Tolis Dokianos is a brand ambassador with Cinamaker. On this episode Tolis gives us tips and recommendations about using multi-camera software on YouTube and other platforms.
GUEST: Tolis Dokianos Cinamaker | Apex Video Marketing | YouTube | LinkedIn
HOSTS: The Video Marketing Value Podcast is hosted by:
– Dane Golden of VidiUp.tv and VidTarget.io | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube
– Gwen Miller of Kin | LinkedIn | Twitter |
SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by our affiliate partners, including: TubeBuddy, VidIQ, MorningFame, Rev.com, and other products and services we recommend.
PRODUCER: Jason Perrier of Phizzy Studios
TRANSCRIPT
Tolis Dokianos:
The Cinamaker basically is a powerful app that makes livestream and video productions easy, fast, and affordable. And what it does, is it empowers businesses, entrepreneurs, educators, houses of worship to basically produce multi-camera professional grade videos with as little as a few, iPhones, and iPad, or a Mac, you just need a good wifi connection, a broadband, and you’re good to go. And why is that important? Well, because, it saves time, money, and lots of aggravation.
Dane Golden:
It’s time for the Video Marketing Value Podcast. This is the podcast where we help marketers and business owners just like you get more value out of your video marketing efforts. My name is Dane Golden from VidiUp.tv, sounds like giddiup. Where we help you up your game on YouTube for business, and transform your viewers into loyal customers. And VidTarget.io, where we help you get a higher return on your YouTube ad spend, with targeted YouTube placement lists. And I’m here with my co-host, she’s Gwen Miller of Kin. Hello Gwen.
Gwen Miller:
Hey Dane. I love a good chat with Tolis, so I have my mug of tea, and I’m ready to go.
Dane Golden:
That’s right. That’s our secret guest, I have not yet announced the guest. Secret guest, but you’ll know more about him soon. And Gwen, what do you do?
Gwen Miller:
I’m VP content at Kin, which is a digital media company. I work with creatives to use data to craft better and better videos for unique one of a kind audiences.
Dane Golden:
And for you the listener, you should know that as always, you can follow along in the podcast app you’re using right now with the transcript and the links. And today we have a special guest, it’s Tolis Dokianos of Apex Video Marketing, and he’s a brand ambassador for Cinamaker. Welcome Tolis.
Tolis Dokianos:
Hey Dane, great to be on the show today.
Dane Golden:
All right, Tolis Dokianos. Do I say it right? We’ve been friends a long time, but-
Tolis Dokianos:
You did. You knocked that out of the park Dane.
Dane Golden:
All right. I’ve been practicing.
Tolis Dokianos:
You did indeed. Well done.
Dane Golden:
Now we asked you on the video marketing value podcast today because, first of all, you’ve got a great video marketing agency based in Zurich, Switzerland, and that’s just, hey, that’s just cool. But also, you’re a brand ambassador for Cinamaker, and you have some great tips and recommendations about using multi-camera software on YouTube, livestreaming, other platforms, other challenges that you can solve. Does this topic work for you today?
Tolis Dokianos:
You bet. I’m ready to go.
Dane Golden:
Okay. Gwen.
Gwen Miller:
All right, let’s start off with the simple basics. What is Cinamaker?
Tolis Dokianos:
Wow, what is Cinamaker indeed. Well thanks very much for asking. Cinamaker basically is a powerful app that makes livestream and video productions, easy, fast, and affordable. And what it does, is it empowers businesses, entrepreneurs, educators, houses of worship, to basically produce multi-camera professional great videos with as little as a few, iPhones, and iPad, or a Mac. And you can do it all wirelessly or connected, and you just need a good wifi connection, a broadband, and you’re good to go. And why is that important? Well, because it saves time, money, and lots of aggravation.
Tolis Dokianos:
Just imagine how simple it is compared to other apps and software out there. You can stream to popular social media channels like YouTube and Facebook, or even to your own private portal. And the quality is simply excellent, you can do some simple edits on the app itself, or you can export the videos to Adobe or Final Cut Pro, and all that with a touch of a button. And the best part is, you can do live edits, and not have to worry much about post production as with usual video productions. And, what’s really great is-
Dane Golden:
Now, don’t answer all our questions before we ask them though.
Tolis Dokianos:
Okay. All right.
