2

Video Testimonial For Empire Flippers: How It Went

In July, Empire Flippers, the online business broker from whom I bought two of my websites, did a shout-out for the buyers who used their services and asked to do a video testimonial. I happily raised my hand!

The testimonial was filmed on July 30th and in a week or so, the video was ready. My Facebook followers have seen it already, and now I post it here, on the blog.

One of my cats, the male one named Domino, was my co-star 🙂 The other one, female named Massala, happily slept in a closet through the entire video session.
In the video apart from seeing my cat and my new apartment, you can also see a piece of the street where my building is located. It’s nothing special, it just gives an idea how a typical street of the non-downtown of Montreal looks like (I personally love watching tiny details like this!)

Mike, the testimonial coordinator from Empire Flippers, hired a filming company from Montreal and arranged a day and time with me. Then I started preparing for the big day.

First of all, I had to write my testimonial before the shooting.

A couple of weeks before the date, Mike sent me a document with the instructions that included a plan of the video and interview questions that I had to answer to. The testimonial was in a form of an interview; however, it is not noticeable in the video. Mike asked me to write the answers in advance and send them to him. I did. Writing it really helped me to organize my thoughts and I also thought the text would be used during the shooting… but the video guys never saw it.

Then I had to prep the place.

I have moved recently, remember? There are still piles of crap being stacked in the corners as well as packed boxes. The testimonial instructions had some requirements for a spot where the session should hold the place so I had a chance to declutter a particular place in my apt.

Then my appearance.

I read tons of recommendations for models how to prepare for photo shoots. It was soooo not the first shoot I was participating in (I actually have a whole fashion blog filled up with my photos) but usually they were photo shoots and not video ones! Plus before, I would be the one who does the post production so I knew that if I had missed something during the preparation phase, I could catch up with it in Photoshop. This one was so different – I had no control over the processing. In addition, I had to look more professional than before rather than just fooling around in front of the camera.

So yeeaaah, I stopped drinking alcohol for a few days before the shoot 🙂 to make my face fresher 🙂

A couple of days before the shooting, I went to a hairdresser to trim my hair. I had not had visited her for a while – I did not really need to since I can cut my bangs myself and the rest  did not bother me – so it was a must.

On the day of the video shoot, I woke up at 6 AM. I did a bit of jogging to wake myself up. Then it was again cleaning and tidying.

Close to the time of the shoot, I went to a beauty store to do a semi-professional makeup. I do my everyday makeup myself but I knew it would not be enough for a video shoot.

But all these preparations were only the beginning. The most important thing was to survive the shoot itself!

I am not a great speaker and usually am afraid of talking in front of a camera. Well, who isn’t!

I tried to make my own fashion channel on YouTube but it was a total flop for me. It took too much effort to film each episode and I do not even sound genuine.

But this video experience was different. It is much easier to talk when you are not alone and when you are asked questions about a subject that you are truly passionate about. I felt a bit tense in the beginning but with the time passing by, I was getting more and more comfortable with talking.

I felt like the actual interview was much more emotional comparing to the final video. I guess the Empire Flippers guys wanted to get something looking more professional than just an explosion of emotions 🙂

In total, the session took about two hours. After we were done and the video guys left, I took a nap and slept two hours straight! I guess I was pretty exhausted 🙂

Overall, I liked the experience and exposure I got from it, so I would gladly to do more in future!