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Ask yourself how it will be used, and who the target audience is, or the message. Once in a lifetime events or opportunities should be videotaped. If a conference is a training seminar that viewers would benefit from in a DVD format, and they would pay for it, then definitely videotape. If you do spend the time and money and do it well.

If you are not sure if the subject matter would inspire purchase by either attendees or people who missed the conference or event, but you want the information archived, then just audiotape it.

The decision of whether to have a video made begins with defining your audience. Who will be viewing? What is their current background or knowledge? What is their attitude? How long would they be willing to watch it?

The next step is to decide what you want to communicate to this audience? What will this program accomplish? What will the viewer be able to do, feel, or know? What tone, feel or point of view do you want to communicate? Do you want to train them in a subject? Do you want to inspire them to donate to your non profit organization? Do you want them to buy your product? What would they take away from the experience?

Once you have answered these questions you will decide the length of the video and your budget. A scriptwriter and actors will increase the cost but provide a more professional look, but you can save money by writing your own script, and picking the shots from a dubbed copy of the video for editing, and designing your own DVD labels.

Finally you will need to decide how many copies you will want. There are price breaks at 1000 copies but if your audience is small or if you are unsure of the demand, it may make more sense financially to start with a smaller number.

AREAA helps new home buyers with their housing needs.

Jeff Pollock from Jai Josefs Songshop Showcase, Mother’s Day Live at La Pena in Berkeley.

DVD Teaching Rhythm to Children. Real time, reel kid sessions.

A video for the web to highlight a local business.

• Clothing: Avoid fine checks, stripes, herringbone or other busy patterns. Men, skip the authoritative black suit with the red power tie. Your bold logo on a t-shirt may be too distracting on video.
• Colors: Solid colors are best, but not too dark or too light. Pastels and neutral colors such as beige, gray, green, brown or blue present well on camera. Avoid white, black, bright red, or orange and any combinations of highly contrasting light and dark colors such a black and white, dark brown and white or dark blue and white. When choosing your clothing colors, consider your hair color – if your hair is light blonde or all gray, light gray, pink, light blue and most pastels are fine, while if your hair is dark, medium range to darker colors film well.
• Accessories: Avoid glossy, metallic or shiny accessories or jewelry. And skip the beautiful silk ties or scarves as they make weird noises on the microphone, and of course, clanging jewelry. Remember to silence cell phones.
• Glasses: If it makes you really uncomfortable to be without them, or if they are a central focus of your visual identity, then they may be alright to wear, but you might ask to see how they will look filmed and make your personal decision accordingly. It is not so much whether you look good or not in the glasses – it has to do with how they reflect light in the video.
• Make-Up: Both men and women might need to wear light, subdued and simple make-up for filming. Eyeliner and mascara can be used lightly, but eye shadow should be avoided. Be cautious if you use rouge, and only use a little, as the camera accentuates difference, and be sure face powder closely matches your skin coloring. Lipstick should be light so that it doesn’t appear garish on camera. On location, a little powder for both men and women to the nose, forehead or bald spots works well to cut shine off the skin.
• Hair: Style your hair to keep it away from your face and out of your eyes, and try not to get a haircut within a week of being on camera. If you wear a hairpiece or wig, have the camera person film a preview for you to look at, as video may alter shade of the color. If you have whiskers, shave as closely as possible to the filming time, as the camera will focus on the hair more than the human eye does.
• Hands: If there will be a close-up of your hands, give yourself a manicure.

African American Community Health Equity Council keynote speakers at their conference.

Callie Watts sings one of her original uptempo tunes. From the 2010 Mother’s Day Songshop Showcase hosted by Jai Josef’s at La Pena in Berkeley.