Dane Golden:
We have that we need answered here, we don’t want to spoil the surprise.
Tolis Dokianos:
Oh, okay. I’m just very excited.
Dane Golden:
I know you are. This is good. So what about multicam… So as someone who has used, at some point I’ve used multiple cameras. Is it multicam, multiple cameras, multi-camera, what is the… First of all, what’s the term?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well, you’ll hear it interchangeably. I tend to use multicam a lot, because if you’re going to be talking multi-camera production, and multicam just kind of flows off the tongue easier. But, you’ll hear people calling it multi-camera as well, but multicam is also quite a popular search term if you will.
Dane Golden:
So, we focus here, as opposed to other podcasts, we really focus on marketers and business owners. Why might this be relevant for them?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well that’s a very pertinent question. Imagine that you’re new to all this video stuff. Imagine you are a business and you’re kind of having a difficult time right now with the current state of the world. But not only that, you’ve probably been eyeballing… Forgive the pun, you’ve been eyeballing video for some time now. So, but you’re still new to this stuff. And, yet as a consumer you know much about video when you think about it. So, it’s already part of your DNA so to speak.
Tolis Dokianos:
The real thing here is, we’re all primed for it. And we have an idea or two on how video works, so we’re all going online, we’re going to YouTube these days specifically to research or learn more about our next purchase of something for example. Or we go to YouTube to be entertained, or to learn something even. And so, when businesses or organizations need to reach an audience, especially now, when we’re all at home, it’s suddenly become so much more relevant, especially when it comes to making money, teaching students, reaching out to people. So, masses are suddenly using video conferencing and video livestreaming to get their message out, to stay in touch, and to keep connected.
Gwen Miller:
That’s amazing.
Tolis Dokianos:
Yeah, I mean if you think about it, not everyone who is entertaining the idea of video knows how to do this well. And suddenly you may be exposed to a boring video, a presentation, or a webinar. I’m sure we’ve all been on those. So video with multi-camera productions makes things so much more interesting and adds that extra dimension to your videos. I mean, just look at how TV shows operate. You may not really notice it as a viewer, because we’re all so used to it. But, there is a big difference between a one camera production and a multi-camera production. So the bottom line is, it makes your video so much more engaging, and opens you up to many more possibilities for making video so much more engaging and entertaining. And basically what that means is, people will actually stick around and keep watching, or even sharing the video, and that’s what we really want at the end of the day.
Gwen Miller:
Right. So Tolis, tell me a little bit about how this program integrates, or how would I use it for say, I’m a marketer who mostly focuses on YouTube and Facebook?
Tolis Dokianos:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, that’s a very good point, because if you think about it, it boils down to keeping viewer attention. And YouTube and Facebook are such social platforms where people go to for many, many things. And what’s interesting about video on these platforms, is they lend to shareability, right. It’s such a social platform that if you make good enough content people will share it, and that’s really what we want.
Tolis Dokianos:
And so, not only that, for a marketer it’s what makes video much more interesting, because when you’re looking for a video in terms of how relevant it is to an audience. So, YouTube and Facebook will be looking for videos that are relevant, and relevance is how one would evaluate how good the video is. And so, it’s very appealing to the algorithms, and when you’ve got a relevant video that you’ve produced in an engaging, and in a fun, and in an inspirational and entertaining way, these algorithms from YouTube and Facebook will actually serve your video to their audiences. So, it behooves marketers and businesses who want to go online to really take advantage of video, and when you use a multi-camera attribute, then like I said before, it makes it so much more entertaining, and inspirational even.
Dane Golden:
And is it really for live, for pre-recorded/on demand? Where is its strength lie with multi-cam, and particularly with Cinamaker?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well, the very interesting thing, and it probably goes against what one would think intuitively when it comes to video. Think about it, to make a video you need to do some pre-production, some planning, some research, and then you need to do the production itself, and then there’s post production. So it’s quite an involving process. Contrary to what many may believe, live video in particular, is actually a time saver, it’s a money saver, it’s an aggravation saver as well. And so, the interesting thing about live videos these days, especially when we’re dealing with social media, is once you’ve gone live you can shoot your video and you can forget about it, because you’ve gone live, you’ve done your deal.
