Creating Compelling Video with Mitchel Dumlao

If you’re talking about digital organizing, you need to talk about using compelling content as an engagement tool.

The most engaging form of content is video. Video performs better consistently across most platforms. That’s why Facebook acquired Instagram, Tik Tok has been doing so well, and Twitter has invested resources into the medium. To learn more about how to create compelling content, I reached out to Mitchel Dumlao.

Mitchel has 15 years of experience creating videos, including for numerous brands, and built his own content making business. Here’s a sample of some of his work:

We talked about how to take advantage of social media algorithms when creating and distributing content, equipment that can improve your own phone camera, different types of shots to utilize for editing, and examples of successful viral marketing techniques.

---

David - Thanks for doing this, I wanted to chat with you because a key aspect to digital organizing is creating compelling content. One of the best ways of creating compelling content is video. That’s why Facebook moved into it and bought Instagram. That’s why Twitter started their own streaming platform. That’s why Tik Tok is going crazy these days. That’s why Snapchat was doing well for a while.

I don’t know enough about video production, which is ironic, because as you know, we went to film school together. I know a little bit about framing a camera but I’m not a practitioner. I know you are, and I’ve been really blown away by some of your travel videos. So I wanted to hear from an expert on how to actually do this because the idea is to get this information and pass it off to people who are trying to do it themselves who either activists or trying to win an election.

Mitchel - With video, there’s so many things you can do. There’s a difference between making something way too creative and depending on the data. Video and marketing right now is based on a lot of data because a lot of creators influencers are trying to beat the algorithm, the code in any social media platform that determines where your content is going to lie in your users’ feeds. It’s no longer the chronological order that if I post something at 3 o'clock, my users at 3 o'clock will get the same post. That used to be how it worked back in the day.

Now, because of the over saturation of content, you may find the people showing up in your feed can be from two days ago, one day ago. It’s based on views, it’s based on engagement, it’s based on quality content. Knowing how to crack the code, the basics, how to create good content, and who your target audience is - that’s how you’re going to get the engagement you want.

David - Let’s go one step back, what do you need to get started?

Mitchel - There are different types of ways to get into it - you can use your tablet, mobile device or your computer. What Covid 19 did is it made it forgivable to have “crappy content” compared to cinema grade cameras. You can go go on NBC or whatever network American Idol is on right now, Ryan Seacrest and Katy Perry are broadcasting from their homes on national television and no one cares. And their contestants are on ring-lights and a cell phone because they can’t afford to send each one of the contestants a three lighting kit with a red camera or broadcast quality camera. So now it doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have as long as I can see you.

The basics are you need good lighting. We’ve got great lighting right now.

David - It’s funny you say that, because I actually positioned myself to have great lighting. That was one of the tips I wrote about in Dos and Don'ts of Webcasting.

Mitchel - Yeah, it’s bad lighting and bad sound. For people that are just getting into this, you can just use your headset. That can act as your lavalier mic or your mic that will get the best sound. Sometimes if you just use your phone or computer, you might get some echo. If you’re doing live talks like this, you may get the speaker getting picked up by the mic.

What you really need is just some kind of camera and as long as you know framing basics, lighting, and sound, you're good to go. Honestly it’s, “can I see your face? And is your head not cut off? Are your eyes not cut off?” As long as you can see my eyes, you're good.

When it comes to equipment, it doesn’t really matter these days. If you want to take it to the next level, that’s when we get into DSLRs and mirrorless cameras.

David - And that’s a little more of an investment. You mentioned talking about cracking the code. What does that mean and how do you do it?

Mitchel - When it comes to social media and trying to get your content on top of people’s feeds, it’s kind of like Google Rank and SEO. Google ranks websites on if it’s back linked with other sites, and also if it’s clicked on a lot, but also if it is what the user wants. Is it valuable? Is it something they were looking for? So if they type in a search query or a tag and they clicked on something, Google knows it’s a quality website. It’s called a quality score.

When you have content, it’s the same thing, it’s SEO: how are people searching for your content? It’s keywords, it’s queries, it’s what your subject is all about. That is going to affect where your content sits on a person’s feed. Does that person engage with your content? Are they going to like or share it? Are they going to retweet? Are they going to comment? How long is the retention rate? All of this plays into a quality score and where it sits on someone's feed. So if you want to crack the code it really is trying to get engagement on your video. 

