I walk by a strip mall of businesses. One of them — The Producer’s Lounge — looks very hip and eclectic inside. There are modern tables and chairs with funky light fixtures. It almost resembles an upscale coffee bar. It does not face the street but is tucked away in a courtyard of sorts with other businesses. You really have to know where you’re going to find this place, which just adds to its mystique. According to its website http://www.theproducerslounge.com/, it is a video production company. My nephew got his bachelor’s degree in sports media production, which I did not know was a subject that you could major in. As the pandemic continues on, video production has become a highly prized skill. The church that I attend has even made some professional quality videos. With no live human churchgoers until recently, the staff has been learning a lot about video production during the pandemic. It really just looks like magic on the screen, but I understand it may take hours and hours to achieve that kind of captivating enchantment. Let’s learn some more about what it takes to be a wizard with electronics.
According to Wikipedia, video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode ray tube or CRT systems which were later replaced by flat panel displays of several types.
This chart shows the most common display resolutions with the color of each resolution type indicating the display ratio e.g., red indicates a 4:3 ratio.
Video systems vary in display resolution, aspect ratio, refresh rate, color capabilities and other qualities. Analog and digital variants exist and can be carried on a variety of media, including radio broadcast, magnetic tape, optical discs, computer files and network streaming.
Video production is the process of producing video content. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with images recorded digitally instead of on film stock. There are three stages of video production: pre-production, production — also known as principal photography — and post-production. Pre-production involves all of the planning aspects of the video production process before filming begins. This includes scriptwriting, scheduling, logistics and other administrative duties. Production is the phase of video production which captures the video content or moving images/videography and involves filming the subject(s) of the video. Post-production is the action of selectively combining those video clips through video editing into a finished product that tells a story or communicates a message in either a live event setting (live production) or after an event has occurred (post-production).
Currently, most video content is captured through electronic media like an SD card for consumer grade cameras or on solid state storage and flash storage for professional grade cameras. Video content that is distributed digitally often appears in common formats such as the Moving Picture Experts Group format (.mpeg, .mpg, .mp4), QuickTime (.mov), Audio Video Interleave (.avi), Windows Media Video (.wmv) and DivX (.avi, .divx).
Types of videos
There are many different types of video production. The most common include film and TV production, television commercials, web commercials, corporate videos, product videos, customer testimonial videos, marketing videos, event videos, wedding videos. The term "video production" is reserved only for content creation that is taken through all phases of production — pre-production, production and post-production — and created with a specific audience in mind. A person filming a concert or child's band recital with a smartphone or video camera for the sole purpose of capturing the memory would fall under the category of "home video" — not video production.
Production scale
Production scale is determined by crew size and not the location of the production or the type of content captured. Crew size in most cases will determine a projects quality and is not a limitation of what kind of content can be captured. There are feature films that have been captured by a crew of just two people, and corporate videos that leverage teams of 10 or more.
Some examples of production scale include:
- A solo camera operator with a professional video camera in a single-camera setup, also known as a "one-man band."
- A small crew of two people, one for operating the camera and one for capturing audio.
- A multiple-camera setup shoot with multiple camera operators and a small crew with support staff.
- A larger scale production with a crew of five or more people and a trailer or production truck.
Shooting styles and techniques
The same shooting styles used in filmmaking can also be used in video production. There is not a singular type of style that is used for every kind of video content captured. Instead, style changes depending on the type of video being created, and the desired tone and message of the video.
- Tripods for a stable shots, also called a locked down shot.
- Hand-held for a more energetic and jittery feel, often used to depict natural movement.
- Non-leveled camera angles, such as a Dutch angle — a type of camera shot which involves setting the camera at an angle on its roll axis so that the shot is composed with vertical lines at an angle to the side of the frame or so that the horizon line of the shot is not parallel with the bottom of the camera frame.
- Whip pan in which the camera pans so quickly that the picture blurs into indistinct streaks. It is commonly used as a transition between shots and can indicate the passage of time or a frenetic pace of action (see the opening of Hot Fuzz) and Whip zoom (see the Kiddo/Driver fight in Kill Bill Vol. 2).
- Vertical motion shots using a jib or crane often in the beginning or ends of movies.
- Steadicam for smooth movement and tracking shots at slower speeds such as moving through rooms or following actors and action.
- 3-axis stabilized gimbal for smooth motion shots at any speed. The gimbal compensates for the camera operator’s movements much like a steadicam, but through electronic motors instead of through inertia. The gimbal allows for operators to move much more freely than a steadicam because of the considerably smaller amount of weight used in a gimbal setup. Gimbals can access many places that would be impossible for a steadicam because of this added portability.
