Category: Blog

So much is happening in this image: Here’s a breakdown: The image is a cropped screenshot of a maker’s inbox after they released a digital product Every “Payment of $69.99 from” entry is a sales confirmation sent to the maker every time someone bought their product (Yay!) The redacted part is for privacy—to occlude the […]

This slide is from the Minimum Viable Video session on audio setup and room treatments. There are simple steps you can take to make your room sound good when you’re filming. Quick tip for better sound: the more pillows and cushions in your studio, the better. Soft surfaces dampen echo and reverb, which means your […]

I’ve always been curious how people get their movie and show ideas to Netflix. Jeff Deverett has sold three film projects to the streaming platform. Here’s how he did it. And as you might have guessed, the high-level principles at play here are useful to anyone pitching anything. Here are those principles: Be early: I got […]

How did Austin become Austin? In the late 60s, a country musician was making his way in Nashville. He’d written hit songs—including a career-defining tune (“Crazy”) for Patsy Cline. But he lost momentum. His career stalled. Nashville and the country music machine were driving him nuts. His name was Willie Nelson and he felt frustrated, […]

​She’s a Youtube star and startup entrepreneur who runs three channels that span 5 million subscribers.​ We had a delightful conversation. She’s one of those people who really nails the balance of extreme warmth and impressive ambition. It was a joy to learn from her. I like interviewing people to dig down at the earliest […]

Stanford professor Jeremy Bailenson led a large-scale study and found ways how we can finally prevent the dreaded Zoom fatigue. Let’s dive in. 1. Shrink your Zoom screen When you’re having a conversation on Zoom with one person or many, our brains process it as direct eye contact. The way you see faces on Zoom, […]

It’s a cruel irony that technology allows you to duplicate items on your to do list with a mouse click. So simple, so easy. But it doesn’t allow you—the actual doer of the work—to clone yourself. (We can clone sheep though, so there’s that. Sheep underperform on all productivity metrics, though, except when it comes […]

Hiring managers read resumes because they have to. They watch videos because they want to.

The first cohort of Minimum Viable Video (“MVV”) ended with a Virtual Film Festival of our students on December 17, 2020.  It was the culmination of five weeks of learning, experimenting, and creating for our 20 students. In such a short time, they made a huge leap in their video skills. As they streamed their videos to […]

In part 1, we covered a practice technique called the “Hello Video”. In part 2, we address how to project warmth and connect with your audience. Part 3 focuses on how we get hung up noticing things that no one notices. The fourth and final installment of the series is a video on a breathing technique you use […]