News

Captions Vs. Subtitles: What's The Difference?

Tue, 18 May 2021 15:38:37 Z

Do you call them captions? Subtitles? Maybe you just call them ‘words at the bottom of the screen?’ Even though all of these terms may seem interchangeable, each of them are referring to a different concept.

Except for ‘words at the bottom of the screen’ - that one’s pretty all-encompassing.

Captions

Captions are the most common type of text that you’ll see overlaid on a video. You’ll find them as an option for your favorite series on Netflix, on numerous tv’s at your local sports bar and on that video that caught your eye while you were scrolling through Facebook.

Captions were originally designed for those that are deaf or hard of hearing, and for that reason will describe every sound in a video, including music, sound effects and anything else that is audible.

There are two different categories for captions, closed and open.

Closed captions (often displayed as “CC” on a remote control or video player interface) are the more common and stereotypical style for captions. They have the ability to be turned off and on, hence the name “closed,” as they are hidden by default until they are “opened” by the viewer.

Conversely, open captions are captions that are viewable by default and cannot be hidden (or closed). In other words, open captions are burnt into the video itself, and thereby can be fully customized with any fonts, colors, sizes and many other visual parameters. Closed captions on the other hand are integrated via closed captioning systems during broadcasts or video playback. For this reason they’re way less customizable and are often seen as simple white text with black text boxes, allowing them to stay legible no matter the visual content underneath.

Closed Captions Open Captions

If you’ve ever watched Jeopardy! or Wheel of Fortune you might be familiar with the phrase “closed captioning brought to you in-part by…”. What this means is that an advertiser has paid for the closed captions to be created and integrated into the broadcast of this program. Though every program won’t have a sponsor that provides the creation and implementation of their closed captions, the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) requires that all public multimedia must be captioned in order to prevent discrimination against those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

It might be hard to imagine a time where captions weren’t an option for nearly everything, but that was the case in the early 1970’s. That’s when open captions were first used by a Boston public television station for broadcasts of “The French Chef” with Julia Child, and certain rebroadcasts of ABC News to make it more accessible to those with hearing impairments. Surprisingly, the first instances of closed-captioning on major networks like NBC, ABC and PBS weren’t until 1980.

Subtitles

Subtitles, though similar to captions in a dialogue sense, are meant for viewers that can hear, but can’t understand the language in the video. Therefore, subtitles will only really deal with dialogue or spoken language, and will ignore music cues, sound effects and other sounds.

Subtitles, like captions, can also be open or closed. Foreign subtitles are normally closed, allowing the viewer to choose from one or more language options that they can see translations for the dialogue that’s being spoken. For this reason, subtitles can be a great way to watch something and make it easier to understand in your native language, or they could be used as a helpful learning tool for those that are trying to immerse themselves into a new language.

Closed Subtitles Open Subtitles

Subtitles can also be used in a non-optional, burnt-in ‘open’ sense if there’s a section of the video that features someone speaking another language, or if there’s muffled audio quality or otherwise difficult to understand dialogue. This can often be seen in documentaries or reality series where unscripted dialogue is being recorded constantly and in the event of dialogue becoming harder to hear, you can’t really get another take to capture the audio clearer. Thus, you’re stuck with potentially difficult to understand audio, but you can use subtitles to bridge that gap and bring understanding to the viewer.

What the Future Holds

Captions are seen as highly necessary in order to make movies and television enjoyable by the masses, but they’re also vital for social media content. Nearly everyone is scrolling through pages and pages of content online everyday. Either through privacy or common courtesy, it’s common for these content consumers to keep their volume low or off completely while scrolling in a public place.

But with no audio, how will the viewer understand the message that a video is trying to convey? One solution is to use captions, that way even when playback is muted it’s still easy to understand. Many online platforms have adapted to this by implementing automatically generated captions for uploaded videos. These captions are usually created by AI programs that will try to guess precisely what is being heard and will try to automatically match it with viewable text.

