Video creation doesn’t have to be complicated. With today’s technology, you can shoot videos on your phone that would have taken a full studio’s worth of equipment to create a decade or two ago.

1. Decide on a format

If your product or service lends itself to being demonstrated then demonstrate it. Even if that’s just taking it out of the box and switching it on. The closer you can get to your viewer feeling as though they’re present, the better – it’s one of the reasons behind the success of the television series 24 and you can take advantage of that.

If there are lots of facts and figures and your product or service would be better presented with screen capture then that’s the method to choose.

And a “talking head” style video can be done on your own with a web cam or a tripod for your mobile phone or with a colleague taking the video.

2. Script your video

Movies use a storyboard to make sure that everything is as close to perfect as it can be.

At the very least, you need to have bullet points to talk about. If you’re less confident, you need a script to read from. There’s nothing wrong with that – lots of television shows and live speeches use autocues and there’s software around that will turn your computer into an autocue device if you want. Or you can go the low-tech route and just prop up a sheet of paper next to your computer. Or you can use your slideshow as the autocue.

3. Rehearse it

Until you gain confidence, you almost certainly need to rehearse your video.

Whilst you can press the pause button or go back to edit your video, it’s much better to produce the complete video in as close to one take as you can manage.

Most videos produced in-house are only likely to be a handful of minutes and it’s actually quite easy to do those in one take if you’ve taken the time to read the script out loud so that you’re ready to perform.

4. Calm your nerves

That doesn’t mean going to the nearest bar or taking a swig from your hip flask!

Rehearsing will help with your nerves as it won’t be the first time you deliver your script.

Taking a few deep breaths works well – there’s something calming about deep breaths that is difficult to describe but definitely works.

Take a toilet break before you start shooting your in-house video.

And make sure that you’re hydrated otherwise your voice will sound dry.

5. Use the pause button for editing

This works really well for screen capture videos.

I use the pause button to allow me to clear my throat or bring up a screen that’s not on the main slide presentation.

If you’re shooting a live video on your own phone, work out some kind of unobtrusive signal that means you need to take a time out.

Using pause is low tech but is a lot quicker than learning all the hoops that your video editing software requires to achieve the same effect.

So long as your video isn’t leaping all over the place as a result of this, it will look fine when you come to upload it to YouTube.

If you’d like more help, check out my video creation crash course here.