How do successful viral videos like the dramatic prairie dog, Nyan cat, and OK GO do it? Learn how to make a viral video with a free report from Videomaker Magazine, How to Make a Viral Video: 11 Tips to Create a YouTube Sensation.

Every videographer dreams that their work will go viral, that they will shoot something that so speaks to people that it spreads like wildfire over the Internet. It’s a great way to bring attention to your business or show off your video-creating talents. And while it’s impossible to predict what will go viral, there are certain things that you can include in your videos to increase the odds that you’ll have a smash Internet hit on your hands.

A viral video is any video that becomes popular by being passed from person to person via the web. Marketers, entertainers, and videographers spend a lot of time trying to create videos calculated to “go viral” sometimes with great success.  They can be anything from remixes of poorly translated video games like “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” to funny clips from the news like “Boom Goes the Dynamite,” but they can garner thousands (or even hundred of thousands) of views!

How to Make a Viral Video: 11 Tips to Create a YouTube Sensation is the free report from Videomaker that will show you how to do it. It includes 11 proven tips for increasing the likelihood that your video will go viral. Learn the reasons behind the popularity of some of today’s hottest videos and how you can use the same ideas to catapult your own way to video stardom. There’s no telling what videos will take the Internet like wildfire, but we’ll show you some easy ways to better your chances of success.

Download your free report, How to Make a Viral Video:11 Tips to Create a YouTube Sensation.

What’s Your Video Style? Take this quiz for fun and see what style of video best suits your personality. Agree or disagree with your results? Tell us why below!

1) What’s your Favorite thing about putting together a video?

A) I like working in a nice quiet studio, where I can devote all my attention to my work.

B) I like working with video tools and equipment. I’m a real hardware fanatic!

C) I like working with people. They fascinate me!

D) I like creating an ambiance, something that will really draw the audience into the movie!

E) I like the action. I’m not happy unless I’m in the center of the storm!

F) I like the chance to be creative, to experiment with new ideas!

2) What’s the most important thing you look for when you watch a video?

A) I look to see how well it’s technically put together. I appreciate good craftsmanship.

B) It has to look good! People aren’t going to watch it if it looks like it was made by amateurs.

C) I like a good story, something to really make me care about the people on the screen.

D) A good soundtrack! A movie is boring if it doesn’t have a some tunes!

E) I want to see real people in real situations! I want to see how things really happened.

F) Did it teach me something new? I always want to add to my knowledge!

3) If you could pick anyplace in the world to shoot a video, would you choose to shoot:

A) The Great Barrier Reef in Australia?

B) The Roman Catacombs in Italy?

C) The Great Pyramids of Egypt?

D) The Oktoberfest Celebration in Germany?

E) The Running of the Bulls in Spain?
F) Bodie Ghost Town in California?

4) How would you describe yourself?

A) Meticulous and Logical!

B) Dark and Mysterious!

C) An Avid Story-teller!

D) Epic, Bigger than Life!

E) A Romantic at Heart!
F) Curious and Restless!

5) What’s your Biggest Reward in Making Video?

A) The Satisfaction of a Job Well Done.

B) The Appreciation of an Audience

C) Making a difference in the way people see the world.

D) The Chance to do Something Challenging and Creative

E) Seeing People’s Faces when they see themselves in your video

F) Seeing your Work on the Big Screen.

If you answered mostly A, you are an EDITOR. Shooting video is fun, but you have a real appreciation for the craft and artistry that comes afterward. You know that every snip and splice has the potential to make a story come to life, and there’s nothing you like better than turning that raw footage into something compelling.

If you answered mostly B, you are a LIGHTING FANATIC. You know that a video isn’t worth anything if you can’t tell what’s going on in it. Your standards for lighting are strict and your videos benefit from your attention to detail. Whether it’s creating a noir atmosphere with shadows or illuminating an interview subject, you know that lighting is key to interesting, engrossing videos. You’re always up to meet the challenges that other videographers forget to prepare for.

If you answered mostly C, you are a DOCUMENTARIAN. You love story telling and you can find the story in anything. Whether it’s something as small and silly as a nature film about salamanders or as heart-felt and personal as a family biography, you’re aces at finding those telling moments that illustrate the big picture. You love exploring human drama and you’re not shy about capturing the best – and worst– with your camera.