YouTube and Facebook are some of the common platforms where any given video will have an option to use these automatically generated captions. The same automated process can also be applied to foreign subtitles that are translated from these auto-generated captions. Although this technology exists and it’s evolving to become more accurate every year, it’s still rare that it works flawlessly. You can often tell the difference between automatically generated captions and manually transcribed captions based on how a program will at times confuse words that sound alike but mean two different things (also called homophones).

This is why the safest bet for accurate captions is to manually create and insert them, or at least double checking these auto-generated captions to make sure that everything looks and reads as good as it sounds.

Captions and subtitles are one of the often overlooked, yet crucial elements to a finished piece - and depending on your audience they might be more vital than you think. Although both are very similar, it’s important to recognize the advantages and disadvantages of each so that you can know which is the better option for any given situation.

2021 Oscars Recap, Winners and Losers

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 13:22:55 Z

The 93rd Academy Awards (Oscars) took place last night, and if you watched, you know that it wasn’t quite the same as other years, likely not coming as a surprise after a year like 2020. Let’s take a look back at what made this year’s ceremony especially unique, and most importantly, who were the night’s biggest winners and losers.

Unique Happenings at this Year's Show

You might’ve noticed that this year’s Oscars had a distinctly different style than previous years. Most of the ceremony took place in the historic Los Angeles Union Station, rather than its usual venue of the Dolby Theatre. Everything from the venue layout, color schemes, graphic styles, nominee listings, even cinematography, was vastly different from typical years. Some of these choices may be a bit off-putting to traditional fans of the awards, but to many (including myself), all of these differences brought a nice, fresh flavor to what normally feels like a predictable awards ceremony.

One of my favorite aspects of the night was the unique, personal way that nominees were listed by presenters. Instead of a normal “clip-show” style where every nominee would have a small video clip play as they were announced, this year presenters would instead give small anecdotes or descriptions specifically about the nominee. This made each nominee feel just as important as the other, elevating the importance of not just the winner of said award, but how each nominee had achieved something special just to be nominated.

Biggest Winners at the 2021 Oscars

The biggest award of the night went to “Nomadland,” winning best picture after the film’s director Chloé Zhao also won for best director. Not long after, Frances McDormand took home the award for best actress, giving “Nomadland” a clean sweep of some of the night’s biggest categories. In an impressive feat, this was McDormand’s third Academy Award win for best actress, winning in both 1997 and 2019 previously. Also impressive, Zhao is the first woman of color and the first woman of Asian descent to win Best Director. And she is only the second woman to win in the history of the Academy Awards.

Other groundbreaking wins included Yuh-jung Youn from the film “Minari,” who became the first Korean actress to win for best supporting role. And Anthony Hopkins – who is now the oldest Oscar winner ever after winning best actor for his role in “The Father.” Though Hopkins is considered a Hollywood legend, his win came as a bit of an upset to those who were expecting the award to go to the late Chadwick Boseman. Hopkins wasn’t present to give an acceptance speech, but if he were, I doubt he would’ve given a better speech than Yuh-jung Youn, whose entertaining speech included asking award presenter Brad Pitt, “Where were you while we were filming?”

Other notable winners include “Sound of Metal” which took home awards for film editing and achievement in sound, “Mank” which won for cinematography and production design, “Soul” which won best animated feature and best score, and “Judas and the Black Messiah” winning best song for H.E.R.’s “Fight For You” and best supporting actor for Daniel Kaluuya’s portrayal of Fred Hampton. Of course, there were many other winners throughout the night, but no one deserves an award greater than Glenn Close for her rousing rendition of “Da Butt” that took place during a segment of Academy Awards music trivia that was hosted by Lil Rey Howery and ceremony music master, Questlove. If you didn’t see this moment during the show or randomly on your social media feeds, I highly encourage you to look it up.

Biggest Losers

Potentially the biggest area of scrutiny from the whole show has come from many viewers who felt that the “In Memoriam” portion of the night was rushed, or even abbreviated, with some notable actors who passed this year not even being mentioned. Naya Rivera, Jessica Walter and Adam Schlesinger were some of the names mentioned on social media by upset viewers. Even some of those who were honored during the segment would only be on-screen for close to 1 second or less before moving on to the next, barely leaving enough time to read their full name and occupation.

