User Feedback

Here is some user feedback from the Facebook page for my media course. As well as the likes and positive comments one of my tutors said:

"I felt that the pace changed a bit much through the piece"

I personally felt that that pace of the video flowed well, and I allowed very small breaks or slower video just to add pauses, however overall I kept the video quick and flowing as it was only 40 seconds long. Potentially I can see issue with the social media part of the video, where I created fast movement around social media logos which them progressed into two slower pans over logos and a video channel. Personally I was happy with my end result and feel like this could only need tweaking slightly.

Other feedback from friends was positive, and overall with the positive feedback i received from the client I am happy with the final outcome of this project.

Another point raised was the use of Charlie Chaplin footage, of which i sourced legitimately for used from a stock video website that has a public domain section of video that is allowed for free use in projects. (Pond5 stock video)

Client Feedback

After completing my final video for VPoint TV I asked the Co-director Sally Reynolds for feedback on the final product.

"HI Dale,

This project has come on a long way since I last saw it.  I like the flow and pace of it.  It's a good length for a promo.  We discussed whether we should have a male or female VO, and did think that a male voice might sit better with the music.  But I think that there's a nice juxtaposition with the softer female voice and the harshness of the music - this works much better than I thought it was going to.

Regarding the storyline. I think the script is much punchier now and that the visuals reflect the message of the words.  I like the 'metaphorical' imagery that you have chosen to help get points over - for example, the 'crowd' of penguins, the two 'lost at sea' messaging shots, the Russian dolls to represent different sized client companies, Charlie Chaplin, the Go section of the Monopoly board etc. 

The only thing that I'm not sure about is the relevance is of the aerial shot of the canal, the combine harvester and the bloke walking along before we get into client logos.  At this point, the VO mentions 'we've made lots of compelling videos for companies'.  Of course I know that these are all shots from some of VPoint TV's compelling videos, but would somebody else?  

We're not pretending that the penguin and the sea shots are from our videos, so how does the audience know that we've now moved to showcasing some work.  Perhaps there could be some other element here to 'signpost' this.  As the video creator, what would you suggest to help do this?

Otherwise, I think it's great!  Really like the speeded up sequence of the green screen shoot!"

Overall I was very pleased how the project came together and I think I managed to create a professional video that perhaps with further revision the client would be happy to publish. This is particularly pleasing as my client is a video production company, so they have high expectations of a video that was designed to promote and illustrate what they do and represent them to anyone who watches the video.

I am really pleased with the music and the voice over working well, and I am pleased Sally herself has admitted although she didn't have confidence in it at first, the juxtaposition works well between the big drum music and a soft but slightly stern female VO.

The only concern Sally raised in her feedback was the start of the video transitions from the first three shots of stock footage into videos that VPoint TV had created, and how I could manage this transition better.

Firstly I would look at my design method of SCAMPER which sits well with changing an edit by Substituting and Adapting the way I have edited the promotional video and what clips I have used. 

In this case with the transition between stock footage to VPoint TV's video I would choose to use a graphical transition at the start of VPoint TV's own footage, with the logo and some kind of wipe or blur in transition to bring the logo in front of the footage actually created by VPoint TV, and then continuing as before.

Another option would be to include one of the behind the scenes videos before VPoint TV's content to show staff there working on a video and then that transitioning into the video they were creating at the time. I did this with a jib crane shot later in the video before the time lapse so I could try Put to other use video I have already editing simply by Substituting it else ware.

Stock Footage

To finalise my video I needed to add two videos to the start that I wouldn't be able to create myself. These were the first idea of standing out from the crowd voice over being overlayed on top of footage of penguins in a large crowd all looking the same. I feel this works well and is a strong image as penguins look very similar and also have a relation to large city crowds in suits.

The next was the very next clip of getting your message out there, for this i wanted a tropical beach with a bottle and sealed message inside. I felt this was a good analogy of having a message in a sea of videos online, and the sealed bottle also standing for not being able to get your message across to the target audience.

I have used other stock footage however this was public domain and free to use, this is why i left the paid footage till the end of the edit to make sure I definitely needed to purchase it for the production to be a success.

Video Creation: Do not pass go!

 

As part of my voice over towards the end of the video is the line "We go that extra mile for our clients". For a while I was puzzled how to represent this. The extra mile part of the voice over seemed obvious, and using some kind of car footage would be useful and almost to obvious not to 
use. However I wanted to represent the word 'Go' with something that was icon and recognisable as 'Go'!

At first I thought about using a traffic light turning green as it would link in with the car footage and also represent 'Go' well, however I thought that it would possibly be to similar to the car footage as I wanted the video clips in this video to vary as much as possible.

Finally after thinking about ideas for this I spotted the pile of games in the corner of my room and immediately realised using a monopoly board go square would be ideal. It says the word 'Go' and also is iconic which is ideal for a video where vidoe clips are montaged quickly and could easily be missed or not understood if they didn't have enough recognisable value.

Final 'Go' clip from my video

When i finally filmed this clip I decided to do a quick pan onto the game piece to add movement into the clip, this is because I felt a stationary image of the word 'Go' wouldn't lend itself well to the connotations of the word. This clip then led into a car related clip and I felt it worked well and resulting in one of the more iconic images in my client video.