Now there are hacks. Some growth hacks you can do is be part of a pod, a group of other people that all comment and like each other's posts, and that drives up the engagement. What happens is when you start getting these comments, like the comments, engage with them. A hack to do is start a conversation in your comments. Keep asking questions, so people keep answering. Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, or Instagram will see that as engagement. The more engagement you get, the more visible it is, the more relevant it is, the higher your quality score.

And also retention rates, how long did they watch the content in that video.

David - And that’s probably why you want to keep your video short, right?

Mitchel - Mm hmm. I’d say there are different optimizations for each platform, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook. All of them have different sweet spots. 

Back in the day, we’d say on YouTube you need to grab a person’s attention in the first five seconds. That’s why they have skippable ads. As an advertiser, you don’t pay money for when someone skips your ad, you only pay when they watch your whole ad. So they found that you need to catch someone’s attention in the first five seconds.

When it comes to social media, I believe it’s the same thing. The first five seconds count. That’s why you really need to catch a person’s ad in the first five seconds. That’s why when you look at Youtube, they really try to put as much information as they can in the first five seconds to get your attention.

Shorter content is great, people are gravitating towards longer content, that’s why Podcasts are changing the game. Joe Rogan has really flipped the idea of podcasting and Youtube on its head, because people are watching his podcast videos. I actually watch them over listening to this podcasts. I don’t think I’m even subscribed to his podcast.

I think when it comes to duration, and how long your video should be, when I talk to my clients, it’s 1 - 2 minutes, 2 - 3 minutes, or keep under 1 minute if you’re on Instagram. For YouTube, 2 - 3 minutes. You can even do 5 depending on what your format is. Interviews can be up to 10. It depends on what your format is. And also who your audience is.

David - So you said you have to catch a person in the first 5 seconds. Do you have any tips?

Mitchel - I remember when I was watching one of this internet marketers, Dean Grassiosi. What he did was actually burn his book. So you’re scrolling through your feed, suddenly you see a burning book, and you go “what is this?” He said that actual ad jumped up all of his sales. 

This doesn’t mean you have to burn a book or have something exploding in the background. A lot of YourTubers have a lot of strange ways of getting people’s attention. Some people front load their videos with a montage or summary of what’s to come.You’ll see a lot of Youtube videos that will show the future of that episode, what's going to happen with that episode. Even with Podcasts, you explain what the podcast is about in the beginning and let people know - do I want to stay here at all? Or do I want to get off because I don’t want to wait for the point that I’m looking for?

So some tips - have a scroll stopping image or front load it with a question. A question is really a great way to grab someone’s attention, especially when it comes to LinkedIn. I’ve been doing pretty well with LinkedIn lately. I did a lot of marketing research and I’ve been doing a lot of testing on that platform. What I’ve found is on that platform, video doesn’t work. Instead text works and the text that works is a captivating quote, disruptive statement, or a question.

David - One thing that I’ve seen a lot of folks do is they repurpose their content - you have the longer form interview, chop it up into bite-size bits, and then put those out on social media. Do you have any strategies for how to do that successfully or does that happen organically?

Mitchel - I do that with my podcast, I hire someone off Fiverr. During these times, when everyone’s stuck at home, content is so crucial for anyone who’s trying to get a message out there or trying to build a band. Having a presence on the social media platforms where your target audience is going to be consuming content is key. I do want to stress that you don’t have to be on every single social media platform. If you want to target c-suite executives, you’re not going to be on Tik Tok. But if you want to target Gen Z, you’re probably not going to be on LinkedIn. You have to know where your target audience is.

When it comes to repurposing, you have to know what your platform is going to be, what’s the aspect ratio of the video - is it square? Is it horizontal? Is it vertical? And what is popular on that platform. You can’t just repurpose content on different platforms without knowing what type of content on that platform is popular because then you won’t get optimized traffic. What you should do is know which platforms you’re going to upload to, and strategize beforehand. 

I know that Instagram is a one-minute timer, and I know it’s a visual medium. And I know that most people like to see captions, because they don’t watch videos with their audio on. There, captioned audio graphics work well. Inspirational videos, a lot of them have text and captions. 

David - Do you manually do the captioning or do you have tools to do it? I know Facebook does, but when I use it, I have to go back in there because there are a million things to fix.