Why they chose to have such a rushed in-memoriam segment in a year where so many lives were lost is certainly head scratching, but so was the choice to make the show end on the award for best actor instead of best picture. Many people online are guessing that the show’s producers were planning on a Chadwick Boseman win. Then the show would end in a way that would honor the late actor, winning for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Instead, Anthony Hopkins won. Since he wasn’t present to accept the award and give a speech, it all just sort of… ended. Certainly there should have been some kind of backup plan in place in the event of Boseman not winning the award. This was potentially another problem that could have been avoided all together by doing a slower-paced and more involved in-memoriam segment.

These moments and certainly many others that ranged from inspiring and touching to sobering and thought-provoking, made for a truly unique night that was unlike most other ceremonies of its kind. And love it or hate it, you at least have to admire the risks that were taken to make this year’s show stick out from the usual cliched glitz and glam of Hollywood.

How Color Affects the Way We Watch Video

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 10:20:20 Z

Have you ever wondered when color first started being used in movies? We’re all familiar with the black and white look of old films, but when was the first jump into color? Motion pictures have existed since the late 1800s, but color in film didn’t arrive until 1918 with the premiere of Cupid Angling, believed to be the first film fully shot in color. Since then, color has become its own art form and a tool used by creatives to further transform what’s possible through storytelling.

Working with color can be mostly narrowed into two categories: color correction and color grading. Color correction involves taking steps to make the color in a particular shot look neutral. In other words, the goal is to achieve a look as close to real life as possible. Color grading, done after color correction, involves stylistically changing the elements of color to evoke a certain feeling for the viewer to take in. When done well, the viewer won’t even be aware of these visual elements changing the way they’re feeling, which is what makes it so much fun to dissect!

Color Temperature

One of the most impactful ways to establish a mood with color is through color temperature. Like I said before, when color correcting you want to make the color look neutral. In practice, this neutral look is achieved when whites, grays, blacks and other “neutral colors'' distinctly look how they do in real life. Other colors that we see in everyday life, like skin-tone, grass and sky are colors that our eyes recognize, therefore they need to be within a certain color range in order to look natural. When color grading, you can change the emotions established in a shot by making it warmer, evoking warmth, sun and comfort, or cooler, evoking cold, night and discomfort/melancholy. While these are the two main directions to go, you can take it even further with adjustments to tint. By mixing color and tint you can achieve any color for the desired look you’re going for.

Warm Color Temperature - Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Cool Color Temperature - The Revenant

Exposure

Along with changing the temperature, you can adjust the overall brightness or darkness of a shot with an adjustment to the exposure. Like color temperature, the exposure of a shot is something that needs to be brought to a neutral point in order for it to look natural to the viewer. Our eyes are used to seeing things at certain levels of light depending on the environment. When adjusting exposure, you want the brightest things in a scene getting just barely blown out, with the darkest parts of the screen looking like normal shadows, or even pitch black depending on the environmental conditions. That being said, if you’re going for a specific “other worldly” look you can make the footage look as over or under-exposed as you’d like when grading. Over-exposing can make the viewer feel hot and even a bit claustrophobic, while under-exposing can evoke a sense of mystery and fear.

Over-Exposed - Midsommar

Under-Exposed - Hereditary

Contrast (Highlights/Shadows)

Contrast is the ratio of brightness of the highlights to darkness of the shadows. Thereby, the higher the contrast, the larger the ratio, the larger the difference between the brightest and darkest parts of the shot. Oftentimes, a neutral correction for contrast means that highlights and shadows look realistic for the setting and lighting. A low-contrast stylistic look can make a shot look more subdued, dreamlike or more like what you would expect from something shot on film, making it a popular direction for many indie filmmakers. A high-contrast style will look very intense visually, which is why it’s often a popular look for action films and sports intro videos.