Tolis Dokianos:
And then secondly, that actually stays on your social media platform as a recording, and so many people will come back and watch your recording. In fact, most people will watch a live stream video in recorded fashion, than they would have done as a live presentation. So, to answer your question, whether it’s live or pre-recorded videos, generally speaking, it’s both. But where Cinamaker comes in, and what makes it so much more of an interesting proposition, is we’re not only talking live video and pre-recorded videos, but we’re also delving into the world of video conferencing. So, suddenly we can make our video production so much more engaging when we tie it together with something like Zoom, Skype, or Teams, or even FaceTime for that matter.
Gwen Miller:
Right. Oh, interesting. Okay, so let’s think about this. So, just so marketers can get a good picture of what their other options would have been. Up to this point, how is multicam really been done in the past?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well, that’s also very interesting. I mean, there is a very good and a long history of multi-camera productions. I mean, you could go back to the movies when they first got started, how they eventually developed over time. And then when we start talking about livestreaming in the traditional TV sense of the word, we basically look at say, organized news, nightly news, primetime shows, late shows exactly. So, I mean, there’s so many late shows that we can watch even to this day, that you can actually expect that everything is being produced traditionally in a multi-camera format. But, we’re talking about much larger budgets, much more technology, much more technology involved, sorry. There’s a lot more complexity involved in the traditional multi-camera setup, so when… Go ahead Dane.
Dane Golden:
Well, and this is also an area that Gwen happens to have a ton of expertise in.
Tolis Dokianos:
That’s right. Yeah.
Dane Golden:
But I would like to know from Gwen, and then Tolis, for you to take off on that, is what are some of the challenges with you doing this Gwen, particularly like in a pandemic, et cetera? And then, ask Tolis maybe what it solves compared to your problems, for instance?
Gwen Miller:
Yeah, I definitely think, multi-camera is something that is more complex than I think people think it is. Like, oh, it’s just putting up two cameras. But suddenly you’re talking about two cameras that aren’t in sync. And it is a lot of work on the back end to get those to sync up. So a lot of the difficulties we’re having now that, it’s easy when you have a professional Hollywood crew, they’ve done this for years, a lot of experience. But then, you hit a pandemic situation, where you’re suddenly working with, hey, count you’re going to self shoot. And, they still want that multicam look, we have problems with the fact that, in slating the content there’s no sort of sync. It takes forever on the back end to sync it up. You have these large files, you’re really having a hard time in a lot of ways just coordinating the whole kind of process when you’re literally dealing with people who know how to turn on their iPhone and that’s about it.
Tolis Dokianos:
Absolutely right. Absolutely. And you know, the interesting thing is, so suddenly we’ve got the ability to livestream on online platforms through social media, so you got the benefit of being able to integrate online applications or software seamlessly with the likes of Facebook and YouTube. And the complexity is still there, but not to the degree that one would expect as in a professional production that you’ve just described Gwen. What is important when you’re doing online presentations, live streams, is you still do need to have planning involved. You still need to be aware of the multiple things that are happening concurrently in order for your livestream to be successful. But, you can see that there’s so many more people that are actually jumping on the livestream bandwagon, because the technology that’s available to us today can actually simplify all that to a very, very significant level. And the way I like to put it is, all of a sudden, a solopreneur, or a small business owner, or even a retailer, suddenly can start competing with the big boys, if you think about it, and that’s what’s really exciting.
Gwen Miller:
Well, I totally agree with you, livestreaming has a lot of advantages. What are the kind of challenges though that you often face in livestreaming? In that kind of live situation where, as they say, everything’s live, like that when things can go wrong. What sort of things should marketers be, expect to face?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well you should always expect that something is going to go wrong, no matter what. Murphy is always around the corner, and he’s waiting for that moment to just pop up and spook you. And call it gremlins, call it whatever you want to call it, things are always bound to go wrong with livestreaming, and that is the nature of the beast, I’m sorry to say. But, again, it goes back to planning, and testing, and trialing, and making sure that you’ve got all the moving parts in motion in such a way that you can actually predict what’s going to happen and what you need to do.
