You don’t remember this newsletter, do you?

Well, we’ve rebranded, and a lot has changed.

If you haven’t heard the news, V21 has turned into Odyssey (check it out here). To find out more information, head over to Jack’s LinkedIn where he gives all the juicy details.

The Odyssey Newsletter is our brand-new monthly newsletter that does things a little bit differently. We’re on a mission to share our tips and tricks, insights, and learnings from our own Odyssey, and we’re on a mission to support yours.

Take a look at this month’s TLDR {Too Long, Didn’t Read} video for those of you that are in a rush:

Shedding Light On Our Recent Production With Nourished 🚀

Lighting is incredibly hard.

It’s a mixture of physics and art that can make or break a video.

This was made very clear whilst trying to light a continuous shot scene with multiple stages. A whimsical, magical introduction set that has a camera track through into a lifestyle scene where the subject interacts with the product.

Hard to picture right? Now try and plan the lighting.

We didn’t have as much control of lighting here as we would have liked, with the main issue being caused by light breaking through the blinds behind the scene. 

The answer: Tin Foil. 

If you’ve ever paid for a filming location, you’ll appreciate how out of control you can be when you’re trying to make everything perfect. Especially if you’re filming in an open office or house. So, here’s what we did to overcome this:

1. Used tinfoil to blackout any light source from the windows.

2. Shut every blind and curtain in the property and turned all lights off.

3. Set up 5 artificial lights to fully control the light in the room.

Tin foiling windows is the best way we’ve found to block intrusive light. It's opaque, lightweight and adjustable. Not to mention how cheap it is! But it does make you look like you're cooking something up from breaking bad, and it can get extremely hot if you do this in the summer. 

It sounds simple, but this greatly impacted the premium feel of our video and made a night and day difference. Pardon the pun.

Lesson learned: If you’re filming a video for your business, and you want it to look and feel as high-end as possible, consider investing some time into making your lighting as controllable as possible. This will be the difference between a great-looking, or a bad-looking video.

Odyssey: Month One

Whilst Nourished took us on a lighting rollercoaster, we had some other pretty big things going on here at Odyssey.

After a year’s worth of development, our rebrand went live this week, and it couldn’t have gone down any better, with a very positive uptake from our entire community and clients!

Our launch party celebrated the five years of V21 and was an incredible moment to gather some of our old, existing, and new clients, as well as a few of our agency partners to say a big thank you for their support over the years.

We’re also on the hunt for some fresh talent to join the team and help us launch brands into the stratosphere. If that sounds like you, or someone you know, we’d love to hear from you!

With a very busy month lined up, a week-long production in Scotland, and a few days spent filming Villas on the horizon, we’re deep in planning mode for a handful of our subscription clients (which you can find more about here).

Until then, we’ll update you with more exciting news in February 🚀

You Ask, We Answer 🙋🏼‍♀️

A new segment of our newsletter is a monthly Q&A. We’ll be answering three of the questions that members from our community have sent to us by email in seek of an answer to solve their creative challenges. Here are the top three questions and answers of the month:

• Jasmine Daniels: “I’m about to film a video of my team. How do I make them feel more comfortable and natural on camera?”

  • A: We’d recommend doing two takes. One to warm up, and the second to let their personality shine through. This way, your team have their nervousness a bit more relaxed on a second run-through.

• Jamie Lee: “We make regular videos, but struggle to get more than 1,000 views on TikTok. How would you improve this?”

  • A: This has a lot of elements at play, from the creative itself, all the way through to your distribution plan. We’d recommend creating the best possible creative that you can, and focusing on the first 1 second of playtime. That’s what is going to get consumers hooked and interested.

• Louis Holton: “I want to create a company video, but am confused about how to structure it. Any advice?”

  • A: We’d recommend keeping your video as simple as possible and between 1-2 minutes long. Company videos that are past this point run the risk of overcomplicating, or overwhelming the end viewer with too much information. Keep it short and sweet, and focus on one underlying message only.

If you would like to have your question answered, send your email alongside the title ‘My Question For Odyssey’ to [email protected] and we may include it in our next edition.

Start your video journey 🚀

If you’re looking to start your video journey and or improve your videos, here are a few ways that we can help:

1) Book a free 15-minute creative session with us and we’ll develop a handful of extraordinary content ideas for your business that will skyrocket your marketing. Click this link to book a time that works for you. 

2) Book our Launch Directors to train your internal marketing team in the art and science of creating a powerful video strategy and social-first videos that make an impact online, with The Odyssey Workshop.

Until then, we’ll see you in next month’s newsletter!