High-Contrast - Joker

Low-Contrast - Her

Color Intensity (Saturation & Vibrance)

Speaking of intensity, saturation and vibrance are two elements that can control the intensity of color. I like to think of saturation as the “exposure” of color and vibrance as the “contrast.” What I mean by that is: when adjusting saturation you’re increasing the intensity of every color evenly, but when you’re adjusting vibrance you’re either increasing or decreasing the ratio of saturated colors to desaturated colors. Most cameras either need a slight saturation push or pull when correcting to a neutral state. Color grading saturation and vibrance is where it gets really fun. Since you can select specific colors to increase intensity on, you can really make footage go beyond reality and create some incredibly astonishing looks. It’s not all about increasing color intensity though. If you’re going for a more subdued, somber look then you’ll likely want a subtly desaturated shot. If you go even farther with desaturation you can achieve a vintage sepia look, or full-on black and white if that’s what you’re going for.

High Color Intensity - Mad Max: Fury Road

Low Color Intensity - Lost in Translation

These elements are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what you can do with color. The most important thing to remember when working with color is that while there is a science to it, it’s a mostly subjective process. I like to use an analogy of a cake when thinking of color with video. Color is like the icing that adds a little something more to the cake underneath, but that cake, or video content in this analogy, needs to be the majority of the substance. A good cake can be decent even with some not-so-great icing, but great icing on a terrible cake won’t be willfully consumed by anyone. If you’re interested to learn more about color, see more examples of these elements or want to see our typical color correcting and grading processes, check out this episode of PEG Reel Talk with our very own color expert, Josh Kuss.

Mixing Genres: Why It Works

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 09:29:33 Z

Action comedy, dark fantasy and spaghetti western. Besides being possible descriptions for 2020 - these terms are all subgenres of the larger, more traditional genres before them. The birth of a subgenre normally comes when content borrows elements from multiple genres in order to create something that feels new. These genre-mixing pieces can exist in any medium - ultimately with one goal in mind: to give the intended audience a more unique and enjoyable experience than they’ve had before.

Why It Works

That unique experience is precisely why so many pieces of content in today’s world don’t fit into a traditional genre category. With the internet and the constant barrage of content that every consumer is filtering through, content producers are always chasing ways to make their creations stick out from the crowd. You can see this with music, film and television awards expanding categories to account for content that is too nuanced to be pigeonholed into an outdated simple label. Last year’s Academy Award winner for best picture, Parasite, became wildly popular for its ability to subvert the viewer’s diagnosis of whether it’s a lighthearted comedy or a coldhearted thriller. The same could be said for Lil Nas X’s chart-topping track, Old Town Road. Is it pop? Hip hop? Country? This kind of subversion and genre fluidity is addicting to audiences that are eager to feel a unique experience in a world where most of what they see is predictable, flavorless and expected.

Mixing Genres in Advertising

A unique experience for the content consumer isn’t just effective in film and music. Mixing genres can be applied to advertising as well. It makes pieces more entertaining, sharable and most importantly, memorable for the viewer. I’m going to break down a few examples of advertisements that you might be familiar with that harness the use of mixing genres to create something truly unique.

This ad from Geico is a great example of the action comedy genre. Right away it doesn’t feel like a typical ad. To the unsuspecting viewer, they would probably think that it’s a scene from a movie or tv show. They don't realize they were watching until the punchline (call from mother in the middle of the action sequence) hits.

In the same vein as the Geico commercial, this ad feels like a trailer for an upcoming big budget sci-fi movie before it’s made clear that it’s an ad for a Taco Bell item.

This ad that showcases the capabilities of the new iPhone camera tackled a myriad of genres throughout. Through the vision of filmmaker Damien Chazelle, this ad also shows the evolution of some genres, going from silent films to westerns to vintage science fiction.

Style Subgenres

This mixing and merging of genres works when discussing styles as well. When you think of specific types of video ads you might also think of styles. Traditionally, video ads can include live-action, animation, motion graphics, 3D elements and more. These styles can work very well on their own, but can make a project even more dynamic when combined. Use animation to enhance traditional video. Use 3D to add dimension to traditional animation. Mix and match and see what happens. The possibilities are endless.