If you answered mostly D, you are a SOUND FANATIC. You’re the person people turn to when they need to capture the soft sounds of birdsong or muffle out the interrupting din from the nearby highway, because you understand how important sound is. When you do your job right, the results are practically invisible. Audiences may not realize why they like your videos, that your perfectly-synced sound effects and carefully selected music are what’s pulling them in, but you know the secret. You’re always up to meet the challenges that other videographers forget to prepare for.

If you answered mostly E, you are an EVENT VIDEOGRAPHER. You’re a daredevil; you like being right in the middle of the action. You don’t shirk from a challenge and you’re not afraid to take on assignments where you only have one shot to get it right – weddings, celebrations, speeches, anything where there’s a vortex of activity, you’ll be there with your camera in hand. Action is your watchword!

If you answered mostly F, you are a JACK OF ALL TRADES. You’re always exploring, always searching for something new. You never accept that you’ve learned enough, and you’re always striving to improve your video-making skills. Your creativity and inquisitiveness show through in your videos, which are continuously changing and maturing.

For tips and tricks with all sorts of video, join Videomaker‘s  eNews electronic newsletter, chock full of the info and advice you crave, it’s just what you need to satisfy that nagging curiosity.

When we find an interesting video project, we like to point it out to our readers. Videomaker’s Facebook friend Charlie Essers (@PushEject) recently shared a corporate video he made to help promote a new craft beer brewery in Los Angeles.  I thought this was a great example of the effective use of B-roll, so I wanted to share: Welcome to the Golden Road

You can see some excellent use of B-roll in this video, with shots of people enjoying the product are interspliced between interviews with the brewery founders. As you know, B-roll is essential for a number of reasons.  First, it helps break up the monotony caused by a series of talking head interviews.  There’s not much visual interest in watching people talk about the. Second, B-roll is useful for hiding cuts and splices.  Oftentimes, when you’re shooting an interview, your subject will ramble on or pepper their responses with “um”s and “you know”s.  Obviously, you’ll want to cut out the chaff to make a more compelling, dynamic interview.  But if you don’t have good B-roll to smooth over the transition, you’ll get something akin to Homer Simpson’s infamous interview on the fictional magazine show “Rock Bottom.”

Finally, in this video, you can see that the B-roll thematically fits the purpose of the video, promoting the Golden Road Brewery. If you haven’t shot enough B-roll before you start editing, you might be forced to fill the gaps with images that don’t help bolster your video’s point — for example, random crowd shots or street scenes. In this video, every second of B-roll helps to drive home the goal by showing happy customers using the product.  Fancy work!

If you’ve been shooting for any length of time, you’re already familiar with the basics of lighting. You’ve heard enough about the classic three-point lighting set-up to last a lifetime. But while good lighting is easy with a little bit of knowledge, GREAT lighting takes a lot more preparation. Videomaker has an essential video training toolto help you achieve the best lighting for your production – Advanced Lighting for Video will help you negotiate even the trickiest, most unusual lighting situations.

But there are some lighting situations that you probably thought you’d never encounter. That’s when you need Advanced Lighting for Video. How do you light a commercial product so that people want to buy it? How do you light the inside of a car so that your audience can see what’s happening? Advanced Lighting for Video is the consummate guide to navigating the toughest, weirdest lighting dilemmas.

Setting Up a Studio – What do you need when you’re setting up a studio? Learn what to look for in size, electricity, and sound.

Studio Lighting – Your studio lighting can look professional quality with the right lamps, fixture types and room dimensions. We’ll show you how!

Product Lighting – You want people to buy your product? A little lighting know-how can go a long way toward making anything from a basket of fruit to a used car look irresistible.

Lighting Car Interiors – Inside a car is one of the hardest spaces to light for video. Learn how to light it right inside a cramped space where big lamps won’t fit!

Lighting Night Scenes – Outdoor night scenes can be tricky because bright obvious lamps can easily ruin the illusion. We’ll show you how to use a light touch so your audience won’t wonder where the light is coming from.

Lighting Wide Shots – Lighting a wide shot is difficult if your lamps can’t reach the entire area. We’ll show you how to solve this problem, so that your widest angle shots still look uniformly good.

