The Heather Parady Show

Making ENTERTAINING Video Content (Mark Sommerville)

content creation creativity Feb 28, 2023

"Higher-level creatives realize you need to show up and do the work. Even when you don't feel like it. It's that diligence to show up."

Wanna level up your videos? Tell better stories and really capture your audience?

Today I connected with Mark Sommerville, the former Creative Director for one of the biggest creators in the world (Zach King). With over 5B Views and counting, clients with over 125M Followers, Mark now helps creators and brands with creative direction, feedback, and creative process optimization.

In this conversation, we dig into how to make your videos more engaging, why some creators gain massive traction and others do not, and how rapid output for a concentrated amount of time might help your video content take off.

FROM TODAY'S EPISODE:

How to make your videos more entertaining and engaging
Mark walks me through one of my ideas and how he would map it out as a video
The key to getting more comfortable and confident on camera
Outside of tactics- what separates great creators from those who never see traction?

TAKEAWAYS:

Add in an element of surprise, find specifics in your stories, and change up your environment to drastically improve your video storytelling
The thing that separates the creators that rise to the top versus the ones that are just kind of in the mix is a unique point of view.
You can learn a ton and find your creative voice through the practice of rapid output- even for just a confined period of time like thirty days
There has to be an incredible diligence to to continue the creative work even on days when you don't feel like you have good ideas. Make it a priority. Get people around you to support you and you'll get it done.

WHO IS MARK SOMMERVILLE?

Mark Sommerville started his own music production company “The Wave Shop.” He mixed records for artists around the world such including Bebe Cool, James & FJ, and more. He produced records for artists such as Tyler Sjostrom (What We Say We Are, Bones Hold Me Up), Kevin Marble (What Are You Afraid Of?), and more. Sommerville also published music production tutorials on YouTube during this time.

Sommerville’s interest in music production soon led him into the field of sound design for film and online video. Through a mutual friend, Sommerville was connected to YouTuber Zach King in 2013. He started sound designing for King in 2013, their first collaboration together was The Cliche RC Action Chase. Sommerville would go on to sound designing for King for many of his successful YouTube videos and Vine videos.

After moving out to Los Angeles, Sommerville began collaboration more on the creative development and writing with King. As King’s popularity was taking off on the social media app Vine, Sommerville became one of the founding members of King’s team, writing creative for the videos, branded content, and often doing the sound design.

Sommerville eventually became creative director at King Studio, writing branded content for Fortune 500 companies such as Apple, Alphabet Inc. (Formerly Google), The Walt Disney Company, Amazon, and more. In addition to writing video content, Sommerville also co-authored 3 middle grade novels with King for HarperCollins, wrote keynote speeches, and co-created a filmmaking course for Apple stores worldwide. In his final year at King Studios, Sommerville wrote a TED Talk for TED 2021 in Monterey, CA.

Sommerville and King worked together for 9 years, building the brand and growing the channels from 1 million followers to over 100 million worldwide.

In January of 2021, Sommerville left King Studio to enter his “spaghetti season” - where he claims to be “tossing ideas at the wall until something sticks.” Sommerville has been posting daily videos on TikTok and Instagram while testing new entrepreneurial ventures online.

Now, Sommerville helps creators and brands with their video content and runs a brand called "Slides of Surprise" where he sells PowerPoint Practical Jokes.

CONNECT WITH MARK SOMMERVILLE:

https://marksommerville.com/

QUOTES:

Higher-level creatives realize you need to show up and do the work. Even when you don't feel like it. It's that diligence to show up. @MarkSommerville CLICK TO TWEET

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. -Stephen King CLICK TO TWEET

The thing that separates the creators that rise to the top versus the ones that are in the mix…is a unique point of view. @MarkSommerville CLICK TO TWEET

No one cares that you failed at something, It's not going to impact whether or not they try the next thing that you do. A willingness to fail has been crucial. @MarkSommerville CLICK TO TWEET