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[F370]Five Cs Of Cinematography

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Content means the words that actually appear on the page - your message. It can be serious, humorous, elegant, bold, technical, or conversational in tone. But the message is the words themselves. What you're saying and how you're saying it. Content includes grammar, spelling, jargon, acronyms, and the like.
Appearance relates to the way the words (content) look on the page.

These are things that affect the way the words look on the printed page (or monitor, for Web copy) - all of which goes in to making your copy easy to read.
Are your paragraphs all piled up, one on top of the other, with no graphics, subheadings, or other means of breaking them up? Are they manageable in size and easy to digest? A paragraph is supposed to contain one chunk of related information. Sometimes they can get fairly lengthy and still be in correct literary form . . . but keep your reader in mind. If there's a way to break up one big, gigantic, one-and-a-half-page paragraph, DO IT!

THE 5 C'S OF CONTENT
Make you content CLEAR. Avoid the overuse of jargon and acronyms in your copy. Unless you are writing for a specialty Web site where only people intimately familiar with your industry and/or business will visit it, make sure your language is understandable to the broadest possible audience. Get someone objective (i.e., not in your industry) to read it for you. If they don't get it, chances are some of your other readers won't get it either.

Make it CONCISE - even for books and long-copy sales letters. Most people have a tendency to overwrite. Be precise with your language. Avoid run-on sentences. Avoid long, meandering phrases when one or two words will do.

Rule of thumb: Polish your written piece until it gleams. Get it to where you think it's perfect. Then go back and cut it by 25 percent.

"Not possible!" you say.

Oh, but it is. Get rid of phrases like "of the" and all the extra instances of "that". Delete redundancies like "simple, effortless, and easy-to-use." Sometimes more is better. Other times, more is just more - and might actually work against ease of reading and understanding - which means it works against you.

Make your content COMPELLING. Use motivating language. In sales copy, for example, detail your features and benefits. Give people a reason to want to buy from you or use your service. An isolated product list probably is not going to compel anyone all by itself. However, whatever you do, do not ever lie or misrepresent yourself! This will only come back to harm you in the long (or not-so-long) run.

If you claim to have contacts who are producers at Warner Bros., you'd better be sure the person you know at Warner Bros. is not the sister of the assistant to the catering manager. Or if you offer 2-day delivery at no extra charge, you'd better be ready to fulfill that promise, even if you receive 1,000 orders in a day!

Also, tell stories. Don't forget you're the expert. If you're writing a book about job hunting for baby boomers, and you've helped a lot of baby boomers get jobs, use those stories in your writing to illustrate your points. Stories are compelling because they help your readers relate to your material. They can be entertaining, offer lessons, or dramatize particular elements - but use stories in all of your writing to create and maintain interest.

Make sure your content is CONSISTENT. This is another place where you can tell a sloppy writer from one who takes time to double- and triple-check their work before they submit and/or publish it.

There is not necessarily a correct answer to these ones. Simply determine what your personal and/or company standard is, and stick with it. One of the worst offenses of inconsistency appears when there are several different spellings or phone number styles within a single document. Mistakes like these make your work - and by extension, you and your company - appear sloppy.

Is it on line, online, or on-line?

Is your style ABC Deli or A.B.C. Deli?

formatting phone numbers: Do you use 602.253.8463 or 602/253.8463 or (602) 253-8463?

Make your content CORRECT. Proper grammar and spelling are essential!!! There's no way to state this strongly enough, particularly with respect to Web copy. There is so much competition for business on the Web - if you have sloppy copy that is badly spelled and riddled with grammatical mistakes, the next site is just one click away - and you won't get a second chance to bring those lost visitors back.

Although everyone makes a mistake now and again, please do not underestimate the importance of correct grammar. If you don't know whether it's correct or not, ASK someone who knows, LOOK IT UP in a book or online resource, or PAY a professional editor/proofreader.

The most glaring grammatical errors:

Stupid spelling mistakes. Write your copy in Word and SPELLCHECK before you dump it into html (or Publisher, PowerPoint, or whatever other format you might use for delivery).

Missing and incorrectly used apostrophes. Again, there's no excuse for this mistake - and it is one that will set you apart from the others in your industry. Apostrophes are NEVER used to create plurals - but you see this all the time. A ridiculous sign of sloppy writing and a complete lack of editing.