Tolis Dokianos:
And so, that will never go away. But the good news is, that the way software manufacturers and app manufacturers, if you want to call them that, they’ve actually considered that as the biggest problem. And so, a lot of what is being done with what we can use today for livestreaming has almost just nullified the biggest headaches that you could possibly imagine. But where I see the challenge with livestreaming today, it’s not necessarily the actual software or application that you’re using for the livestream, but it’s actually how that software connects with a platform on which you want to distribute your content. And so, one of the biggest challenges is first of all, a lot of us are used to getting everything for free online. So the expectations all of a sudden have gone way higher-
Dane Golden:
What. Everything’s not free?
Tolis Dokianos:
Yeah, exactly. And I’m sorry to say this, but if you want to get a great quality production, you need to pay to play, that is also another fact. But, it doesn’t mean that, it’s not a deal breaker, let’s just put it that way. And once you get your expectations managed accordingly, it can still-
Dane Golden:
If you’re a marketer or business owner, let’s face it, you’re going to have to invest something in doing good work.
Tolis Dokianos:
Absolutely right. Absolutely right. And now the other thing is, it doesn’t need to break the bank though, and that’s what’s amazing. So you’ve got the likes of technology that integrates together with Apple products, and that’s what’s very exciting. We all know that Apple is a very reliable brand, it’s intuitive, it’s easy for people to use. And so suddenly, it’s attracting a lot of different types of companies, applications that are going to integrate with that technology. And then of course, you’ve got the likes of YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and a lot of other interesting channels of distributing your live streams. And so, it’s a matter of being able to get everything to work in sync, and that’s really the biggest challenge of it all.
Dane Golden:
Yup. Now, let me ask you, how long is… How many people am I going to need to run a multicam livestream with Cinamaker or elsewhere?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well, I could be very honest and tell you, it could be as little as just one person. I mean, I’ve run multiple live streams all on my own, together with a guest of course, but the guest doesn’t really need to do anything. So you’ve got some software out there like Be Live is one of the apps that I’ve used in the past. There’s also Stream Yard, a lot of great powerful applications. There’s Ecamm, there’s Twitch… There’s, a switcher, sorry. There’s a lot of great stuff out there that you can use.
Tolis Dokianos:
The important thing here is, it depends on what it is you’re trying to achieve. If you’re happy to deal with applications that don’t necessarily give you the highest resolution on video, or even the best audio, then you can easily go with these applications that are easily available to you on, that are usable through social media. Cinamaker on the other hand, takes the bar a few notches higher up. In other words, Cinamaker can be integrated with the likes of YouTube and Facebook, it can be integrated with private portals, you just need to have a livestream key to do all that. And if you decide that you want to do it on a very low budget and use the likes of Facebook and YouTube, that’s, you can do that for free. And I would actually opt in to YouTube as a more reliable platform in terms of the quality that you want to broadcast.
Facebook and many other platforms tend to throttle your video and your audio, so you will end up having lower resolution video. Audio will typically be okay. When you’re looking at video conferencing, for example with the likes of Zoom, Skype, or Teams, like on a recent production I had some challenges with Zoom. And when you think about it, Zoom is a very, it’s one of the most popular video conferencing platforms these days, especially because of the pandemic. Everybody’s at home, everybody’s working from home, or people want to reach out and connect with one another.
Tolis Dokianos:
And so, imagine if you’re trying to put on a video conference with more than a couple 100 people on Zoom. Well, that’s going to be a big challenge, because Zoom typically would want to throttle your production, very simply because there’s millions of people trying to use it at the same time. And everyone on every platform is also facing those challenges, so to meet up with that demand you’ve got to do something to at least give people the very bare minimum. And so, that’s where you can kind of get into some challenges. But, Dane, to answer your question, it can be as little as one person.
Gwen Miller:
Can I key in on that just a little bit, because I think this is really interesting, the idea of using a multi-camera software with Zoom. Can you kind of expound just a little bit more on that? What type of situations can you mix between essentially multiple people in different locations on Zoom? For much more like a live conference feeling. What can’t you do with Cinamaker and Zoom?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well, here’s how I would first of all categorize the type of production that you want to do when it comes to a live production. So, I break it down into two groups, it’s either a narrow cast production, meaning you are streaming to a smaller group of people. Let’s just say for argument’s sake, 25 people, which you can easily do on Zoom. And what you can do with Cinamaker, is you can actually connect Cinamaker the app to Zoom, say through your MacBook, right. So if you’ve got a MacBook and you typically use Zoom on your MacBook, you can connect Cinamaker to your MacBook, and then suddenly you can offer your viewers a multi-camera video presentation. So that’s the first thing.
