BEHIND THE SCENES With An American Homestead - How We Produce Our Content!
We often get questions about what kind of computers, cameras and software we use to produce our content. I want to make perfectly clear the fact that you don't need a million dollar camera rig or the most expensive computer equipment to produce good content. To produce amazing and entertaining content that people will enjoy, all you need are 3 simple things.
Successful Content Creation
- A story - Be able to tell a story.
- Passion - Tell your story with passion.
- Target - Target your audience.
I could make a whole post on those three items but that will be another time. My purpose of this post is that while we have some good equipment that helps us produce good content, as long as you have those 3 items above correct, you can win and keep an audience with even the most rudimentary equipment.
Our Laptop
I'm using an MSI gaming station. I purchased this from NewEgg about a year ago. It's definitely the most powerful laptop I've ever had. It can render video and motion graphics fast. Cosmetically it's been a disaster as the buttons are breaking and I'm wearing out the lettering on the key board. The hinge on the lid cracked once and I had to send it in for repair. But overall the power for rendering is fantastic which helps produce great graphics fast!
Our Camera
The camera is a Canon T6i. It's an entry level DSLR camera that works well for still photography and video. So far I've been really happy with the results it's produced especially with photography around the homestead.
The battery pack is an XT power pack that allows the camera to operate 9 hours continuously. I found a video tutorial on youtube that shows how to hack your camera for longer battery life using this battery pack. Otherwise you have to switch out batteries all the time and the extra canon batteries cost around $70 each! Here is that video:
The camera mic is a Rode Video Mic Pro Plus! It's a very good mic and I've learned that audio is just as important as the video when you are producing good content. It doesn't matter how good your video is if your audio is bad or distracting.
Software
The big three. We use 3 main pieces of Adobe software here on the homestead for our content creation.
- Photoshop
- Premiere
- After Effects
The photoshop software is used to make all of our images to size and to produce title pics and just a whole assortment of graphics. If you see a non-moving graphic in our content, it was probably created with photoshop on my laptop.
Here is my screenshot of editing the title for this post in photoshop.
Then we have Premiere Pro from Adobe. All of our video content is edited in this software. We splice and add still and motion graphics to the content as well as edit most of our audio in Adobe Premiere. Here is a screen shot of my host in South Africa and her son talking about shark attacks that will probably be view-able in an upcoming winter episode on Patreon.
And finally we have After Effects. We use this for all of our motion graphics and title intros for much of our content. Usually we produce the motion graphics once and then render it out. Then we use it for intros and endings in everything we publish. This screenshot is me editing the winter episode logo for the upcoming series.
So that is it in a nutshell. We produce all of our own content from the initial concept to the editing and rendering and finally to the upload for everyone to enjoy!
If you have any questions on the equipment we use, post it below and I will try to get to it. THANKS!
Visit Us Online: http://AnAmericanHomestead.com
It took me an hour to splice and rework a couple of videos with video-win movie maker, but i had no idea what I was doing so..
I'm not even going to say how long it took me the first time I tried to use gimp 2.8 photoshop!
I know how to use all this but I'm over 80k in debt from school loans. :(
It's amazing what what we are able to do with some equipment a laptop and internet connection. It used to take an entire studio with dozens of people to put together a production like this. Thanks for giving us a little behind the scenes.
Clearly there is no fourth wall on the homestead.
@ironshield
It keeps me moving
Hey Zac at @mericanhomestead just wanted you to know I am now on Steemit thanks to you @forgingfreedom Just wanted to stop by and say thanks. Great article btw. I've enjoyed your content for awhile now. Thank you for all you do.
Hey fantastic! Glad you stopped by!
As usual you lay it all out in easy to understand instructions for all to see and benefit from!
Thanks, I try to make it easy...probably because I'm such a dummy and I need things explained to me at a kinder care level. LOL
Bad Zac bad, after over a year as your Mod I know better!
nice to be see u with papa-peper interview and also ur posts and this to share some tools and software u named it behind the seen with your canot T6i is good to share but i have no a canon and this softwares uses and making this after finshing @mericanhomestead,,
You can make great content with just a cell phone camera. You'll get better as you go...just like with anything. :)
Greet info guys. Thanks for demystifying the toolkit of the content creator a little. Really interesting to look behind the scenes. Keep up the great work!
You're welcome! Thanks for stopping by!
That’s great info
my Oldest just got a Nikon because he aspires to be a photographer/videographer! He’s saving up now for a laptop because I told him I don’t have room for his stuff on mine! That was great idea using a gaming laptop as it’s already geared to run graphics really well! Did you have that in mind when you bought it? thanks for sharing!
Yeah, if you run video editing or motion graphics, your best bet is something that is build for high end graphics. Otherwise, the rendering time will kill ya. My biggest bottle neck now is my upload speed. But they are slowly getting fiber out here...we just need to be hooked up.
I may consider that for Eli!
Does the motion graphics take a long time to put together? I remember watching your tool videos and thinking wow that’s really good, it must take quite awhile to put together.
No, it doesn't take long. You just have to know how to do it. I have 80k in school bills. :( Maybe crypto will pay off my school bills.
learnt a lot and cannot agree with you more especially on these key to success like a good story line, telling it with passion and targeting your audience!
nice one @mericanhomestead my regards to your buddy @papa-pepper
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