Creating Impactful Short Form Video

[chubes]

With the TikTok ban being lifted and the obvious shift towards short-form video dominance, I am trying to build up my confidence on camera and my video creation skills.

This is a thread to share resources and knowledge related to making short form videos that stand out, with viral potential.

There are several challenges here:

1. Selecting Content
Considering most of us have blogs packed with evergreen content, this part is easy. Re-purpose a solid article into video form. Since I love to write, this also allows me to keep writing "2000 word blog posts" with the intention of turning them into a video later.

2. Making the video itself
This part is hard, and as I've mentioned, is a completely different skill set than writing. There is an art to it and I am still figuring it out. I made one today and it went okay. The video is meh, but whatever. Gotta start somewhere, and learn from my mistakes.

3. Posting the video
I honestly struggle with this part. I get pretty self-conscious when I post videos of myself, I guess out of fear of judgement or failure. My friend gave me some words of wisdom today:

Eh don’t stress it. Your taking a thought out risk
Hakuna Matata

I don't have much knowledge to share since I'm still at the beginning of my journey. But, the space for discussion has been opened.

What’s worked for you? Any favorite tools or techniques for making videos?

 

[Sutra]

You already found a winner in your My Baby thread with the AI Spam on pinterest. Why aren't you focusing on that?

Perhaps you don't like the idea of AI spam and that's why you're not focusing on it. But who gives a shit. YOU FOUND A WINNER. It works now. Scale that now, make money, then when you see the tides turning use that money to go into something bigger and better with more longevity.

Or perhaps you're not focusing on it because the idea of scaling it to the size needed is too daunting. And you have no idea what to do next, intimated by the idea of having to build a team, etc, etc. Whatever it is, those are all solvable. Solve each of those issue and move forward. How much do you think you could make if you figured out how to scale it? 20k a month, 50k, a month, 100k a month, 100m a month? It's far bigger than you think. $1,000,000+ is on the other end, waiting for you. You just need to solve it. And you already have the keys and the path. So do that and nothing else. Double down, triple down, quadruple down it. Stop fucking around man.

 

[Jesse]

@Sutra hit the nail on the head, but to avoid derailing the topic of this thread, I'll address the larger picture in your My Baby(s) thread. As for what you asked about, I'll offer the following here:

• No one cares about your birthmark. It's a complete non-issue. I want to point this out first because you seem to crap your pants over it every time you're on camera. This mental hang-up colors everything else you think or do about the topic, so it's a priority to straighten out.
• I've read a few of your "2000-word blog posts." I would strongly recommend learning copywriting and how to build a productive creative process. Luke Sullivan's book "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This" is where I suggest people start with this. This will take you several weeks if you're also working full-time, but it's a foundation that you need for a lot of things (including short-form video) and don't seem to have. This solves two problems you currently have: How to come up with content ideas and how to make them good.
• Learn about the modern environment with regard to attention spans, hooks, the state of public schools (the teachers and professors subreddits are great for this) and the state of Gen Z workers. This will help you understand what you're trying to achieve with regard to catching their attention and keeping it.
• Making videos is not the big pain that you've dreamed it up to be. It's hard because you have no idea what you're doing, but all things are hard when you don't know what you're doing. I suggest starting with the free version of CapCut on PC to learn the basics of editing video. Ctrl+B is the keyboard shortcut to cut a clip.

Just learn the required skill sets, and you'll have no problem. It's not hard to beat 99 percent of people within a few months because they won't do the work.

 

[Upsilon]

• Making videos is not the big pain that you've dreamed it up to be. It's hard because you have no idea what you're doing, but all things are hard when you don't know what you're doing. I suggest starting with the free version of CapCut on PC to learn the basics of editing video. Ctrl+B is the keyboard shortcut to cut a clip.

I want to add something to this.

