Video on the Web--- navigating these decisions

One of the biggest recurring questions I am getting from clients is how to post their corporate videos on the company website. This has become a complicated decision for small and mid-sized businesses who want to have some cool video and multi-media on their websites but start running into the pitfalls that can crop up with some video delivery systems. Let me help with some advice.

First thing to know is that putting any multi-media on any website generally involves some tradeoffs and there will always be someone with an older computer or browser with a weak connection for whom the mutimedia loads poorly or not at all. No matter how small you make a video there will be someone out there who has trouble playing it, so you should not try and reach every lousy system out there but create something that can be seen well on most systems and for people who have decent connections and are used to watching video they can access it with small load times. You also need to know you audience... does your customer tend to have home computer or is your target customer tech companies in a Biz to Biz setting. Is seeing the video on a cellphone important to your target customer? This may alter your delivery choices. There may also be a trial and error test period where you weigh these options and see what works best for your company.

There are basically two categories of web delivery on your website--- 1) Using a third party WEB HOST or 2) POSTING A WEB READY VIDEO DIRECTLY on your own website. Let's look at the Pros and Cons of each.

OPTION 1- THIRD PARTY WEB HOSTS (YOUTUBE, VIMEO, FLOWPLAYER)--I cannot tell you how many complaints I get from my clients whose web designers are choosing to use the third party delivery systems as the only web delivery option. YouTube is a favorite and is wonderful because it is universally seen by many people with ease and can be shared and passed around on facebook. I do suggest all my clients post a YouTube page with their videos so people can do this, but I advise against YouTube on your own webpage. This is because on your own private real estate, your webpage, it looks unprofessional to have both the YouTube logo all over your product and because it is hard to eliminate the ads for related YouTube videos at the end of your video. I have had clients complain that their competitor's product came on their webpage after the YouTube video played. Other clients have had inappropriate material come up after their video. YouTube has a preference to shut this off, but it doesn't work 100%, so this is too much of a risk to most of my clients. I do not like getting a panicked call about a client feeling they have just advertised for their competition after the competitor's video gets advertised on their webpage! Use YouTube on your website at your own risk.

The other web hosts like FLOWPLAYER and VIMEO also have drawbacks. Much like YOUTUBE when you use these you basically send the video to a virtual machine out there in webspace that makes a copy of the video which you cannot control and regurgitates it back to your website. In doing this your video may lose vibrancy in color or have motion issues in playback. Or it may look pretty decent, but you cannot control how it comes out. I have had clients complain how it looks after this process and I have also been asked to send larger and larger files to try and give these processors huge and better images to degrade and the problem isn't the input but the uncontrolled output. Sometimes they do look decent but then you run into the issue of iphones and ipads which historically do not tend to play these. I am willing to suggest to my clients that some customers might have to wait for videos to load or a few behind the curve customers might not see the video at all, but I have trouble telling a client that customers who bought high end technology cannot get the video at all.

2) CUSTOM WEB READY VIDEOS DIRECTLY ON YOUR WEBSITE - This is an option that I recommend to most of my clients. It may not be for everyone but my clients presumably got me, a professional filmmaker to do their videos because they wanted polished videos to be a significant part of their campaign. Therefore they have made an investment and this work should be put out there in a polished presentation, or they may diminish the power of the investment they already made. It would be akin to getting a top photographer to take your family's portrait. Since this is a nice photo you don't want to present it like a snapshot on your refridgerator with a magnet. Rather, you probably want to have a custom frame shop do a nice job and hang it on the wall or on a desk. Once you have it displayed nicely you can ALSO throw one on the refrigerator too! (YouTube).

Some web designers these days seem to only want to offer the third party options and I generally see this with web designers who do less custom work in general and more use of templates and open web architecture. But even these systems CAN be customized to some degree and I become concerned for my clients when the web company seems unable to deliver video options. It tells me that video presentation is an afterthought to this web company and they are not striving for creative forward thinking use of video. It is one option but should be no means be the only option.