Tolis Dokianos:
And then the second thing is you’re actually narrow casting. Meaning, you want to narrow cast and present to a smaller group of people that enables you to have a exchange of conversation. Just like you and I are doing right now, you can do that with 25 people, like the Brady Bunch on Zoom. You got all the little video boxes. And you can do that relatively, effectively, and almost painlessly. And at the same time you can also share screens. You can also chat, and you can also actually verbally communicate.
Tolis Dokianos:
The other side of the coin is broadcasting, and broadcasting is where I would consider a Cinamaker production tying in with, say, the likes of livestreaming on Vimeo. In which you pay to actually broadcast on Vimeo, because you’d not only get better quality, but you also get support at the same time. You can get the support that you need if something just goes wrong, so you can also get that with traditional other webinar type technology like Citrix, GoToMeeting, or GoToWebinar when you’re dealing with hundreds of people.
So, the differences are basically the number of people, and what it is that you want to do. So when you’re broadcasting, it’s really kind of just you communicating to a big, big group of people. Maybe one hundreds to even a thousand people, but you don’t necessarily have a two way stream of conversation, you’re just presenting. What you then need to do, is basically manage any type of… If you’re going to have a Q&A session, that you need to manage that a little bit differently. And what’s interesting about that, is that a lot of technology available there today is still working on optimizing that particular function. So what we may end up having to do there is create a separate channel of communication, maybe email is the best way to get any questions delivered to the presenter, someone might need to moderate that.
Dane Golden:
And let me ask you also, so we were talking about this before. And frankly I have some older equipment I’ve got like a iPad, I don’t know, like a four on my desk. And I’ve got a iPhone eight, and I’ve got a MacBook Pro, I think it’s whatever came out last year. And those are my current tools. I think the iPad is too old, but the iPhone, and anything in front of that is good. Could you tell us a little bit about what type of devices are going to be supported?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well, the very simple answer to that question is, any type of iOS device. Whether it’s an iPhone, an iPad, a Mac, an iPod even, you can use that technology to operate. But the important thing is that you’ve got the latest iOS update on your device. Now there are certain devices that don’t go up to the latest iOS, and you’ll probably have difficulties there. So, I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember what the latest iOS version… But the thing is, if the minimum would be 13.4.1, or something like that. But, suffice to say-
Dane Golden:
So, legacy ones are not good. But-
Tolis Dokianos:
Yeah, that’s a good way to putting it.
Dane Golden:
But what about… Is it support Android?
Tolis Dokianos:
No it does not Dane, absolutely not. I want to make that crystal clear to everyone listening in on us today that Android is not even part of the discussion, it’s all Apple based technology.
Dane Golden:
Okay. Great, thank you.
Tolis Dokianos:
I do want to make, just add a small little caveat though, if you’re going to be using Cinamaker to broadcast through Zoom, the computer that you use however doesn’t necessarily need to be a Mac. Because you can still have Zoom going on a PC, but as long as you have an HDMI cable connected to your computer, whichever you’re using, you can always use Zoom for that. But you’d obviously need to have an iPad to work the Cinamaker studio. So let me, another clarification, the iPad is where you actually have the control of your production, and the iPhones is where you have your cameras, and or your microphone audio streaming in.
Gwen Miller:
Excellent. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about features, and what features are available. For example, are there features that allow you to put graphics on the screen? Are there features that allow you to say, put up the live comment stream? What are we talking about in terms of bells and whistles?
Tolis Dokianos:
Okay, that’s great. Basically the Cinamaker director studio enables you to use lower thirds, images, picture in picture. You can also use videos in as well. You can modify the fonts, if you want to add your own fonts you can do so. I’m sorry, you can actually use your lower thirds and use the fonts available in the library, so you can change the way your lower thirds look, or any sort of annotation for that matter. You can change the color, and then all you need to do is upload all of your images or media for that matter into the Cinamaker director studio before your production, have everything organized neatly in folders. And then it’s just a matter of pressing on a little eyeball icon, or an eye icon that basically enables you during your production to switch it on and switch it off. It’s that simple.