Public Domain Video

When originally pitching the video idea to VPoint TV I mentioned how I would like to add some character to the video with some archive footage. Luckily some stock footage is available for free due to the amount of time it has been publicly available.

A stock video website called Pond5 recently launched a section of there site where you can download over 10,000 stock royalty free public domain clips. 
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/blog/10000-film-clips-now-available-for-free

"about 5,000 of the film clips had been nearly impossible to access for most filmmakers. The Public Domain Project directly digitized the footage themselves and combined it with 5,000 more copyright-free clips, making an easy-to-use marketplace that unifies a huge portion of the country's historical resources."
This was useful as I wanted a couple of old clips in black and white to add character and portray some points I wanted to get across in the video."

These clip were:

Astronaut at sea

The astronaut was linked in with a message in a bottle video to demonstrate being stranded and struggling to communicate. This linked with the voice over of "sometimes its hard to stand out from the crowd and get your message across". This demonstrates being stranded trying to communicate, and symbolises being stranded within a virtual sea of videos online trying to get noticed in between all the other videos on youtube.

Charlie Chaplin

For this part of the video the voice over mentions keeping your viewer engaged. This is said whilst a video of Charlie Chaplin plays pulling funny faces to camera. Charlie Chaplin was an iconic figure and links to engaging with audiences at the time. The funny face also adds an element of comedy I think the viewer will remember once the video is finished, this makes the video stick in the viewers mind far after the video has finished playing.

Old cartoon

This is late on in the video where the voice over mentions "we go that extra mile", before this I used my owned recorded footage of a monopoly go square on a board, and the extra mile is represented by this cartoon car driving into the distance. I think this works better than a simple video of traffic as it has more personality and is more likely to be remembered that video of traffic that most viewers see everyday.

Using these older videos to illustrate points at three different parts of the video help break up any monotony of similar clips and add character to the promotional video. This is something I haven't see used in other promotional videos as most of my research indicates companies simply choose a song and layover their best clips without voice over or quirky archive footage.

Video Creation: Graphics

One part of the video talks about graphics and social media, to demonstrate this I have created graphics that show social media icons and a youtube channel. I created these images first in photoshop by gathering social media logos and arranging them into on image:

I selected these social media websites based on how I use social media and how my friends use social media. Even if VPoint TV aren't currently using Vine or Snapchat to distribute video I think with an ever changing landscape of social media websites it's important to show what is current and what is being used, as VPoint TV could likely use them in the future. I created this document at 2560x1440p to allow me to crop in and animate in after effects without losing resolution for a 1080p video file.

Originally I created only two videos for this sequences, a slanted slow movement on the icons, and a slow movement on a youtube video channel seen below. In after effects I used the camera tool, made my image a 3D layer and panned the camera around quickly to generate movement and interest so the image isn't too static. I later refined this to make the music

Initial social media representations

After some feedback from my client they felt the music was too fast paced for this slow movement and suggested more movement and close ups for this section. To do this i revisited the camera tool and after effects and played with fast zoom and pans, along with selective focus to help draw the viewers eyes to certain icons:

Close up frame grab using selective camera focus on After Effects

On this close up I focused on the facebook like image, this is because it is easily recognisable and facebook is becoming more and more relevant in the online video space, so I felt including them in this was important to stay current with younger generations. This links back to my research with Emma Hubbard a social media marketer who talked about being up to date with current trends.

Here I highlight Vine and Instragram, two very popular video sharing platforms, also around this is Periscope a very new live video streaming platform, but also Google one of the most recognisable companies on the web and owners of the largest video sharing site YouTube. Overall I feel after making this portion more faced paced it will help keep the video moving overall, I think the icons work well as people can recognise them immediately which helps to keep their screen on time short and to the point. 

If I were to do anything differently I would have collated these icons in after effects and that would have allowed greater control over animation of each individual logo, however that would have been too time consuming for the project and is something I would have done with more time.

Video Creation: Russian Dolls

In this segment I of the video I wanted to communicate the line "whether you're large or small" visually on screen for large or small businesses. My original idea in my storyboard was to have two separate objects, one that is usually small and one that's usually large.

After talking through my story board with Ian of VPoint TV he raised the idea of instead using identical objects with only different sizes being the stand out difference. After thinking through ideas like a car and a toy car, and other miniature versions of normal objects I came up with the idea to use a Russian doll. I like this idea especially as there were several different sizes between the largest and smallest Russian doll, which i felt communicated both large, small and businesses in between those sizes. It also allowed me to play with stop motion animation for this part of the video.

close up of largest Russian doll

After borrowing a Russian doll from a friend of mine I created a clean white background using two pieces of white card, then I lit these with soft boxes to prevent reflections as best as possible as the Russian dolls had a slightly glossy surface.

Here are a couple of shots of the key wide shot of the dolls, I animated these by first placing them all in a row, recording a few seconds of footage and then taking one away. I repeated this process which then allowed me to animated each one appearing. To achieve this I simple put the videos together in the timeline in reverse order so they appeared rather than disappeared. 

Close up of small Doll

I then ended with a close up of the smallest Russian doll when the line ends with "or small" to point out even small companies can get in contact in a fun and visual way. I decided to leave the second smallest doll in the frame as it gave some perspective to the size differences.

Overall I think this idea worked well, both to illustrate large or small companies, but also any size in between, the animation was simple but effective and when cut to the music will help move the video along quickly without staying on the point too long.