable, interesting and/or entertaining.

3) “Training Videos” can be any length. Training, or educational videos could include how to use a specific software, or how to perform maintenance on an engine, or how to use a specific camera, or anything you can imagine. These could even be complete seminars. However, the longer a video is, the less likely it would gain traction as a property that gets passed along broadly (although anything can happen on the Internet). In other words, if a 3 hour presentation could be edited down to less than 30 min, it would generate more views. However, given a valuable enough seminar, there would still be a smaller amount of viewers who would watch the entire 3 hours.

Of course, regardless of how long or short the video is, you might as well increase its chance of gaining viewers by incorporating the 6 Ways to Optimize Your Videos for Maximum Search Impact.

The first point to understand about transitions is that misuse or overuse of transitions is a sign of an amateur, in the same way that overuse of slide transitions in a PowerPoint presentation are unprofessional. Especially if too many different types of transitions are utilized.  In short, any way that transitions call attention to themselves and distract from the video continuity would be poor utilization.

Conversely, when used professionally (“not” to the point of overuse), effective transitions bridge different video shots together to produce a better message or story flow.

There are more transitions than depicted in this article, but the following are among the most widely used.

Video Transition: The “Cut”

The most common transition is the “cut.” This is simply one video clip changing instantly to the next shot.

Cuts are the best way to keep the action or momentum moving along at a good pace.

Straight cuts are not only simple, but they create smaller overall file sizes, which are an advantage for web videos. (In other words, adding transitions create larger video files, and on the Internet, smaller files are desirable).

Video Transition: The “Crossfade” or “Dissolve”

The next most common transition is the crossfade, or dissolve. This is simply one video shot gradually changing to the next.

The timing of crossfades can be made shorter or longer and they generally provide a more relaxed feel than a cut and slow the pace of the video.  Dissolves can better convey a sense of passing time than a cut.

Video Transition: The “Wipe”

A wipe is a more complex transition, and includes a number of variations.

One way to think of a simple wipe would be imagining a single sweep of a slow windshield wiper as a transition from one shot to the next while it moves across the screen.

Variations include an iris wipe, a heart wipe, a clock wipe, and a star wipe, in which the name approximates the geometric manner in which the wiping motion occurs.  Examples: an iris wipe is like an expanding or contracting circle. A heart or star wipe is like an expanding or contracting heart or star.  And a clock wipe moves around in a circle.

Video Transition: The “Fade”

Two key transitions are fade-up from black and fade to black. Fading in from a single color, such as black, conveys a sense of “beginning.”  And nothing says “the end” like a fade to black. (Fades can be used with other colors, too).

Conclusion: Keep it Simple

Effective integration of transitions should always be inspired by some aspect of the story that is being conveyed in your video. For example, a transition may signify a change in location, or a change in the pace of the action, or simply the passage of time.  If there’s no specific reason to use a transition, keep it simple and use a cut.

Another application of transitions is to smooth out minor video (or even audio) errors, which could appear more prominent with a cut, but which may be less apparent by a well-placed dissolve.

As a concluding note: Transitions should not call attention to themselves. Their job is to subtly support the video story or message.

Bear the obvious in mind: cameras, computer monitors and TV screens are not people, they’re machines.  And as such, they don’t discern fine visual differences like the human eye.

In the same way that photographers with still cameras can not capture the full dynamic range of a scene, as compared to our eyes, and therefore shoot to accentuate the range that will be viewable on the final media (photo print, magazine, computer screen, etc), TV and video production have similar limitations.

Here Are The Suggestions I Present to TV Interview Guests

1) First of all, wear clothes that are comfortable.

2) Avoid apparel that is very light (such as white) or very dark (such as black). Even a dark navy blue jacket can blend into a dark background, in the same way that a very light beige could blend into a light background. Also, if white is worn against a dark background, the range of contrast could result in the white being burned out, in other words, having no details at all. Conversely, if black is worn against a white, or very light background, the black clothing could be completely devoid of detail.

3) Additionally, avoid bright colors, such a red or orange, which tend to draw attention away from the subject’s face.

4) Generally speaking, solid colors work best. Avoid checked patterns, plaids, extreme stripes or dramatic herringbone patterns – they have a tendency to moiré on screen (which means appear to vibrate).

5) It’s useful to wear a buttoned shirt or blouse, which makes it easier to attach a lapel microphone.

6) Beware of jewelry that can make noise. The slight rattling or jangling noise that you may not be normally aware of, can be magnified by the microphone during an interview. Be particularly cautious of a necklace that might touch a lapel microphone, and especially avoid bracelets, which can create distracting noises for a person who gestures with their hands. In general, minimize jewelry for TV and video interviews.

7) Eye glasses can reflect distracting lights, but if you normally wear glasses, and that’s how people know you, you should wear them. However, a glare-free type or frames with no lenses would be ideal.

