Dealing with Difficult People
by Beth Sowell on Feb.22, 2010, under Charlotte Video Production
While Maintaining Your Own Reputation as a Professional
We all have to deal with difficult people from time to time. These people can be anyone from our co-workers, customers or even friends and family. And the factors that make them difficult vary as much as the roles they play in your life. Some are argumentative and think that only their opinions matter, while others will try to steal your ideas and use them as their own.
It’s important to take a step back and look at your own actions. Are you provoking the bad behavior in any way? Could you be allowing the other person to make you feel inferior, or are you over-reacting to the situation? Once you take an honest look at your actions or reactions you can decide how best to handle the situation.
Here are some tactics that may help you deal with certain difficult personalities:
Constant Complainers are very fearful people on the inside. They have little confidence in themselves and even less in others. They believe the whole world is in despair and that nothing will go right no matter what anyone does. A Constant Complainer will cause havoc in their environments and bring everyone down with them.
How To Deal: Don’t even bother trying to argue with a Constant Complainer! You will most likely not succeed in bringing them out of their level of despair. Instead you can kindly respond with your own optimistic expectations. After a while they may give up on complaining to you, considering it a pointless gesture.
Openly Aggressive People expect everyone else to go along with what they want OR react to them with rage. Because they expect this type of action from others, they use it to their benefit and approach every situation with aggression in order to get their way.
How To Deal: Allow them to run out of steam and then stand up to them, but don’t loose your temper. Stay calm and confident! The goal is to assert your opinion, not win a battle. If you need to walk away to keep your temper under control, politely excuse yourself, but be sure that you don’t ignore the eventual confrontation. When you can calmly approach the topic again, go back to assert your opinion.
Whatever you do…don’t try to appease Openly Aggressive People. This will only make you a target for their future attacks.
Snippy People love to put you down by masking it with a joke or using sarcasm. You never know when to expect an attack from them and they will attempt to humiliate you in front of others. These people are usually trying to make themselves look and feel better by putting you down. It’s the only way that they know how to put themselves above you.
How To Deal: This type of personality is difficult to handle because it is so easy to take the attack personally, and the only way to handle them is with direct confrontation, something that is challenging for almost everyone (except Openly Aggressive People, of course). You should respond by outwardly questioning their attacks. Perhaps you could say, “That sounds like you’re making fun of me, why would you do that?” You can expect the Snippy People to reply by denial. They will probably say they were only joking.
The importance of acknowledging their snide remarks is to let them know that you will not allow their covert attacks to continue without notice. Eventually they will leave you alone.
These tactics won’t always work on everyone, but trying them before heading to a boss or co-worker to complain is your best bet. No one wants to appear as though they can’t handle themselves under pressure.
Are You Filled With Fear?
by Randy Davis on Feb.09, 2010, under Video Production Charlotte
Does the idea of creating a website video for your company fill you with fear?
Without the right steps, the process can be overwhelming, but relax and I will take you through a simple step-by-step process. If you have been in the business world for longer than 25 seconds, you already know how highly effective website videos are. A well-produced video delivers your message in a way that engages and persuades visitors to take action.
Preliminary advice: Albert Einstein said it best, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” It’s paramount that enough thought and planning go into the production, to keep everything cohesive and free-flowing.
Unfortunately, some people dive in headfirst and end up with a complete, ineffective mess. Planning may not be the most enjoyable part of the process, but it is the most critical. Here’s a simple, 10-step process you can follow to ensure an effective Web video:
STEP 1: Scriptwriting. The story is one of the most important parts of the video. The story invokes emotions and drives people to action. Remember the movie, Where The Red Fern Grows? A properly developed script is very different that properly written copy. One of the pitfalls of video production success is having a copywriter try to develop a video script. The importance of a scriptwriting is a vital step in the success rate of the finished video.
STEP 2: Target audience. You can have a great script, but if you aren’t appealing to your target market, you risk the chance of loosing sales. It’s important to understand who your customer is. There must be an understanding in advance about what kind of music is preferred, what color scheme is preferred, what style of text is preferred, and how the story should be told: as a documentary, a drama, comedy, simply and/or with a cinematic style (Episode XI Studio’s style). No one buys with a rational mind, so it’s important to appeal to both the emotions, through scene interactions, and to the intellect, through factual entertainment.
STEP 3: Storyboarding. A successful video enlists the assistance of both the video production company and their client. A storyboard should be developed by the production company to allow the client a chance to see the vision of the finished product before the cameras begin to roll.
The storyboard gives everyone a chance to make changes to the scenes before the entire production staff arrives on set, saving time and money. The production staff will use the approved storyboard as a road map to shoot each scene, by giving camera angles, camera movements, and scripting for each actor/presenter.
STEP 4: Visualize the finished product. It’s critical to know your vision, when planning each shot. Will there be any slow-motion shots? Will it be deployed on the web, or in DVD format, or both? Camera-frame-rate is a vital part of the shooting process, and that rate determines what effects can be implemented during the editing process. Because video is “resolution dependent”, it’s important to discuss your vision with the production company before the shoot.
STEP 5: The shooting day. The day of shooting is an exciting time for the client. This day(s) give the client a second preview of what the finished product will look like. By using the storyboard as a guide for shooting, the production team captures exactly what the client is expecting. The use of dollies and cranes give the production a cinematic appeal that is rivaled by the huge Hollywood production companies.
STEP 6: Video editing. The editing process is where the magic happens. After shooting the many scenes on set, the editor takes the collection of film/digital tape into the editing bay and begins the lengthy process of “putting it all together”. The editor will sort through the many takes of each scene, along with the storyboard, and pieces each video clip into its proper place. Not only do the video clips need to be in order, but the clips sound recordings must be processed, to ensure that no background noise or any other unwanted sound makes it to the final cut.
STEP 7: Soundtrack. The video experience is only 50% visual; the other 50% is audible, making the soundtrack just as important as the rest of the production. As stated earlier, it’s paramount that the target audience is well understood. The editor needs to understand the music that is expected by your target market, in order to envelop in a total emotional experience.
STEP 8: Sound effects. Starwars® wouldn’t be Starwars® without the sound effects. It’s vital to have transitions, graphic elements, and other motion graphics “pop” with sound effects. It brings them to life and keeps your audience engaged.
STEP 9: Encoding. The very best video can be destroyed during the encoding process. The encoding process takes the digital video file and compresses it down to a manageable size and in a format that your viewer can see. There is no mistaken the horrible quality of a YouTube® video. Your image deserves the very best in picture quality, and that’s where encoding delivers.
STEP 10: Archiving. After your video is complete and deployed onto your website and some time has gone by, you may need to make changes. Archiving will to save you the high price of another production. By archiving your files, you are guaranteed that any future changes will only result in a small editing fee, without having to shoot the entire production over again.
New Year, New Marketing Budget!
by Beth Sowell on Dec.30, 2009, under Charlotte Video Production, Video Production
It’s almost 2010 and that means that with the new year comes the new marketing budget. We urge everyone to consider a video in their marketing plans this year, especially if you are behind the curve and don’t already have one. Marketing is changing it’s face quickly and you do not want to be left behind.