A lot of the time when we see something as being difficult, grueling, taxing, etc. it's actually our own projection of what that "thing," is, not the "thing" itself. To give you some examples:

• Cold calling: this is the most difficult thing some people could be doing -- in reality, cold calling is literally picking up the phone and using voice to talk to someone else who also uses their voice to reply to you.
• Recording a video: some people find being on camera difficult -- in reality, it's just putting an object in front of your face and talking. Some of these people are sending dozens of video notes to their friends, or are posting stories on their socials talking about whatever, but they won't record a video because somehow that is different.
• Sitting down to edit a video/learn the skill of editing: in reality, this action is literally sitting at your computer, using a combination of keys and mouse movements, which is literally what you're doing when surfing the internet or whatever.

One of the most helpful things you could be doing is disassociate "the thing" from the feelings you have about "the thing," and seeing it for what it truly is: a sequence of actions you are doing.

 

[Jesse]

If you're going to do talking head short-form videos, here's a day one, hold-your-hand blueprint to get started on writing, shooting, editing and video grading in CapCut for Desktop (free) as a one-man operation assuming you have a phone and no idea of what you're doing:

• Write a short script (how to make this good is a skill to learn, start with learning copywriting)
• Record yourself saying the same script 3-4 times, one continuous video for each go, pausing between lines in the script (this gives you multiple takes of the same line in case you need them)
• Watch the videos back and decide which take you want for the first, second, third lines (etc)
• Open Capcut, select create a project on the screne that comes up, use the import button in the top-left (below "search media") to import your clips, drag them to your timeline below, cut those individual clips out that you want from each take and save them one at a time to their own separate files, leave some empty space before and after (don't cut them too close to you talking to give yourself room to edit) (remember to select the correct resolution that you want them exported at in the pop-up dialogue)
• Open a new Capcut project, and only include those takes you want to use
• Add them in their pre-edited form in the correct order to your timeline
• Take out pauses and put clips together using basic J-cuts (see how to do this below)
• Adjust your contrast curve slightly if the video looks washed out (see how to do this further down below)

How to make your J-cuts:

I couldn't find a short enough tutorial for this, so I just took some quick screenshots of the process. I'm breaking this down in tiny details, but it's not complicated once you see what you're doing and takes literally 5 seconds (I timed it).

I pulled a clip of Chael Sonnen into CapCut because he pauses a lot. You can see a pause of about three seconds here that we'll be getting rid of.

In the bottom-right corner, make sure this option for the main track magnet is UNSELECTED.

Start by using Ctrl+B to place cuts near the beginning and ending of the pause we want to remove. Note that (red arrow) we're leaving a little bit of space on the left-hand side.

When we delete the middle space and pull the clips together, this is what we have. Note that this is where you'll be starting if you're combining two separate clips instead of taking a long pause out of an individual clip.

All we're doing here is taking the right-hand clip and moving it down one layer.

Then we slide that bottom clip over until the talking of the bottom starts when the top clip ends. If you hit play on it at this point, you'll see how much smoother of a cut it is.

Since we'll be doing this multiple times in the same project, we want to do a little housekeeping so that we don't end up with 20 layers for no reason. Put your cursor at the end of the top clip and use Ctrl+B to cut the bottom clip.

Slide the right part of the bottom clip into the top layer. Now when you go to do your next J-cut in the same project, you can just take it to that bottom layer and continue the process.

How to adjust your contrast curve:

If you want to get into complicated color grading, be my guest, but this is a quick and easy way to improve how your video looks if you think it looks washed out. Note Uncle Chael looks fine in this video, but I'll use it just to show the process because this takes like 10 seconds.

1. Use Ctrl+A to select all of your video clips in your project
2. In the top-right, click Adjustment
3. Under that, click Curves, it should look something like this:

Move point A up slightly and point B down slightly. It should look something like this when you're done:

Before:

After:

From there you can look up tutorials on what you want to learn to get better at.