EXTREME EXAMPLE OF COMMON ERRORS:
In this writers opinion, dumb grammer mistake's cost people more business than they reelize.

TIP: If you use ALL CAPS, change your text to lower case or initial caps to run SpellCheck. SpellCheck will not catch errors in text in ALL CAPS unless you set it to do so.

TIP: Use ALL CAPS sparingly. Text written in ALL CAPS is exceptionally difficult to read. The fact is that the shape of a word, as much as its spelling, facilitates quick reading. Words written exclusively in capital letters lose the shape differentiation caused by the ascenders (b, d, f, h, k, l, t) and descenders (g, j, p, q, y). As a result, words written in ALL CAPS take a great deal more effort to read.

Remember, it is virtually impossible to edit your own work. You're too close to the material and have seen it too many times to even notice errors any longer. If you find yourself in a position where you must edit your own writing, take a significant break from it - two hours, at minimum, but two days is suggested. This will allow you to return to your work with "new eyes," able to spot errors you would likely have missed had you not taken the break.

Equipment financing lenders, as well as banks, use the Five Cs to evaluate loan applications: Character, Credit, Cash Flow, Capacity and Collateral. However, while banks look at small-to-medium size companies from a Fortune 500 perspective, equipment financing companies see applicants from a small business perspective, which highlights a sixth C: Common Sense.

Here is what a lending institution means when referring to the Five Cs:

Character - Every lender wants to understand what type of borrower an applicant will be in order to make smart, safe credit-granting decisions. The longer a company has been in operation, the more its payment history and outstanding credit reveal management's attitude toward debt and making timely payments. Public records and references can come into play; still, the most reliable yardstick is the character of a smaller company's owners. How they manage their personal financial obligations is usually a reliable indicator of the likelihood of their making timely payments. The more closely held a company, the more attention given the personal credit history of those in charge and their prior business history. No matter how solid a business plan appears and how reliable a company's owners have been in the past, the realistic lender also wants the assurance of personal guarantees from the company's owners. This may take the form of a signature or a pledge of cash or other collateral.

Credit - Business credit reports offer a quick glance at a company's willingness to pay trade accounts on time, as well as any derogatory public records, such as suits, liens, or judgments that negatively affect a company's credit rating. Such reports also show any UCC filings. Potential equipment lenders are interested in the depth of a business's borrowing history. The longer a company has been in business, the easier it is for a lender to determine credit stature; a good ten- or twenty-year credit history obviously carries enormous weight. This places a startup company less than two years old at a disadvantage. So, when traditional data sources, such as Dun & Bradstreet and Paynet cannot supply adequate information, the personal credit histories of a company's owners become highly important.

Cash Flow - Lenders want to see that any company applying for a loan earns enough money to meet payroll, cover fixed operating expenses, and comfortably make timely payments on a new equipment loan or lease. While there are a number of ways to define cash flow, lenders most often calculate the cash flow available to repay new debt as net profit plus such non-cash expenses as amortization and depreciation.

Capacity - Capacity is similar to a football team's depth chart. The capacity to weather bad times is equally important to a company seeking funds. Capacity acknowledges that sometimes unforeseen things happen: a key employee becomes unable to work; a major customer is lost; an economic turn-down drastically reduces demand for product or services. Any number of other unlikely – yet possible – disruptions can negatively affect a company's cash flow. And these disruptions can be temporary or permanent. So, capacity measures a company's ability to pay off an equipment loan or lease with cash reserves or its ability to quickly convert real estate, stock, or other assets into enough funds to cover debt.

Collateral - How much collateral, above and beyond the equipment being financed, a company needs to secure a loan or lease depends largely on the nature of the lender and status of the business. A traditional bank often requires a blanket lien on all assets of the business while an equipment finance company normally uses only the equipment for collateral. A few lenders also offer sale-leasebacks and refinancing of existing equipment debt. This allows a company to free up cash flow or lower their monthly payment through equipment loans or leases.

Common Sense - Every decision to purchase and every decision to grant financing must be based on common sense. A lender needs to understand how additional equipment will increase the company's stability and growth. Notwithstanding the risk every lender takes and the gamble every company makes when purchasing new equipment, for both lender and borrower, the foundation of a decision to finance equipment begins and ends with common sense.

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