Tolis Dokianos:
The other nice thing about it, is you can also do a virtual camera. So you can use an existing iPhone, that is as acting as your camera, and you could use it as an extra camera within the four camera range. So, if you’ve only got say, three iPhones that you’ve connected wirelessly to the Cinamaker studio on your iPad, you can add a virtual camera that makes that four cameras. And the virtual camera could be for example just a close up of one of your panelists, or one of your overhead product shots for example.
So, the other thing you can also use is green screen to have an image background of your choosing as well. Although, I personally avoid green screens, that’s not something that I’m a big fan of, but if you wanted to use green screen you can as well. You can also add music. In one of our productions recently here in Zurich with my agency partner, we actually did a live stream where we actually played a seven minute video for one of our panelist, so that’s possible too.
Dane Golden:
And how would a business or a marketer use this differently than a YouTuber?
Tolis Dokianos:
Okay. Well, imagine that you’re selling a product. So, if you’ve got a product, you could for example do something like an unboxing video. So, here you’ve got the possibility of using four different cameras. So maybe you’ve got one camera that is an overhead shot of what you’re unboxing, then maybe you’ve got another camera angle on a close up of the product that you want to show. So maybe you’ve taken it out of the box, and then you really want to get up close and show people on camera two what the product looks like. So maybe you’ve even during your livestream presentation, one of your guests asked, well, can I have a look at this angle of that product? Or can I see this or that? And you can actually do that live, and all you need to do is just with a touch of your finger, you can switch to camera two or camera three, whichever one you want. So you’ve got… And then you can have a wide angle shot of yourself doing your spiel in your whole studio.
Tolis Dokianos:
So it kind of adds a little bit of intrigue, if you will. It gives you that additional perspective on your product. Now if you’re doing a service, maybe you want to show people a B roll sequence of something. Maybe a happy customer, or how you fill out a form. You can have additional video up in the upper left hand corner playing as B roll, while you’re actually explaining something. So that’s a very interesting way of being able to communicate and add that extra bit of production value in your livestream presentations.
Gwen Miller:
So, Tolis, I have a question for you. Something that we’ve been experiencing in my job with kind of remote production. I’m not sure if you guys have thought through remote production, what your plans with. Is there a way we could test that? Because we have a talent all over the world at this point, and we’re still trying to run our business.
Tolis Dokianos:
Wow, that is amazing that you’d actually bring that up. I have had that on my mind for the last couple of months now. For the very simple reason… I’ll give you a live example, I’ve been doing some work with a client in Saudi Arabia. Now of all times during this pandemic, when we can’t travel and it involved consulting obviously, and working on an advertising production that would have had to been done remotely with another agency partner of mine in Saudi Arabia. So the question that I always had in my mind was, how would I do this if I had to do it remotely?
Tolis Dokianos:
So, the answer to that is, you need to use some kind of remote technology. And let me thank you for asking this question, because you’ve awoken my Indiana Jones alter ego and sense of adventure. Because I’m willing to pioneer this with you, or anyone who’s listening to our call today. I’m willing to test this. To be quite honest, the folks at Cinamaker are pushing the boundaries all the time, every single day, to meet up with the demands of the reality that we are all experiencing today as businesses around the world. And I have a solution that I believe would function to actually be able to put this to the test. So Gwen, if you’re on board and your game, I’m very happy to trial this solution with you, because I believe it is possible. And, do you want me to tell you what it is?
Gwen Miller:
Sure.
Dane Golden:
No. Don’t tell us, don’t tell us. No, no. Tell us.
Tolis Dokianos:
Okay, I won’t. Next question please.
Dane Golden:
Tell us. Tell us.
Tolis Dokianos:
Well listen, the amazing thing is that there’s a solution to every problem. And if there’s anything I’ve ever learned when it comes to video production, video production is nothing else than a puzzle that needs to be solved, every step of the way. And so, I believe that there… If you were to use, for example, just like we could have a production with Cinamaker and Zoom, you have the ability to create a channel of communication, a multi-camera channel of communication through Cinamaker and Zoom.