Mitchel - I hire someone, but there’s also a tool called rev.com. It’s a dollar a minute, you can upload anything and then have them transcribe it. I use it for podcasts and show-notes. You can use it for writing ebooks, just riff on a topic, and then rev.com can create a PDF out of it.

David - Are there any stylistic tips? I know you went to film school and you have all sorts of knowledge from professors. I know it’s hard to put that into a quick digestible format, but for a person who’s never shot a video in their life before, what should they consider to help them make a better looking video?

Mitchel - I would say the rule of thirds, which means you split up your screen in three sections - the left, the middle, and the right. So you would place yourself in the middle, left, or the right. What that does is create symmetry. 

You should also think about headroom. You don’t want to cut off your hair, you also don’t want to be all the way down in the bottom of your frame. Make sure you have a nice background. It doesn’t have to be fancy, even if it’s just a pure white wall. If it’s a background that’s your kitchen or living room - clean it up, brand it if you want by putting a poster up or a banner . You can have a TV in the background with visualizations or a video playing.

A lot of people are creating studios inside their home because they need to. I’ve created a studio here and I’m just building it up.

So the idea is - the idea is use the rule of thirds as a way to create symmetry, keep it nice and simple, be in the center, give yourself some head room, try and get  a medium shot, something from the bottom of your ribs to the top of your head. You can’t have your face right in the camera so like your nose is touching the lens. 

If you can, get a ring light on Amazon for pretty cheap, and then you can have that shining towards your face and use your window. You can use your kitchen lights or windows as well. It creates a halo or a backlight around your head.=

And when it comes to style, honestly it depends on what your target audience is. If you want to have a relatable situation or environment, then it is your home, make it look inviting. If you’re trying to talk to constituents or the public, it would be hard if it looks like an office in a very lavish setting.

David - That’s great advice for a static shot, but I find action shots are pretty compelling. Do you have any tips for that?

Mitchel - Sure, I think you should get a stabilizer or a gimbal. It’ll give you smooth, stable motion for videos for your phone. So if you’re running or walking, it’s not bouncing up and down. When you’re using a stabilizer, you can do a lot of cool sweeping shots.

If you are going to introduce a location, a great shot for me is a tracking in shot - low angle, near the bottom near the floor, and you zoom in or push the camera in to your location. Another great shot that I like is rack focusing on different types of objects - close-ups but moving the camera. 

If you want to get super stylistic, blow people’s minds, or whatnot - there are shots where you’re moving and panning and tilting at the same time. So if I was moving a camera forward but also panning to the right - it’s called a parallax. So your subject is in the middle while you’re spinning around them. You can do that with objects or people, it creates a really cool effect.

David - The classic Bad Boys shot.

Mitchel - Yes, Michael Bay! 

And of course there’s slow motion. You have to shoot in high frame rates, 60 or 120 per second. You have that on your phone. If you want to create a cool travel video, use your phone, put it in slow motion and get a stabilizer, and then when you do create shot -,establishing shots, parallax, rack focus, showing depth in your shots by going foreground to background - make sure that everything you capture is lit up well. When you are shooting with your phone, it’s all on auto, and if you’re in the dark, it’s going to be grainy footage. Try to find ways so that you can be in the light.

If you want to get fancier, you can get lens attachments. If you want to film your communities, you can go online, buy a lens attachment for your phone - a lens that will go over your camera that will give you close up shots, super wide shots, and interview type shots. You can use those different focal lengths to give you more than just the one camera angle you have on your phone. By doing that, you want to give your viewer different angles to work with. You don’t always want to have a wide shot. As an editor, you want be able to to cut through your shots.

The easy transition is wide to medium to close-up. It’s like when you’re walking around, you see something that catches your attention, that’s your wide shot. And you walk up and observe it, that’s your medium. Then you peer in and look in, that’s your close-up. That’s kind of like what the human eye does already. Now when you’re editing, you can do several different types of transitions. If you have a variety of shots that you can work with when you’re editing, it gives your viewers something interesting to look at.

David - Any last tips before we end?

Mitchel - Honestly, if you are going to be using your phone, go into your settings under General and Camera, you can set whether or not you’re in 4K and how many frames per second. If you want the cinematic look, go 4K and 24 frames per second. If you want slow mo, you can even do 60 frames per second with 4K on the latest version of iPhone which is incredible. So you can adjust your phone for the best possible footage.

And if folks want to contact me, email me questions, they can email me at mitchel.dumlao@gmail.com.