Category: Content Creation & Videography Tips

  • Just finished recording an episode of my podcast, By Amara, on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach and wanted to share my minimalist podcast setup with you! Hope it helps! 🥰🎤


  • Do you want to launch your own videography or content creation business in 2023? Here are the five absolute must-have tools that I use to create content for me and my clients!

    #1: Final Cut Pro

    First, obviously, is Final Cut Pro. I use this to edit all of my footage. I use it for all my iPhone footage, I use it for professional camera footage.

    #2: Adobe After Effects

    I use After Effects to create any and all motion graphics for my clients. It is a little intimidating at first, so watch a shit ton of tutorials if you want to get into it.

    #3: Captions app

    This is a phone-based app where you can create closed captioning for your videos. No longer do you have to go into each individual app and do captions for them. You can just have them on the screen and then they’re ready to go.

    #4: Copy.ai or ChatGPT

    If you’re ever in a creative rut, try out Copy AI or ChatGPT. I don’t use these too much, but when my mind is spent or I’m in a creative rut, I’ve definitely used them for inspiration.

    #5: Canva/Photoshop

    So I actually do a hybrid of Photoshop and Canva to create thumbnails for my clients. Canva is super easy to use. They have tons of free templates, so it’s a really great starting-off point for your own designs.

    I hope this helps and follow along for more content creation tips and tricks!

    Watch the video


  • Want to crop your horizontal footage to vertical footage? Here’s literally the easiest way to do it in Final Cut Pro! 🎬

    First, copy any and all footage you want cropped for vertical.

    Do Command+N to make a new project. Before clicking “OK,” click this little dropdown menu where it says “Video” and select “Vertical.” Now click “OK.”

    Amara Andrew - 16x9 to 9x16 in FCP - 2

    Go ahead and paste your footage into this project, so Command+V.

    Amara Andrew - 16x9 to 9x16 in FCP - 3

    Now, here’s the secret sauce! Go ahead and select all the clips in your timeline and come over here to the “Inspector panel.”

    Now, go all the way down to the bottom to “Spatial Conform.” Click the dropdown menu, select Fill, and now your footage will fill the space, so you don’t have to scale it up to like 320% or something like that.

    Amara Andrew - 16x9 to 9x16 in FCP - 5

    Hope this helps!

    Watch the video


  • My final prediction for the 3 trends of social media in 2023 is that micro-influencers (accounts with under 100K followers) will be able to steal the spotlight (& monetize their content)!💰

    What’s a “microinfluencer?”

    If you’re a microinfluencer, meaning you have under 100,000 followers, this could be your year!

    Microinfluencers typically have followers who are way more engaged in their content versus people who have 100,000+ followers.

    Because of this level of engagement, brands will want to work with smaller influencers more since they can get a higher ROI than working with a big name.

    Brands consider microinfluencers “underpriced attention.”

    This also plays into my other prediction about “authentic” content creators because people who have 1,000 followers are seen as more relatable than those with millions and millions of followers.

    Watch the video


  • 2023 will be the year of videos! And this perfectly ties in with part 1 of my 2023 social media trend predictions.

    Video will still dominate!

    Just like I mentioned in my previous part, brands are going to want scrappy, authentic, and unpolished videos.

    TikTok changed the social media game!

    Social graph —> Interest graph

    Social media changed from “social graph,” meaning connecting people that know each other, to “interest graph,” meaning that you now get to see content you actually want to see.

    This way, it doesn’t matter if you have two or 2 million followers.

    Further, TikTok even shies away from calling their platform a “social media platform,” and instead calls it an entertainment platform.

    We’ve seen basically every other social media platform shift their focus to short-form, video-based content, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

    If you’re looking to get into the video market, now’s as good a time as ever.

    If you have any questions, reach out to me and I can help ya out! 🙂

    Watch the video


  • This week, I’m predicting the 3 social media trends that I can see coming’ down the pipeline in 2023! 🥳

    Today, we’re starting with “authenticity.” More and more people want to engage with “authentic” content, but just what the hell does that mean?! 🤔

    What is authenticity and UGC?

    This isn’t a new idea, but experts are predicting that there will be more emphasis placed on “authentic” creators, so people who offer lots of behind-the-scenes content.

    UGC or user-generated content worked really well in 2022, so brands are going to be utilizing that a lot more.

    What this means for you

    More and more, people want looks behind the curtain and to see how the whole content creation process goes.

    You can still create beautifully crafted and perfectly edited content, but make sure you’re offering those glimpses behind the scenes.

    Here’s how to do this!

    Capture quick and intimate videos of your day.

    Are you making a larger video? Then, capture the intimate, behind-the-scenes shots or videos of what happened before, during, and after shooting!

    This way, you’ll have more content to post!

    Watch the video


  • Literally just had the most annoying stressful thing happen and it’s been bugging me all day!

    I’m a social media videographer and I post content for my clients. I posted two videos today for my clients (a full YouTube video and a YouTube Short) and I was like, “Why are the videos not showing up on their channel? Where are they?!”

    If this has ever happened to you, here’s what to do!

    Step 1

    First, check to make sure your video is actually “Public” instead of “Private” or “Unlisted.” If your video is public, it should look like this.

    If your video is public, it should say “Public.”

    Step 2

    If your video is public, click the little drop down where it says “Public.” Next, you’re going to select “Unlisted” to unlist your video.

    Select “Unlisted” and then click “Save.”

    Step 3

    Refresh your page and then go back to that dropdown menu to make your video public again.

    Click “Unlisted” and select “Public” to relist your video.

    You may need to do this a couple times because YouTube is caching your channel so you need to refresh it. It’s kind of like how you refresh your browser.

    So to recap, public to unlisted, unlisted to public. That’s it. Hope this helps!

    Watch the Instructions Here


  • Affiliate links mean that I earn a commission from qualifying purchases. This helps support my channel at no additional cost to you. 🙂

    As a social media videographer, these are just a few things I’ve seen on people’s social media that could use a little bit of tweaking.

    Incorporating these few changes will help make your videos shine! Hope this helps! 🙂

    Tip #1: Your Orientation!

    So, when I say orientation, I mean are you repurposing your content? Meaning, are you gonna be taking a horizontal YouTube video and shrinking it down to a vertical video?

    If yes, then record accordingly!

    My best advice is to record your horizontal video a little bit further away. That way when you crop in for vertical, it doesn’t feel as tightly cropped.

    Tip #2: Get lit!

    Make sure you have a solid, consistent light source. Now, you can use natural window lighting, but you’ll be subject to weather, time of day, all that fun, wonderful stuff.

    I recommend using an actual artificial light and to make sure it’s one that’s good for video! If you don’t, your lighting will flicker and it’ll look weird and gross and horrible, so please don’t do that.

    I use this ol’ light, but you can also use a ring light, if you’d like. They’re easy to find and affordable.

    Tip #3: Emphasize your most important points!

    Think about the moments you want to stand out most in your video. Make sure you emphasize those points you want the most. So whether this is through tilting your head, moving your hands and body, not too much though, even though I do that. And adding dramatic flavor to your voice.

    You need to figure out the moments that you wanna stand out the most before you hit record. You can always emphasize things in post, but it also helps to have your body language mimic it as well.

    I hope this helps and follow along for more content creation tips and tricks. Tata!

    Watch my tips here!