Tolis Dokianos:
But, if you’ve got Cinamaker on say a remote location, and you wanted to direct this production, you would have to have access to your clients Cinamaker director pad remotely. Now here’s the catch. The folks at Cinamaker have enabled the app to function on a Mac, and what that then lends to is the ability to access that Mac from a remote location using one of these screen sharing platforms. Something like TeamViewer, or there’s these other bespoke remote software or applications that… Like my IT administrator does it. Anytime I have a problem, he’s in the UK, and he always gets onto my computer, and he’s able to do his magic remotely.
Tolis Dokianos:
And so, by using that kind of technology, getting access to someone’s MacBook for example that has Cinamaker on it, you can actually run the whole production remotely. Now, I’ll be honest with you and say that I haven’t trialed it yet. Which is why the pioneer in me is willing to put it to the test. I’m happy to do this for anyone listening to us today. Just reach out to me, and if you want to trial it out, I’m more than happy to try it. And I believe that it can actually function, and it can actually work.
Dane Golden:
And so for the basics of this. I have my iPad, I have a phone camera, and maybe another phone camera. How hard is it to get up and going? How much time, how much learning? Is it an hour, a day, a year, or five minutes?
Tolis Dokianos:
Well, Dane, let me ask you this question.
Dane Golden:
Yes.
Tolis Dokianos:
Whenever you buy a new gadget, or some new hardware technology, do you try it out immediately? Or do you kind of look at it with a little bit of disdain?
Dane Golden:
I’ve been buying a lot of stuff during COVID, and right now it’s just sitting in boxes.
Tolis Dokianos:
All right, let me tell you my experience. When I buy technology or hardware, I will probably let it sit for almost a week or so before I actually unbox it even. Because, the thing that bothers me the most, is oftentimes it’s the troubleshooting. It’s the head scratching moments where you wonder if this technology is actually going to work or not. And I’ll be very honest with you, not that I’m being dishonest, mind you.
Dane Golden:
What. You’re being dishonest?
Tolis Dokianos:
When I first trialed Cinamaker… And Dane, you remember, you and I both were… We both experienced Cinamaker together at VidSummit in Los Angeles.
Dane Golden:
Well, I was on the front end of the camera. I wasn’t looking at it behind.
Tolis Dokianos:
That’s right. So, I was very excited about what we did that day. And when I first trialed Cinamaker wirelessly, do you know what was the most amazing thing. That in a matter of, say two seconds, all of my phones connected to my director studio on my iPad. And I was elated. It was a weight off my shoulders. I couldn’t believe just how easily it was to connect my iPhones, my four iPhones to my iPad, my Cinamaker director studio. The important thing is you just need to have a very good wireless connection, or broadband connection, and you’re good to go. It’s as simple as that. If you really wanted to start things at the very basic, and let me tell you, the very basics of Cinamaker are just so powerful. It’s so easy, it’s quick, it’s fast, and I just love just how affordable it all is.
Tolis Dokianos:
And, what I’d like to invite you to do, is actually go to my YouTube channel, at YouTube.com/TolisDokianos, and check out my Cinamaker playlist. I’ve got this amazing testimonial of my favorite students, David and Renata. David teaches English as a foreign language, and Renata is a home fitness instructor. And it’s just amazing when you listen to their testimonial just how real it was, and how excited they were, and that for me just speaks tons. And that’s just what really excites me about Cinamaker, just how easy it is to set up. And you’re literally putting on a mobile multi-camera livestream or video productions, it’s awesome. And it’s very intuitive, and Dane, you don’t even need to worry about having to learn it, because it’s just so easy to use. Just like anything that I’ve experienced on Apple products, it’s just absolutely a treat. It really is.
Gwen Miller:
Amazing. So let’s hit on a point, which I think is very key for a lot of marketers. Which is, how could I use this for, say, a sales presentation?
Tolis Dokianos:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, it’s… As I was saying earlier you, you can set yourself up, say, in your place of business. It does help to have some production design in mind when you’re going to do a presentation. So, whether you’ve got a good backdrop, whether you’ve got flowers, lighting, whatever, you need to have a brightly lit space. Because if you’re going to be doing it on an iPhone as your camera, you just need to have very good lighting. And the rest is really quite easy in terms of production. Now, if you’re going to be presenting a product, it’s very good to use four different cameras, either an overhead angle is perfect for any unboxing, or multiple different angles so that you can feature your product the way that you want to feature it in order to sell the product.
Tolis Dokianos:
So, take a look at some of the infomercial type channels, the shopping networks on TV. Traditionally, those are very good reference to how to do a great sales presentation of a product, on for example using Cinamaker, rather than a PowerPoint on a GoToWebinar or GoToMeeting webinar. This just takes it to a completely new level. And when you start leveling things up, like introducing more higher value production items, like a better camera, better audio. You introduce then some of the graphical images that you can bring into Cinamaker, any sound effects as well. You can really, just really bring your presentation up. And you know what else Gwen, I was thinking about this… My cousin in Greece, she’s a teacher, and she was just explaining to me just how her students just fall asleep watching her educational, her tutorials or whatever. And it’s nothing against her, but if you think about it, it’s not like when you’re in a classroom.
Tolis Dokianos:
And suddenly, here’s a really important point I want everyone to take away today is, it’s all fine and dandy to do video, and it’s all fine and dandy do multi-camera video. But the next important step in whatever it is that we do as businesses, as marketers, as organizations, as educators, as houses of worship, whatever, the entertainment factor is becoming so much more important. I think Gwen you might be able to relate this. You need to be able to put on a show, not just a presentation, but a show. And that is what keeps people watching, that’s what keeps people engaged. And that, if you’re actually streaming to a platform that enables you to sell on during your live stream, man, then you’ve really struck it. You really get it. Just way up there in terms of success.
Dane Golden:
Well, Tolis Dokianos. Now we’re going to ask you to tell us more about how we can find Cinamaker. And I also want you… And Apex Video Marketing. But I want you to spell your name and Cinamaker, because I want to get it right. You’re a nice young Greek boy, but you have a hard name to spell.
Tolis Dokianos:
Well, I don’t know if I’m that young, but. First of all, Tolis, it’s spelled T as in Tom, O-L-I-S as in Sam. Last name Dokianos. Spelled D as in David, O-K-I-A-N as in Nancy, O-S as in Sam. Or you can just call me T, for short.
Dane Golden:
That’s right. All right T.
Tolis Dokianos:
You can always reach out by visiting my website at www.apexvideomarketing.com. I’ve also got some blogs on Cinamaker there. You can most definitely visit my YouTube channel at Youtube.com/TolisDokianos. And you can also reach out to me on LinkedIn, just look up Tolis Dokianos on LinkedIn, I’m the only one. And if you are interested in getting Cinamaker, you can definitely trail it out for free. All you need to do is go to the App Store and download two applications, one is for your iPad… Or actually, it’s the Cinamaker Capture App, which is the tool that you need to use for camera and audio recording. And then the second application that you want to download is the Cinamaker director app, that’s what it’s called. And you can download that on your iPad, and then you’ve got the tools that you need to link everything together.
Tolis Dokianos:
Now, once you’ve trialed it for free. I don’t recommend you buy the product, the full license, you don’t want to buy it on the app store, because I can give you… For today, I’m giving our audience that’s listening to us a 20% discount on the full Cinamaker license. So all you need to do that, you can buy it on my Cinamaker web shop, which is getCinamaker.com/now. And Cinamaker is spelled C-I-N-A-M-A-K-E-R. So getCinamaker.com/now, and use the coupon code-
Dane Golden:
Well, we’re going to put that in the show notes. So if you’re listening to this on an app right now, you’ll be able to click on that. And use the coupon code what? What’s the coupon code?
Tolis Dokianos:
The coupon code is Tolis, T-O-L-I-S, underscore apex, A-P-E-X, as in X ray.
Dane Golden:
Okay, great. Thank you Tolis Dokianos. My name is Dane Golden-
Tolis Dokianos:
You’re very welcomed.
Dane Golden:
Thank you. My name is Dane Golden with my co-host Gwen Miller, and we want to thank you the listener for joining us today, don’t we Glen?
Gwen Miller:
Absolutely Dane.
Dane Golden:
And I want to invite you, the listener to review us on Apple podcast. Share it. Tweet us. Gwen and I do this podcast and our various other projects because we love helping marketers and businesses just like you, do YouTube and video marketing better. Thanks to our special guest, Tolis Dokianos. Thank you Tolis.
Tolis Dokianos:
Thank you Dane. Thank you Gwen. It’s been real fun.
Dane Golden:
Until next week, here’s to helping you help your customers through video.