All posts in video

Running is a Fundamental Part of the Human Experience [video]

by Jason on June 22, 2011 in video with 12 Comments

Can’t see the video below? Click through to the blog post.

I used to hate running. As a gymnast, the 90 feet down the vault runway was the farthest I had to go – except once in a while on Saturdays where we’d go out running and I’d breathlessly stumble my way through a mile or two.

I’m now running a couple times a week and loving it.

I’ll write more about this new found love soon – but this old Nike commercial just reminded me how integral running is to the human experience. Definitely gets me pumped for tomorrow morning’s run.

I'm teaching an in-person Skillshare class on everything I've learned about creating a personal and professional brand through blogging on May 16th in San Francisco. See all the details here.

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Inspiring Dialogue-Free Boxing Short [video]

by Jason on May 5, 2011 in video with No comments

This short, dialogue-free film, I still have a soul HBO Boxing, is definitely worth 2 and a half minutes of your time. A powerful reminder that if you want something bad enough, you don’t let anyone or anything stop you.

The video was made as spec work for HBO’s Boxing After Dark program by a team of guys known as Contraband according to Funny Commercials World.

Also – apologies for the delays in posting – I’ve been super busy and dealing with issues with my hosting provider – Bluehost. If you’ve got suggestions for other providers, I’m all ears.

I'm teaching an in-person Skillshare class on everything I've learned about creating a personal and professional brand through blogging on May 16th in San Francisco. See all the details here.

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How to Make a Great Startup Product Video

by Jason on April 20, 2011 in video with 5 Comments

If you can’t see the video, click here to read this post on the web.

We have a lot of big news happening today at isocket. Check out our blog for all the announcements including the launch of BuyAds.com, the premium ad marketplace. We’re also covered in VentureBeat, TheNextWeb & Tracking202

(April 2012 Update) isocket has refreshed the video and added one for their marketplace BuyAds.com so I thought I’d include the new videos. They still keep much of the same feeling and style as the original and I think a lot of theses rules still hold true.

isocket

BuyAds

I don’t blog much about my work at isocket here but I think you’ll like today’s post on how me and my coworker Ryan (I really don’t ever stop talking about him do I?) put together this sweeet video with our production team in just four weeks.

Please actually watch the video before reading the rest of the post – it’ll make me feel good and you’ll get more out of it. =)

Startups (and bigger companies like Google and Facebook) have to work hard to explain new products or major refreshes to existing products. While you can do a lot with copy, diagrams and photos, sometimes it’s not enough. Video can be a powerful way to engage, entertain and education your customers and get them pumped to use your product.

First off – let’s get it out there: Getting a great video done is not cheap.

Epipheo Studios, who I consider to be one of the industry leaders (along with Picturelab), charges $15k for 90 seconds of video and it takes them 8-10 weeks to do it. We paid roughly the same amount for a three minute video with a turnaround time of four weeks.

The kick-ass team we worked with is MediaSauce.

They are a Indiana based creative agency and Ryan had actually once worked there selling creative engagements – so he trusted the people and the quality of work they could produce. But neither he nor I had ever handled an engagement like this from start to finish and it was definitely an eye-opener for us.

We are very happy with the final product and have been pleased with the initial response. One customer even emailed us saying how they pumped themselves up by watching the video a couple times before applying join isocket. That kind of feedback is what makes videos so awesome.

So without further ado, I offer some things I learned through our engagement that I hope helps you understand more about the creative process and how to structure an engagement if you ever decide to do a video for your product/startup/company:

Continue reading →

I'm teaching an in-person Skillshare class on everything I've learned about creating a personal and professional brand through blogging on May 16th in San Francisco. See all the details here.

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100 Pushups: Consistent Progress Makes it Possible [video]

by Jason on April 13, 2011 in video with 8 Comments

Don’t see a video? Click here to watch it on the blog!

The 100 Pushup Challenge – Jason and Jordan from isocket on Vimeo.

It turns out, with about 4-6 weeks of pushup training 3x a week (~10 mins per session), you can do build your capacity to do something rather difficult: 100 pushups in a row.

My coworker Jordan and I spent about four weeks doing multiple sets of pushups every week, as Simon Payne is doing, via the sequence laid out in hundredpushups.com. It involves doing many sets of pushups at a time (eg: 14, 18, 14, 14, 20) with very little rest in between each set.

If you do this again and again and add a few more pushups to each set every time, your capacity to do pushups grows. There are no secrets. No weird old tips. No magic tricks.

True magic is the power of consistent progress.

Consider: if every day you improve yourself by just 1%, in 30 days you’ll be 35% better. In 90 days you’ll be nearly 250% better. In one year you’ll be almost 3700% better than you were 365 days ago. Simply through by pushing yourself a little bit harder every time and consistently improving just a little bit every day.

Over 600 people have reported completed the Hundred Pushup Program – a number that is surely undercounting dramatically. What could YOU achieve if you used the power of consistent progress?

I'm teaching an in-person Skillshare class on everything I've learned about creating a personal and professional brand through blogging on May 16th in San Francisco. See all the details here.

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A Day in the Life of Jason Shen (video)

by Jason on April 6, 2011 in video with 1 Comment

A Day in the Life of Jason Shen from Jason Shen on Vimeo.

I think one reason movies appeal to us is that they allow us to step into a fantasy version of someone else’s life. Reality is of course different, but perhaps just as interesting.

I shot this over a period of a week using my iPhone. Perhaps I’ll do another post on what a day is actually like time-wise. For now, I’d like to issue a call to all my readers: post your own day-in-the-life video.

I’d love to see it.

I'm teaching an in-person Skillshare class on everything I've learned about creating a personal and professional brand through blogging on May 16th in San Francisco. See all the details here.

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