SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Episode Theme
Tom Antion introduces small, portable gadgets that make shooting video easier and more professional.
Key Gadgets Covered
• Gimbal – For smooth, creative shots (covered in depth in episodes 1013 & 1014).
• Selfie Screen – Magnetic add-on that lets you use the better rear phone camera while still seeing yourself.
• Mounts
o Magnetic mounts (stick to metal surfaces).
o Magnetic phone holders (with suction or magnetic bases).
o Suction cup mounts (effective on smooth dashboards, less so on textured ones).
o Clamp-style mounts (clip to desks, shelves, windows, tree branches).
o Cup holder mounts (require extension to raise camera height).
• Gorillapod – Flexible tripod that wraps around irregular objects like railings or branches.
• Selfie stick tripod combo – Functions as both a selfie stick and a full-height tripod (5+ feet). Needs sturdiness to avoid wobbling.
Safety Notes
• Avoid recording while driving; if unavoidable, keep eyes on the road, not the camera.
• Be cautious with suction mounts on textured dashboards and with tripods in high winds.
Next Episode
• Ep. 1035: Teleprompters – gadgets and techniques to look natural while reading scripts.
Promotions Mentioned
• Free automation e-book (v3.0).
• Tom’s mentor program (greatInternetMarketingTraining.com).
• Licensed Internet Marketing School (IMTCVA.org).
• VIP video day in Tom’s studio and on-location shoots.

===

Episode 1034 – Video Gadgets
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute, the entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multi-millionaire Tom Antion. Hey everybody!

[00:00:25] It's Tom here with episode 1034 of screw the commute podcast. Today I'm going to talk about some video gadgets that's handy to have with you, and you can carry them in a very small pack, but it'll make your video shooting a lot easier for you. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Hope you didn't miss episode 1033. That was business funding. All the ways to get money to start a business or to increase a business actually to. You'll see that some of the ones I do don't take much money to get started, and they brought in millions of bucks. So that's episode one. 33. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to episode number. Business funding was 1033. Pick up a copy of my automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and get version 3.0. Because version 2.0 is. Now, I wouldn't say it's all obsolete, but there's a lot of new stuff in in not episode in version 3.0. And check out my mentor program, greatInternetmarketingTraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org.

[00:01:38] All right. One of the gadgets I covered thoroughly in two parts. It's called a gimbal and it allows you to do some really creative stuff. So that was episode 1013 was part one, and 1014 was part two. And I really suggest you go back and listen to those because you can do some Fantastic stuff with gimbals and they're not that expensive nowadays. Okay, another gadget is called a selfie screen. See, the cameras on your cell phone are better on one side than the other.

[00:02:17] If you want to use the best camera, the selfie screen sticks to your camera and lets you see yourself. Even though you're using the side of the camera that has the best lenses. Okay, so that's called a selfie screen, the one I got with the highest ratings. Let's see. It's called magnetic selfie screen. It doesn't even have a brand name on it, but it got the highest ratings. And it's a little white thing with a kind of a magnet on it sticks to your phone and turns on and off, and, uh, and it's kind of your, your it's probably Bluetooth, I think when I set it up and it shows you your selfie LP side with the good camera. So that's what that's all about. Magnetic selfie screen. Okay, let's see various mounts that they're very small that you can keep with you in a small pack. I have two of them here that are magnetic mounts and two different types of magnetic mounts. The one little mount, I mean, it fits in the palm of your hand has a magnet on it, not to stick to the phone, but to stick to anything metal that's around you. Could be a car, could be anything that's dumpster. All right. So it's got the metal on one side and it holds your phone. You know, it'll hold any size phone really. And it's got a ball mount that you can make the phone in vertical or horizontal orientation. So that's a magnet mount that the magnet sticks to things.

[00:03:57] Now the other one that I have another one. Very tiny fits in the palm of your hand is a magnetic holder where the the part that the phone holds to doesn't have those springy things that hold the phone in. It just has a magnet that holds the phone, and you can get them with either suction cup mounts or magnets on the bottom of where it's going to stick. So that's another little tiny thing that you can keep in always with you in a small pack. So you're ready to shoot all kinds of cool videos. All right. Now straight suction cup mount is good, except a lot of people use them on the dashboard of their car and things. But some dashboards have, like, a pebbly surface that's not smooth. And it's a little bit crazy to to depend on that with a suction cup. So if you have a smooth dashboard, suction cups can be really, really powerful and hold like crazy. But if you have the pebbly one, you might want to consider some other options. And one of those options would be a clamp type thing on a on, like a flexible boom that clamps maybe to your rear view mirror and comes down and holds the phone with one of those spring clamps on the sides of your phone, below your rear view mirror. That would be a way to get around it if you had a pebbly kind of dashboard. Now, by the way, when I'm talking about stuff in the car, I'm not advocating you talking and doing videos while you're driving.