8) In many instances, it would be best to bring an alternative selection of clothing to help the Director present you in the best possible light.

For information on how to best present yourself as an interview guest on TV, check out this article: Video and TV Interview Tips.

Before getting into the list of digital file types, let’s review three terms to gain a better understanding of the video file characteristics.

Compression: Video files are inherently very large. In order to make digital video files smaller, the information within the files is compressed to save space on computers. One of the ways video files are made smaller is by removing redundant information. For example, the color of a wall doesn’t change much, frame to frame, in most videos. By removing a quantity of information related to the wall, the file size is reduced. Instead, the computer then reinterprets the wall mathematically, which generates similar video quality, without requiring the original information.

Encoding: Encoding is the process of converting and preparing video files for delivery in a particular medium. It is the process of compressing raw video so that it contains significantly less data, for purposes of video transmission or storage.

Codec: Each different method of encoding compression is a codec, which is a device or computer program that compresses a large amount of digital video information into a smaller file size.  Codec is short for compression/decompression.   A codec includes specific instructions for converting the video to a smaller size for storage or transporting (compression) and then making it appear larger again (decompression) to be viewed as a video.

In fact, users can even make choices to optimize the encoding of their respective codecs to present as high a quality video as possible, for the medium in which the video will be presented.

JULY 29, 2010 UPDATE: Today, YouTube boosted the maximum upload length to fifteen minutes (instead of ten minutes). Furthermore, the video file size can be up to 2GB.

DEC 09, 2010 UPDATE: Today, YouTube announced that they are beginning to roll out the removal of their time limits for uploaded videos. This will be rolled out slowly across user channels. As stated on the YouTube blog: “Starting today, we’ll begin allowing selected users with a history of complying with the YouTube Community Guidelines and our copyright rules to upload videos that are longer than 15 minutes.”

But once you get beyond that, and start considering ways to improve the video display quality (presuming you have a properly exposed original video file with good sound, to begin with), another aspect that will need to be considered is how to gain maximum video quality while YouTube is simultaneously reducing that quality during the video upload process.

Hence, it behooves one to be aware of what YouTube deems as the best video files to use for uploading:

• WebM files – Vp8 video codec and Vorbis Audio codecs
• .MPEG4, 3GPP and MOV files – Typically supporting h264, mpeg4 video codecs, and AAC audio codec
• .AVI – Many cameras output this format – typically the video codec is MJPEG and audio is PCM
• .MPEGPS – Typically supporting MPEG2 video codec and MP2 audio
  .WMV
• .FLV – Adobe-FLV1 video codec, MP3 audio

For more info, here is the link to the YouTube Optimizing your video uploads page.

And if you are of the type of person that needs to know more about those file types and common video formats in general, then check out this post on Popular Digital Video File Formats.

Finally, how long should your video be? Just because you can upload a video to YouTube that is longer than 15 minutes in length, should you? The short answer is “it depends.” For more info, visit What’s the Best Length for an Internet Video?

Well…maybe…maybe not.

Certainly, if you are a YouTube Partner, you will get paid. However, the criteria for establishing that YouTube partnership is a bit nebulous. Here’s how YouTube describes their qualifications:

To become a YouTube Partner, you must meet these minimum requirements:

♦ You create original videos suitable for online streaming.

♦ You own or have express permission to use and monetize all audio and video content that you upload – no exceptions.

♦ You regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users.

Not everyone who believes that they meet those qualifications is accepted as a partner, but the program has expanded.

The YouTube Partner Program was piloted by Google in 2007 and at the end of the year they opened it up wider with this announcement on their blog titled YouTube Partner Program Expands. Following is an excerpt:

Recognizing YouTube users for their creativity and their role in building YouTube is of the utmost importance to our team. That’s why earlier this year we launched a pilot of the YouTube Partner Program, our way of enabling some of the most popular and prolific original content creators within the YouTube community to earn money from their videos. These partners decide which of their videos they would like to generate revenue on YouTube, and in turn, they receive a portion of the revenue generated from ads that run next to those videos.

This week, TechCrunch posted that YouTube Extends Revenue Sharing Program To Anyone With A Viral Video.  This does not change the criteria for becoming a YouTube Partner, but it does open up the revenue sharing opportunity for anyone who has a video that does go viral.

Here’s an excerpt from the TechCrunch article:

Here’s how it works: YouTube will be monitoring its site for videos that quickly go viral, and will then reach out to the content uploader with an Email invitation to “Enable Revenue Sharing” on that video. If you choose to enable the feature, then YouTube will place ads against the video and will give you a cut, which gets paid into your Google AdSense account. YouTube’s criteria for joining the program are vague — the site plans to look at the number of views a video gets, its virality, and compliance with the site’s Terms of Service, but it has offered no concrete numbers.