Corporate videos
Corporate video production can be scripted and covers a wide range of purposes such as corporate communication, training and education, along with videotaping conferences and conventions, products and services and sales. The most common type of corporate video is the "corporate overview video," which introduces the company's executive team and puts a name and face to the people in charge. This video is used as a way to communicate a company's core beliefs and values, as well as its overall mission statement. This video is often called the "foundation" of a company's video content, as it sets the tone and communication style for all other video content.
Corporate event videos
Corporate event videos occur at conventions or trade shows and cover the multiple-day event including speakers, break-out sessions, awards ceremonies and local recreational activities in which the conventioneers participate. An on-site editor then creates a short video presentation that is shown before the close of the convention. Many national or international companies also take advantage of the convention venue to gather interviews of their key employees or customers to speak on the company's behalf as it is much easier to film everyone at a central location.
Product videos
Product videos are created with the main purpose of selling a product and offer an opportunity to communicate all of the highlights and features of a product which are typically written on the product page in text but with the added bonus of showcasing glamour shots of the product. The most effective product videos are typically between 2 and 3 minutes in duration, balancing the amount of information provided while keeping the audience engaged.
Television broadcast
Two styles of producing video are ENG or electronic news-gathering and EFP or electronic field production.
Television broadcast productions include television commercials, infomercials, newscasts, entertainment shows, documentaries, news magazines, sitcom and reality shows, among others.
Shows can be distributed by broadcast syndication. SP video production was the broadcast television standard from the early 1980s up until the beginning of the 21st century, when many television stations began using digital media to shoot, transmit and store high-definition or HD footage.
Event videos
Video production can be used at sporting, school, stage, wedding, church and similar events to provide recordings of the events. Event video productions range in distribution from a wedding video that is custom-made for a bride and groom and their immediate family and friends to a dance recital where dozens to hundreds of videos are sold to individual dancers. Event video production can also be used to broadcast events live to viewers at home such as a press conference or concert. Video of live events can be sent by microwave or a satellite truck from the event location to a television studio in order to be broadcast. Event video usually refers to video made on an event and has some sort of currency, for example news.
Video production for distance education
Video production for distance education is the process of capturing, editing and presenting educational material specifically for use in online education. Teachers integrate best practice teaching techniques to create scripts, organize content, capture video footage and edit footage using computer-based video editing software to deliver final educational material over the internet. It differs from other types of video production in at least three ways:
- It augments traditional teaching tools used in online educational programs.
- It may incorporate motion video with sound, computer animations, stills and other digital media.
- Capture of content may include use of cellphone integrated cameras and extend to commercial high-definition broadcast quality cameras.
The primary purpose of using video in distance education is to improve understanding and comprehension in a synchronous or asynchronous manner.
Webcasting is also being used in education for distance learning projects; one innovative use was the DiveLive programs.
For example, Nautilus Productions details an exploration of a notable shipwreck:
In the fall of 2000, Rick Allen's Nautilus Productions co-produced with Bill Lovin of Marine Grafics a groundbreaking, weeklong live internet broadcast known as “QAR DiveLive” from the Blackbeard wreck site. For the first time ever, live video and audio was broadcast from an underwater archaeological site to the worldwide web. Students were able to watch the underwater archaeology in real time and ask questions of the scientists exploring the shipwreck. The twice-daily live distance learning programs reached an estimated 1,600 students from as far away as Canada during the five days of broadcasting. In October of 2001 Allen and Lovin again co-produced “QAR DiveLive 2001.” This time the interactive webcasts from the sea floor and conservation laboratories of the Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project reached over 3,600 students and another 2,700 remote viewers from 15 states and two countries during the five days of broadcasts.
Internet video production
Increasing internet speeds, the transition to digital from physical formats such as tape to file-based media and the availability of cloud-based video services has increased use of the internet to provision services previously delivered on-premise in the context of commercial content creation for example video editing. In some cases the lower costs of equivalent services in the cloud has driven adoption and in others the greater scope for collaboration and time savings.
Many websites include videos. Although not necessarily produced online, many video production tools allow the production of videos without actually using a physical camera. An example of this is using the YouTube video editor to create a video using pre-existing video content that is held on the platform under Creative Commons license.
Video content is being used in an ever-growing range of contexts, including testimonial videos, web presenter videos, help section videos, interviews, parodies, product demonstrations, training videos, thank you videos and apology videos.
Marketing videos are made on the basis of the campaign target. Explainer videos are used for explaining a product, commercial videos for introducing a company, sales videos for selling a product and social media videos for brand awareness.
Individual internet marketing videos are primarily produced in-house and by small media agencies, while a large volume of videos are produced by big media companies, crowdsourced production marketplaces or in scalable video production platforms.
Most internet marketing videos serve the purpose of interacting with the audience. The two main types of internet marketing videos are transactional videos — which aim to sell a product to a customer — and reference videos, which are designed to keep the customer on the site.
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