In selecting a web designer these days it is important to take a look at whether they use multi-media a lot or not. Look at the web designer's website--- do they have video on their own site, if so how is it presented and is the presentation creative and polished? Take a look at the sample sites on their list and see if they have much video content on websites they deliver. How do those look? Do they rely on Youtube? If their client base uses very little or poor looking videos or only handles YouTube that tells you something.

Obviously these third party programs and templates are becoming common because they have brought down costs, after all YouTube is free! And it is so easy to throw on a website or blog that laypeople can do it! No wonder you have to watch ads at the end, how else can YouTube exist? They need to get you off your website and clicking on their YouTube site for more videos and more ads. Also, let's look at what kinds of videos are tremendously successful on YouTube... "cute fuzzy animals falling asleep"... "dramatic prairie dog"... These things go viral, product videos do not tend to but are much more tailored to people who are visiting your site interested in what you offer.

Custom web placement on your website is not rocket science. I am not a web designer but I am able to place custom videos on my own website almost as easily as dropping in a photo. A better web designer than me will probably set up some code for different browsers and different ways the video can be seen on phones and devices, but this code is available for free on the web and any competent web designer should be able to install it. Altering a website to show a custom video instead of a Youtube video should not be extra thousands of dollars, but it may be several hundred. In my book that is money well spent to have more control of your video and avoid the pitfalls that cause the panicked calls I get when third party providers go wrong.

Remember, no video will play on every system out there and you will have trade-offs. Your web designer is correct in telling you this and to expect it to run on every mobile device or home system may be too much to ask. In some cases where you are looking for extensive websharing, YouTube may be the right choice for your product. But when it comes to what you put on your real estate, your web page , I do recommend presenting with as much control as you can. If your web designer cannot even present to you a simple cost effective option to eliminate the third party providers you should probably look for a company who can at least offer that service. If they make it sound like it's really really hard to do, then you can figure that for them it may be really really hard, but it won't be for everyone. Third party providers do have their plusses and should be fully considered, but if you intend to make video a significant part of your web outreach strategy you should be working with people who are very comfortable working with video in many different ways.

Hope this helps! ;)
Mary

My Muse

I don't know if every musician has a thing that acts as their muse, but I sure seem to. And this thing is my Composite Acoustics guitar. I guess it's just the way it makes me feel when I play it. I have several other guitars but none gets the flow of ideas out of me like this one. It could be my imagination but I think this guitar actually makes me a better player. I would have never guessed that a guitar that is made out of completely man-made materials could sound so good and feel so natural.
So even if I'm scoring a film or commercial where the primary instrument will be piano or some other instrument, I tend to work out most of the ideas on my guitar first. I'm kind of curious if any other composers work the same way. I'm currently working out some initial music ideas for the next film and I can hear the violin and cello parts within the guitar lines. Inspiration is such a weird, magical blessing.

Michele

The Charcoal Pencil

A funny thing happened since the days when I edited my first films by shooting actual film and painstakingly cutting and splicing the film together - this whole process got a whole lot easier.

Or did it?

It used to be that even having the where-with-all to figure out how to get a film done from start to finish with all of the complicated technical requirements and hard to get your hands on equipment meant that if you actually completed a short film you were really ahead of the crowd. Now with cameras on every cellphone and editing software bundled with many computers everyone is a filmmaker, sort of.

I add the "sort of" because of what I call The Charcoal Pencil Principle. Charcoal pencils are easy and affordable and everyone can get one but not everyone that uses one is an artist. I actually own a pretty nice charcoal pencil kit which I dust off every now and then when I think I might be able to convey something to my crew by way of a Mary Haverstick original storyboard. I generally wind up using them for myself as a sketchy reminder of my ideas and give my crew a shotlist instead, because I am pretty lame with a charcoal pencil.

So why is it then, that eveyone who is new (or not so new) to film these days is all about the tools? "What editing program do you use?", "Do you have a Red Camera?", "Can you edit 4k?", "What about Premier?". I've got news for you, those tools will be gone tomorrow. I have a basement full of antiques that will prove my point. Focus not on the tools. Focus almost entirely on the craft.

