Lynn Goodwin is a health coach who resides in Newport, RI. She is a part of the PVD Lady Project that you've probably read about in other blog posts. She wanted to get involved with The Aspiration Project and from there we began talking about her business.
She asked me if I did video as well as photography because she was looking to create a promotional video for her website. She wanted something that would allow her visitors to "meet" her and get a feel for her personality and what her business is all about. I agreed to work with her and we decided to shoot the video in her own home to give it more of a personal feel. I love projects that are a little different than the norm, and I don't get an excuse to produce videos all that often so I was excited to work on it with her.
Lynn wrote up a script and sent it to me to give me an idea of what material she was going to be presenting. That was useful so I could figure out how I wanted to shoot the video. She wanted to keep it simple with just some text to emphasize her points. I decided to go with natural lighting so it wouldn't seem to clinical or harsh. We found a spot in her house where the late afternoon light was spilling softly through a doorway. Perfect. I loved the wallpaper she had in the spot as well. I threw the background out of focus just enough to soften it but retain the texture and we were ready to go.
I have to say that I am always very prepared and really on top of equipment inventory and making sure I have what I need for any assignment. I usually have fifty thousand extra batteries and more speedlights than I can even use (just in case three break at the same time, you know?). As I was unpacking my car when I arrived at her house, I realized I was missing something very basic for shooting video. My tripod. What an amateur. I kind of didn't even want to admit this on the blog post because I didn't want to appear like a hacker to any prospective clients, but at the same time I wanted to show off my Macgyver-like skill of making things happen no matter what I have on hand. I spotted some pretty nice floor speakers when I walked into the living room that were just about chest height. After asking permission to unwire the speaker from the audio system, I dragged it over to the shoot area and put my camera on top while simultaneously patting myself on the back for saving the day. Unfortunately, speakers don't give you very fine control over camera angle. It was too low, so I found a few books of precise thickness and made a little tower on top of the speaker. I wedged my keys underneath the lens to angle the camera a little bit and I had a tripod. After that I stopped sweating a little bit.
Lynn was awesome delivering her talk to the camera even though she claimed she was going to be terrible at it. She got it near perfect on the first take. We shot it three or four times just to make sure we had it all captured and I packed up my stuff and headed out. Time to start cutting the reels. OK, I mean transferring the files from the memory card and editing the video with software.
Here's the final product. I encourage you to watch it, especially if you have any health-related lifestyle issues that you might need assistance with. I think it came out pretty good and conveys her very friendly demeanor. Here's her website if you want to know more - rootedinradianthealth.com. Reader, meet Lynn: