Yesterday I stumbled upon an video by Nick Campbell of GreyScaleGorilla.

Personally I couldn’t have said it better.

To sum up the points in the video, Nick lays out that when it comes to design, focus on the elements that don’t change. His advice doesn’t only apply to design, but in all fields of communication and message mastery.

Tools like Premiere, After Effects, Twitter, Facebook, Television, Radio are here today, gone tomorrow. Its the principals that remain. The following are elements that don’t change:

• Design - whether its graphics, business, marketing, or writing understand design. When it comes to videos and graphics design entails understanding composition and color theory.

• Story Telling - Stories have a beginning, middle, end. Understand the three-act structure of story telling.

• Basics of Animation - Whether its stop-motion (claymation) or keyframing in After Effects, the principals are the same.

• Typography - This is something that many people tend to ignore. This can set a good design apart from bad design. Ask any mass comm professional and they’ll give you a lecture on how important type is.

• Apply What You Learn - If you learn something in class, or from a tutorial you MUST apply it to your own project to internalize the knowledge or it wont stay with you. You learn by doing. Not just doing based on assignment, but doing because you want to.

• Focus Small - Develop projects that are 5 - 10 seconds long. Concentrate on developing smaller projects that allow you to work within your level of time commitment. When you’re starting off, a 5 - 10 second video can taken an entire weekend to do. It will allow you to share your work with others and help you be more marketable.

• Market Yourself - Get a WEBSITE! Keep it simple. Tell your friends, post it to your facebook and tweet about it. Show off your work. Make an effort to connect with people. Use social media and actual outings. Blog about your projects. Tell them what you did and how you did it.

This is a content packed 34 minute session covering the eight pass process for editing video. If you’ve ever wondered what is the most effective and efficient way to pop out videos with a professional standard day in and day out - this is a MUST watch.

This content is members only. I would hate for your to miss out on this. Become a member now and get access to this and many hours of more content.

I’ve laid out the eight pass process that I use and professionals use in the entertainment industry.

1. Organizing Elements
2. Assembly
3. Graphics (your first draft)
4. Titles
5. Sound Spotting
6. Smoothing
7. Sound Design
8. Final Mastering

I just got back from Toronto recently. While I was there I found an opportunity to shoot the following video with one of our MessageMastery.com members. Its a discussion that takes place between Nayhan Chowdhury and myself on Wordpress Video Social Marketing.