I am pretty decent with the tools of my craft but I don't endeavor to be a toolmeister, the geek that can name every keyboard shortcut on the editing program or recite the specs on every camera. In fact, I can't even tell you the model number and name of most of my cameras. This is because I have had so many over the years and some of that information is wasted brian space. For me I reserve the largest vital brainspace for use on the actual MAKING of a film.

In discussions of filmmaking I hear so many people speak of the file types and editing programs. I never hear anyone mention Walter Murch's 6 Reasons To Make An Edit. Now that imovie is on every mac I think they should have a readme doc for the program that lays this out for new users. So much more brainpower should go into choices and so much less on how to operate the computer itself.

So let me give you an example of what I try and fill my brain with to better my craft. Early on in the edit of my film HOME I cut a scene and knew it could have more impact, but I wasn't sure what was wrong so I took time to review a book by master editor Walter Murch. In it he outlined his simple reasons for making any edit in a film, with the top rules superceding all the rules below. That means reason number one can cancel out all 5 rules below, but you should always try and make your edit comply with all 6 of his rules.

The six rules/reason's for making an edit are--- 1. Emotion 2. Story 3. Rhythm 4. Eye Trace 5. Director's Line 6. Continuity --- If you do not know or understand these rules you will want to learn them before considering yourself a film editor.

1. Nothing trumps emotion, and according to Walter Murch this element can be the single motivation for any edit and can stand alone, even if all the other rules are broken. I have always had an instinct for this editing motivation. Some editors edit without emotion and it shows.

2. Story - Does the edit give information and move this story further? If not consider losing it. After all, editing is about condensing. Lose what does not propel. Move somewhere new because you move the story or learn something about a character that is vital to the story.

3. Rhythm - This is not editing on the beat in a music video! That is the surest way to bore an audience because edits should not be predictable, or just when you set up a rhythm it is interesting to break it. I find this process to be instinctual and some days I have the feel better than others, so I try to finalize my work when I am on a good day. Every scene has a rhythm, every actor has a rhythm and you must find it. Walter believes that when you are in the zone with your actor you will instinctively begin to cut as the actor blinks but can also be in keeping with other very subtle shifts. I believe I only really began to understand this after editing for 15 years. I thought I knew this before, but I didn't.

HERE Walter Murch differentiates the above 3 as major forces in editing and the next three rules are of lesser importance.

4. Eye Trace - Before I consulted Walter I was not emphasizing this enough. Eye trace is replacing the part of the frame you are going away from with something of interest in the next frame. It does not need to be the main character's face but something with form or detail and if it's not the flow will be awkward. Poor eye trace is fatiguing to watch and crucial to experienced polished editing. It is vital for the big screen (where the audience may have to turn their head to follow eye trace) but also important even for web.

5. Director's Line - I think Walter may have a different term but he refers to the spacial positioning of things in the room and the cut line of how the camera is traversing them. Basically if you cross the director's line you will disorient the stage that the viewer is watching. This can be done on purpose to create a disorienting effect, but should not be done if you want flowing edits. This concept is too complex to really flesh out on this blog, but if you want to be aware of professional shooting and editing it is a vital and complex topic. On a film set this is crucial to understand while you are filming.

6. Continuity - Here is the one many people love to pick apart. Did that waterglass lose water from one frame to the next? Wasn't that actor's hair in his eye and now it's not? Was that actor's head a little more downcast and now he is looking up a little more? There is a reason this was put last by Walter Murch and the reason is clear... good editors fudge this all the time and usually push it to the brink of acceptablity to reach the other above criteria. To be a slave to this, which most film students initially become, is to make your actor take ungodly numbers of steps to cross a room when-- GET TO THE STORY ALREADY!!! Still, it is important to know when to fudge and how far you can't go, a skill I am working to perfect to this day.

Walter writes these so much better and I recommend any budding editor seek out his books and lectures. This is just the very basics and I mean basics of just one craft in the rainbow array of crafts that only begin to make up things a filmmaker needs to understand and execute under intense pressure.

So remember the lowly charcoal pencil, replaced many times by the number 2 pencil and the ink well and the bic pen and the sharpie and the uniball. It's still around and if you know how to use one well and can call yourself an artist, I salute you. It is an amazing tool and so simple. Why then is mastering one so hard?

:-0 Mary