Professional-looking lighting is within your grasp when you absorb the knowledge on these DVDs. Learn how to conquer any mishap when you have Advanced Lighting for Video. It’s the essential lighting tool for every videographer who’s serious about taking pride in their craft.

To learn more, visit Advanced Lighting for Video!

We frequently get questions from video creators about the rules for making use of other creators’ work in their own projects.

If a piece of art was created so long ago that its copyright has expired and it’s since fallen into the public domain, you’re free to make use of it any way that you want. (To learn more about using archival footage in your videos, check out our  informative Archival Storytelling book) But if a piece of art is still under copyright, you’ll want to make sure that you’re in the clear. Most U.S. Creators are aware of a legal doctrine here in the States called “fair use,” an exception to copyright law that lets you make use of copyrighted material for your own artistic purposes. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of confusion about exactly what constitutes fair use. Let’s try and clear up some of the misconceptions so you can better understand when you can incorporate others’ material into your videos.

(First, please be aware that nothing said by Videomaker should be construed as legal advice. If you’re really worried about your rights, you should consult an attorney or legal expert before you make any rash decisions.)

Here are some common misconceptions that we see from video creators:

“This counts as Fair Use because I gave credit to the original artist.” Giving credit where it’s due is always a best practice – and just good manners. However, giving credit does NOT instantly bestow fair use protection upon you. At best, a polite tip of the hat may encourage the original artist to allow you to use their work for free. But this is entirely up to the artist’s discretion. They don’t have to let you use their work just because you acknowledged that they are the original creator and, if they don’t like what you’ve done, they can still try to make you remove it.

“I’m not making any money off of this, so it must be fair use.” Again, whether or not you make money can be a consideration in fair use, but it is not dispositive. In fact, some fair use works can be sold for profit. The fact that you’re not profiting may again make the original artist more sympathetic to your case, but it doesn’t mean that you’re automatically covered by fair use.

“I found this original artwork on the Internet, so obviously it’s free for me to use.” Just because an artist places his or her work on the Internet does not mean that they are giving you carte blanche permission to use it as you will. The same copyright restrictions that apply offline still apply online.

Again, acknowledging that you don’t own the original artistic work, giving credit to the original artist or using a work without any intention to profit will often encourage an original artist to let you use his work, but it does not necessarily mean that your work will fall under fair use.

You’ll always want to make sure that you’ve got your rights protected when you put together a video project.  Besides Archival Storytelling, you can get more help in keeping your project legally in the clear with our Indie Film/Video Legal Documents DVD.

We all knew it was coming. Ever since Google bought YouTube back in 2006, there’s been constant talk that Google may some day launch it’s own premium original programming on the popular video uploading site. As expected, Google announced in October that it planned on investing over 100 million dollars (that’s right, 100 with six zeroes after it) in order to get quality original content. During that time they also leaked a few of the big celebrity names that had signed on to the project such as Ashton Kutcher, Shaquille O’Neal, Tony Hawk, Jay-Z, and Madonna. There was no talk about the format behind each of these videos but given the names of some of the producers that they listed, you can be sure that they’ll be specific channels on music, movies, and sports – which all happen to be some of the hardest mediums to break into.

Shortly thereafter, YouTube also unveiled their movie and television streaming service which means that not only will YouTube be serving up videos of people’s crazy antics around the world, it will be serving up content from established entertainment providers and from their own user-created library as well. If all of this works out for Google, they will not only be the largest online repository of user-created and established entertainment company videos.  That may make them a force to be feared in the video world.

The reasoning behind this move is a desire for Google to get people to stay on their site longer (for advertising purposes) as well as being a vehicle for instant niche content which Google feels it’s uniquely suited to do. This niche market idea will also have the benefit of giving advertisers a more targeted audience to reach for less money than it would take to do a more generic campaign. In addition, the people and companies that Google is in the process of recruiting will be able to share in part of the ad revenues giving them a real incentive to make sure quality content is always available on the site.

Google plans on grabbing a big cut of the $300 billion television industry with this idea and with all of the cash and human resource reserves they have, they could very well make that desire into a reality. This means that if Google succeeds, we may end up seeing a day where we no longer give our edited video content to cable channels, but to YouTube instead.