What's good, creatives? Welcome back to the channel. If you're trying to make good Instagram reels, if you're trying to land some deals or get people's attention, I'm going to show you how I make my Instagram reels today.
Step number one, I have my video idea. My ideas typically come to me while I'm hiking or in the gym or walking or even in the shower. Whenever I get an idea, I jot it down in my notes on my iPhone so I can always come back to them or sometimes I'll jump right into it as soon as I have that idea.
I like to base my ideas based on camera gear, music videos, or vlogging/content creation because those are the main three pillars of what I pretty much do. My second step to making my Instagram reels after I have my idea is to either write or freestyle. Sometimes I get my idea and I want to jump right into it and I don't even need to write down a script or anything.
I can just free flow it because I got it all right here. I know exactly what I want to say and I'll jump right into it back here on my um setup, which we'll get into later. I'm going to show you how I set up my camera and where I, you know, all the good stuff.
But other times, I want to write it out. I want to write a script with a nice hook and then give the information and then loop it. If it's a real where I need to remember like specs or information or say things a specific way, see, I was about to mess up my words right there.
Then I need to write it down and make sure that it's concise. Even sometimes I'll write a bunch of stuff and I need to paraphrase it and like minimize it down to a nice piece to fit into a quick reel. Number three, I like to figure out if I'm going to do it in a voice over and then lay footage over top of it so you never see my face or I'm going to talk to the camera with a talking head and splice in B-roll shots covering some of the things I'm talking about.
I'm going to be honest, I don't know exactly how I determine when I'm going to do a talking head or I'm going to do a voice over. I kind of just play around with it all the time and do different things and try different creative approaches. But I do know that other humans like to see other people talking.
So, a lot of times I do talking head reels on my Instagram. Now that I have my idea and I know whether I'm writing or freestyling it or I know if I'm making a talking to camera or voice over, I can jump into shooting the real because the pre-production is pretty much done. Number four, I got to find the angle.
Now, I could shoot this anywhere. You got to find the place that works the best for you. I could literally take it right here and I could just go vertical and I could shoot my reel right here if I really wanted to.
So, this right here could work if I wanted it to. But, I'm going to take you to my main setup which I've got back here in my closet. By the way, don't judge me.
I'm using a Small Rig desk mount that comes up here with a ball head to shoot that shot right there. It's basically like a tripod that you can just attach to a desk and use it anywhere. So, I will link this in the description for you.
Okay, this is my main angle that I shoot on my Instagram real. I don't know why. I just like the downward angle.
It works in this closet. The background looks good. I got my desk.
I got my editing desk. I got light here. I usually have that light down.
I got my neon sign right there. Everything in here just looks cool in a vertical presentation. I shot a reel right here one time and I was like, "This is the one.
I'm going to always come back here. " How this is mounted is a Small Rig ball head super clamp right here on this closet shelf. And I have a L bracket on my camera which is mounted vertically with one of the quarter20 threads on the other side of the ball head super clamp.
Hopefully all that made sense. I just enjoyed this angle, so I left it here. And then I just always come back and put my camera right back in the same spot.
All right, next is the fun part, and it's arguably my favorite part. picking music and sound effects to go into these reels. And I use Art List.
Of course, this video is sponsored by Art List, but I use Art List. And that's exactly why I don't use any other music platform. I just found this dude last night.
I think his name is Kuma. And this song right here is going to be used ASAP. I might use it in this video, like maybe right now.
[Music] Fire, man. They have so much music and so many sound effects that I use for not only my reals but YouTube videos like this and client projects when I'm working with other people. Not only that, if you get the Max plan like me, they have stock footage, very high-res footage at that.
And if you're really into creating with AI, Art List just dropped Sora 2, which is a state-of-the-art two-tier video generator with prompt understanding and audio sync. You can write out a prompt and it'll generate you a realistic video. Or you could use image to video.
upload an image and it's going to generate a video out of your image. They also have LUTs that you can use on your videos if you're not that great at color grading. As you can see down here on the left side, I have playlist where I've put tons of songs into as I've been browsing because I actually do on my spare time get on Art List and find new producers and music artists because I want music for my future projects.
And sometimes just get on here and listen to a track like I just did last night, it can inspire video projects for me. Obviously, thank you Art List for sponsoring this video, but I was going to shout them out anyway because that's truly who I use. So, finding music is important.
I want a nice song to be underneath my reel. Not only that, but in my reels, I need sound effects. One, I need a riser.
So, we'll come right here. We'll go to sound effects, and we're going to do riser. I already have specific risers and um like just sound effects that I use in my reels, but this is how I did it when before I got these specific sounds.
the sounds that I found from Art List. I just keep them in a folder and I use them on every single reel. I don't go like searching for new ones.
That's just going to make the process of me making reels harder. But just for the sake of this video, I'm just going to look for a new riser and maybe I'll swap it out with my old one. Nope, too long.
Quick riser. I don't want it to be long. That sounded fire, but that's not it.
This is actually one that I have downloaded. If you look over here on the right side, I favored it and I've downloaded it. I use this one in some of my reels.
I ain't going to lie. So, you see what it is if you want to grab it. Then, I also need like a click or some type of camera shutter because it relates to camera gear and camera stuff like that.
So, whenever I'm putting like text on a screen or I'm swapping to a different scene with like a little overlay, I could just hit that click sound. You could use that. Something like that is cool.
Any of these are going to work. Anything. Even a mouse clicking.
Mouse click. Okay, so that works right there. Creator Kit sticky mouse click O2.
Okay, the next thing that I do when I'm making a reel is I make sure that first hook line has a riser with it. So, let me just make a quick example of a hook and have a riser in it. This video right here is sponsored by Artless.
They have tons of music. Blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah, you get where I'm going.
They do have tons of music though. So, I always need that strong hook with a riser that builds up the tension to jump right into the information that I'm about to tell you in the reel. Okay, for my last final thing that I do when I'm making reels, I was trying to find an example, but I could not find an example right now because I'm moving folders and stuff all around, but I like to loop my reels.
What I mean by loop is I want the ending of the reel to smoothly go back into the beginning of the reel. So, using the previous example, this video is sponsored by Art List. At the end of my reel, I might try to go with something like you're never going to believe this.
So, you're never going to believe this. Go back to the beginning. This video is sponsored by Art List with the riser and boom into the information.
Hopefully you got something out of my process on how I create Instagram reels. And if you want me to make like a full PDF guide breakdown like specifically on every little detail that I do with making Instagram reels, just let me know down in the comments so I can go ahead and finish that because I did start one. I just didn't know if y'all would want it or not.
Again, make sure you click the link down below and go try out Art List. You get two free months with any annual plan using my link down below. I use their sound effects, their music, and other things whenever the time is right.
So, hopefully this helped, and I appreciate y'all for watching. I'll see y'all next time.