Here are the titles of a few of the videos:

♦  Pulitzer Center: Tips for Video Journalists
♦  How to Shoot Two Kinds of Video (from Reuters)
♦  PolitiFact’s Guide to Fact-checking
♦  NPR’s Scott Simon: How to Tell a Story
♦  Katie Couric on How to Conduct a Good Interview

Each of the videos I checked out were short (2-5 min) while containing relevant and practical info pertinent to the titles.  Some of the instructional videos can be useful for blogging, getting to the essence of a story, video marketing, interviewing others, as well as applications for social media and social marketing in general.

To see these videos and many more, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/reporterscenter

This is a noteworthy addition since it allows marketers a greater opportunity to move viewers to a targeted website and/or message pertinent to the video (or not).

Although such YouTube overlay ads existed before, they were limited to only select partners, specific content and video genre.

By using these customized, semi-transparent pop-ups in their videos, YouTube advertisers can refer viewers back to their product sites.
Of course, you already need to be actively promoting (paid service) a video in order to use Call-to-Action Overlay ads.

Consider this as an important step for Google (owner of YouTube) towards monetizing their very popular video site by laying the groundwork for additional advertising revenues.  Depending upon how this pans out, YouTube (and other video hosting sites) may be a very different viewing experience in the future. (Think of more routine ad-supported videos coming to your favorite YouTube selections….)

1) Titles

Your video titles have the same importance as the headline to any of your articles.

Do your titles inspire interest?

Are you titles keyword relevant?

Good titles are arguably the most important component of getting your videos opened and viewed. Good titles are so important to professional copywriters, that they may spend as much time on determining the best titles (and even surveying and testing different titles), as they may have spent writing the main content.

2) Tags

Tags are keywords, or free-form, multi-word terms, assigned to a piece of information as a way to identify that content. They are somewhat analogous to mini-titles, but that’s an imperfect depiction since a group of dissimilar tags could be used to describe different components of one video.

Tagging is certainly not limited to videos, it is used for images and blog posts and other social media content. See the tags associated with this article for an example.  (If you are reading this article via an RSS feed, you’ll need to visit skyworksmarketing.com to see the tags.)

The point is to ensure that you “do” tag your videos appropriately so that each video can benefit from the search benefits of being indexed by those specific keywords and terms.

3) File Names

This can be easily overlooked but if you are hosting your videos on your own website (as opposed to uploading them to a third-party publisher, such as YouTube), then the same principles used for image optimization are applicable to your video filenames. Keep them short, in a human-readable format, and use keywords where possible.

To be really clear, a video file titled “OnlineMarketing.flv” will drive you more search traffic than one titled with numbers and/or abbreviations such as “OM061809.flv”

4) Descriptive Text

Search engines read text. Let the search engines know what your video is about by offering a description, right in the description field, such as provided by video hosting services.

Additionally, when posting a video on your site, include contextually relevant text to describe it with keywords. (And “not” by repetitive use of relevant keywords).

Further, if you want to consider having the video transcribed and then published as part of a video page, you are offering the search engines even more opportunities to serve your video page up to searchers seeking what you have to offer.

5) Video Link Building

Video content is ideal media for link building. In addition to uploading video on 3rd party hosting sites, include your video in blogs; link to it from bookmarking sites; submit it to RSS; promote your videos with email marketing and/or social networking services.

6) Video SEO

All these points are really rudimentary search engine optimization (SEO) basics for optimizing any content. Building links is another part of an SEO strategy, and includes using descriptive keyword text for the links you control and linking directly to the page hosting your video.

In summary, whether you are hosting your videos on YouTube to take advantage of its tremendous traffic, presenting your videos on other video hosting services, or hosting them on your own website, these points will help you maximize the impact your videos can have for achieving your online marketing goals.

Of course video is a tremendous asset for anyone desiring to get a message out, but there are times when the viewer may be more inclined to receive the message and times that may not be optimum.

Since video is primarily a linear medium and requires time to play out to present its message, there’s a commitment the potential viewer needs to make before clicking “Play.”

Besieged email recipients are trying to rapidly determine which messages merit their attention and which can be deleted. Entering video into this end-user mindset may, per force, result in no communication as the harried recipient hits “Delete” due to not having the time to determine the value of the video message.

On the other hand, traditional e-mail with text and graphics, is spatial. You and I can make instant decisions on whether or not an e-mail will be read or deleted with a glance.

Of course, none of this diminishes the value of video.

Even embedded within email, it can still be valuable when communicating short messages to an audience passionate about the subject – but not every marketer has the advantage of such an enthusiastic email readership.

Instead of embedding video within email so that the user has no choice except to hit “Delete” or “Play,” the tried and true method of distributing video via email is simply describing the content of a video with text and providing a link to it. This allows the recipient to delete it, or put the message aside and view it with some attention at another point.

In essence, this grants the recipient greater control of his/her inbox while simultaneously inviting the recipient to view the video at a more convenient time, which may result in a more receptive mood regarding the video message.

Of course, providing a link to a video is also easier and does not require an additional service.