[00:05:36] Okay, I know you're going to do it, but I can't advocate that because that's dangerous, because you're distracted, and especially if you're trying to look into the camera instead of watching the road. Now, here's the thing. If you're going to do it, just watch the road. Once in a while. You could glance at the camera, but people will realize you are in a moving vehicle, and if you're looking at the camera that's off to the side a little bit, you're not looking at the road and you'll get bad comments of how dangerous what you're doing is and so forth. So you don't want to do that. Just look at the road and you'll have an angular shot at your at your face and you're close enough. You don't need a wireless or you don't need a wireless microphone, or even you could have a plug in microphone that you can't even see because it goes down, you know, kind of loops down from the camera underneath and comes up and clips on you. But, you know, in that close proximity you may not even need an external microphone. Okay. So you also have cup holder cell phone mounts for video. Now they need to have an extension to bring it up high enough to to. So the shot is reasonable. It's still going to be a low to high shot, but it's also a place. And definitely don't use one of those and try to do it while you're driving. All right. That's just crazy dangerous. So don't do that.

[00:07:04] Now, there's other ones that have clamps on them. Like a really heavy duty. It's almost like a a hair clip for women, but it's big and heavy with a heavy spring. So you can just clip onto any place that'll that the clip will fit on the side of a desk or a shelf or, uh, the window of your car. If you roll it down a little bit, or even a small tree branch. All right. So those are a screen or clamp mounts. Now another interesting kind of cell phone holder and video gadget is a gorillapod. And they have flexible. It's like three feet but they're like little balls. And they they're flexible but they really are you know, will grab on to things so you can put them around a thick tree branch or any kind of odd shaped thing, a railing. If you're at the beach looking out at the ocean or something, you can wrap it around real tightly around the the railing. So that's very handy. And again, all these things are very, very small. Now another thing that we really promote is a selfie stick that's also a tripod. And you have to really good look at the reviews to make sure you get a good sturdy one, because the ones I'm talking about will go up to five or, you know, more than five feet high from the ground. And if they're too chintzy, then they're going to wobble all over the place, and it's going to be too dangerous to put your phone on because it's going to fall over on you.

[00:08:46] And again, I wouldn't use one of these in high wind situations because they're going to blow over. They're going to be top heavy with your phone at the top. But what's interesting about them is at the bottom. You can either hold on to it and use it as a selfie stick because it has a tripod that the legs flip out. So if they're if they're collapsed, it makes a really good handle for a selfie stick. And if they're open, you can sit it somewhere. And unless you're like six foot nine, you can do a reasonable eye to eye camera rather than having the shorter ones that you have to sit them up on a big wall or something to be able to look directly into the camera. So that's like a selfie stick tripod. So those are some gadgets that'll really up your video game and they're all tiny. They all will fit in a tiny thing. So you can have them with you all the time and use them when it makes sense. Okay. So there's some things now I'm going to do, uh, the next episode, this this is episode 1034. 1035 is going to be on teleprompters. This is where you can have your all your script written out for you. But there's a lot to it. I mean, I'm in the actor's union after SAG, and when I was up in DC, when we'd have regular meetings, we would practice like crazy to do good on a teleprompter.

[00:10:18] So I'm going to have a very interesting all the gadgets for teleprompters and how to look natural on a teleprompter so you don't look deer in the headlights. So that's going to be next episode 135. And let's see here. Make sure you check out my mentor program. We actually have a VIP video day that you can buy by by itself, where you go into my TV studio and we, uh, we shoot video with you, uh, in the studio, and then we take you on locations all over Virginia Beach and show you how to do on the fly videos that really promote your business and are very unique. So those you can do and if you're in my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingTraining.com that is free and part of your mentor program. And of course my school, I am the only licensed dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country. Probably the world is available to you. It's also it's a scholarship. If you're in my mentor program, you can gift to somebody, and it would be one of the best legacy gifts you could ever give to anybody, because they can get a highly in-demand skill in as little as six months. And we've actually had people making money before they graduate. And it's certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning. All right. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Let's see you shoot some cool videos.