 

[Jesse]

A few other things for one-man newbie operations in no particular order:

• Something that gets constantly overlooked is the importance of the captions, and this is why some level of copywriting skill will help short-form video reach (I recommend "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This" to get started). If you get someone reading your caption, they're spending longer on your video and are more likely to like, comment and share, increasing all metrics. Even with a short tagline that causes them to pause for a moment, you're capturing their attention in a sea of things trying to capture their attention. This translates directly to more money in all scenarios.
• If you're posting on one platform, you should be posting on all of them. Simple, cheap tools are available to make this as quick and easy as possible. Even if you're doing it manually, the time investment is a drop in the bucket compared to the time put into the content creation itself.
• Develop a concrete creative process that you can outline and repeat in specific steps that will help you to build out the ideas for videos. This should be the foundation of an overall content engine as a whole.
• At all times, have a way to capture your ideas when you have them. Do not rely on trying to just remember them because you won't.
• You don't need fancy lighting setups. All you really need is a window to get started.

 

[Jesse]

I'm a serious proponent of studying other people as a means of improving your strengths and working on your weaknesses. When I say study, I don't mean just watching their videos. I mean breaking things down in an insane amount of detail, frame-by-frame in some cases, analyzing their apparent approach to the creative process and so on.

For example, you may have something you think is a huge weakness like being soft-spoken, short and kind of looking like Sid from Ice Age. On one hand, you can find someone who has those attributes and study out how they approach everything to be successful anyway (eg: Eric Rosen). On the other hand, you can find someone who is the polar opposite of those things (eg: Andrew Tate) to identify what they both do in their creative processes to identify core skills that you need to develop.

Here are a few people that could get someone started and help them find their style and creative process.

Eric Rosen (YouTube) - Relaxed Authority

Eric Rosen is a chess guy who primarily runs from YouTube. He has a very soft-spoken, calm delivery and a great deadpan sense of humor. To keep peoples attention despite being so soft-spoken, he has an excellent comedic timing and has to rely on the actual content of what he's saying to be entertaining.

Example: I Fought 5 Grandmasters and got Fair-Play Checked at the World Rapid Championships | Day 1 Recap

This video is typical of what you see from him in terms of presentation and delivery. He has a style that always lends itself to a lot of entertaining shorts pulled from his long-form content. If you're introverted, he's an excellent place to start your study.

Andrew Tate (Rumble) - Assertive Authority

Andrew Tate built his initial reach by saying polarizing things in a very charismatic way. That's a virtually guaranteed recipe for building a significant reach. The downside is that it can sometimes limit where you're allowed to operate. Later, he pivoted to bringing value through a combination of being entertaining and giving good advice.

Example: Andrew Tate on The Secret to Speaking

This video is from a seminar and offers a breakdown of a philosophy of studying things like speaking. If you want to get better at speaking on camera, he's a good person to study in general, but this video in particular literally just breaks down exactly how to do it inside of like five minutes, so it's perfect for this thread.

Sal Cincotta (YouTube) - Fun Authority

Sal Cincotta is a photographer primarily on YouTube who has an excellent delivery from a position of a playful, fun authority. Explaining things online can easily become boring, and he's a great example of how to be engaging just by your delivery. However, he's dialed back enough that he never comes across as abrasive (ie: Tate) while also not having to fight off being soft-spoken (ie: Rosen).

Example: How-To // Natural Light Beauty Portraits

One of the things that makes Sal stand out is that he feels like he's having fun without it being overblown and oversold like what people think of with typical modern Gen Z style personalities. Again, this style is perfect for pulling short-form videos from long-form content.

Andrea Botez (YouTube and YouTube) - Documenting Things You Were Already Doing

Andrea Botez does a lot of things and documents them. That's the core of how her content engine works, and it's a mindset that can be really important to learn for building a personal brand. She's also great for triggering people who have toxic shock syndrome over a girl being on social media.

• (Short) Andrea Botez Boxing WALKOUT
• (Short) Day in Life of a Chess Player
• (Short) my first live DJ set!!
• (Short) Talking to Strangers Outside Style Video
• (Short) Sitting Podcast Style Video

Andrea is an excellent example of how to pull content from so many different things. I think this makes her a great example for people who can't figure out what kind of content to make.