What Are the 5 Stages of Making Your Own Videos?

resources Sep 10, 2024

Making your own videos runs through five stages: equipment, messaging, on-camera delivery, editing and coaching. Equipment is the first one and the easy one. The stage that decides whether the videos ever get made is the last, because nothing in a normal working week forces you to press record.

Why does the equipment come first if it is not the important part?

Because it is the one stage you settle once and then stop thinking about. A fixed camera position, fixed lighting and fixed sound mean the room stops being a decision. Every recording after that starts from the same place instead of starting from scratch.

That is the whole value of stage one, and it is smaller than people expect. Equipment is one of four pillars, alongside messaging, on-camera performance and implementation, and it is the easiest of the four to fix. The pattern Ridge sees is that people who buy gear on their own often leave it unused, because buying it was the only decision they made.

If the question underneath this one is how long the whole thing takes, Chris Schwager walks the same five stages through a timing lens in why DIY video takes longer than you expect.

What do I actually say once the camera is on?

Stage two is messaging, and it is where the real work sits. Start by naming the business problem the video is solving. Not the topic, the problem. Then decide what you want the person watching to think, to feel, and to do by the end of it.

Do that and the script mostly writes itself, because you have already cut the four other things you were going to say. Skip it and you get a well-lit, well-recorded video of a message nobody follows, which is still a video nobody follows. The five stages sit inside a bigger question about what the videos are for in the first place, which is what the video strategy hub is there to settle.

How do I stop sounding stiff when I press record?

Stage three is on-camera delivery, and it is a skill, not a personality trait. The single technique that changes the most is reading from a teleprompter without sounding like you are reading it, because it takes the whole burden of remembering lines off you. Chris runs a 90 minute session for this, either over Zoom or in the Sydney studio.

The mechanical half is eye contact: text sitting close enough to the lens that your eyes are not visibly tracking across a screen. That is a setup problem more than a talent problem, which is why it belongs in stage one and stage three at the same time.

Should I edit my own videos?

Stage four, and the honest answer is that this is the stage most people hand over. There is no prize for cutting your own videos. If you do keep it in-house, keep the edit boring: top and tail, one caption pass, out. A complicated edit is usually a rescue job on a take that should have been done again.

This is also where perfectionism does its damage. Recording is cheap once the room is fixed, so a second take costs you very little. Re-cutting the same average take for an hour costs you the afternoon and the video still does not get published.

Why do people stop after everything is set up?

Stage five is coaching, and it is the one that decides whether the other four were worth doing. The equipment removes the excuse. Nothing in a normal week supplies the reason. A weekly session gives the recording a place in the diary and somebody who notices when it does not happen.

Heather Hukins, Managing Director of H4 Consulting, is the clearest example of what the five stages look like once they are all running. "It could take us two hours to produce six minutes of video content. Now it takes 12 minutes," she says. Two good takes and she is back to client work. That is not an equipment result, it is all five stages working at once. Read how H4 Consulting got there, or see what video coaching actually covers for the detail on stage five.

Frequently asked questions

Which of the five stages should I start with?

Start with equipment, because it is the only stage you settle once. When the room is fixed you stop making the same three decisions every time you record, and your effort moves to messaging and delivery where it belongs. The order matters less than not skipping stage two.

Do I have to do all five stages myself?

No. Editing is the stage most people hand over, and equipment can be installed for you. Messaging and on-camera delivery are the two you cannot outsource, because they are you. Coaching is by definition someone else, which is rather the point of it.

I am a perfectionist. Will I just re-record everything?

Probably, at first. Perfectionism is one of the most common blockers Ridge sees, and it usually stops videos being published rather than making them better. A stopping rule helps more than a quality bar. Heather Hukins films two good takes and goes back to client work.

Is coaching a real stage, or an upsell?

It is the stage that decides whether the other four were worth doing. Equipment removes the excuse, but nothing in a normal week supplies the reason to record. If you would record consistently on your own, you do not need it. Very few people do.

Which of these sounds like you?

"I have the gear and I still do not record." That is stage five, not stage one, and it is the most common place to be stuck.

"I record, but I never know what to say." That is stage two, and it is worth fixing before anything else.

"Both, honestly." Book a call and we will work out which stage you are actually on.