We’ve recently worked with the City of Akron to make a video for the city’s new rewards app, Akronite. This project utilizes live-action footage mixed with 2D animation and motion graphics to keep the viewer interested. It stands out from a typical explainer video. In the age of social media, utilizing genre fluidity and merging styles has never been more valuable. Creating a new and interesting experience for the viewer is crucial. And can make for some pretty fun days in the production studio. Have some crazy genre-bending ideas for your next project? At PEG, we’re always looking for ways to create unique and interesting videos that stick out from the crowd and help you attract the audience that you’re aiming for. Let's talk.

What to Watch Next: 2020 Documentaries

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 14:51:22 Z

We’ve already talked about the different styles of documentaries in a previous blogpost, but since then, a ton of new docs have been streamed for countless hours in this year that never seems to end. Let’s go through some of the most popular documentaries of the year so far to see what styles they fit into. This process of categorizing documentaries is kind of subjective. In other words, a documentary might fit into many different styles. One person could say that a documentary fits X style for X reason, and another person could perceive it as more Y style for Y reason. With that said, here are some of my favorite documentaries that I’ve seen so far and what style I believe they fall into best.

Tiger King

Perhaps one of the most ‘viral’ documentary hits of the year was Tiger King. It captivated audiences at a time when many were first forced inside due to stay-at-home orders. In some ways this documentary reflects the observational documentary style, in that on the surface it’s trying to show both sides of a feud between big cat owners Carole Baskin and ‘Tiger King’ Joe Exotic. Some time after it debuted and the huge cultural following it developed, it started to become clearer that the documentary was a bit sensational and far from objective in its portrayal of Baskin’s involvement in the disappearance of her late husband (sorry, no spoilers). The more accurate style of this documentary is likely closer to participatory, due to the involvement of the director as an interviewer and integral part of the story. Some could even argue that Tiger King is an expository documentary, due to it clearly trying to persuade and inform viewers of the dangers of raising and exploiting exotic cats in captivity. I can sort of see that, but to me there are some other documentaries from this year that are much better examples.

The Social Dilemma

A clearer example of an expository style is seen in The Social Dilemma - a documentary that’s trying to inform and convince you of the dangers of social media. This documentary doesn’t hold any punches between its interviews with previous high-ranking employees of the biggest social media and tech companies, and its hypothetical reenactments showing the effects of social media on a typical American family. The latter aspect, while shown more creatively than the usual b-roll found in a documentary, also clearly shows that this piece is trying to persuade the audience that social media is one of the most addictive and manipulative platforms ever created. For that reason, while I found this documentary to be informative, I more-so saw it as a dramatic romanticization of the evil impact of social media.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

The best example of the expository style that I’ve seen so far is the HBO documentary series I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. This series details each attack made by the Golden State Killer, also known as the East Area Rapist. Not only does it inform the viewer of these disturbing attacks over a span of decades, it also details how the EAR’s identity was discovered after a painstaking search process mostly done by the late author Michelle McNamara. This documentary has a compelling mix of informative interviews from victims and the dedication of McNamara to carefully piece together every tidbit of information that she could find. It’s storytelling is so in-depth and detailed that it feels like you’re solving the case with McNamara instead of watching her.

Love on the Spectrum

Love on the Spectrum is another docu-series, this time from Netflix. It focused on the journey to find a compatible partner from the perspective of a group of adults who have autism. You could find the usual elements of a standard documentary in this, like on-screen interviews with the director before and after each date. However, what really separates this series the most for me is its ability to just show the situations as they’re happening, no matter how awkward, with no obvious interference or attempts to persuade the viewer from the director. This is why I would classify this documentary under the poetic style. Although it’s not some abstract work like a lot of poetic documentaries are, it’s a piece that puts something on screen and leaves it up to you to decide what you take away from it. This might be a loose interpretation of what a poetic documentary is, but I feel it fits nonetheless.

The Speed Cubers

The Netflix documentary The Speed Cubers is another example of a documentary that I would fit into this interpretation of the poetic style. It gives a look into the world of competitive speed cubing, where competitors race against the clock and each other to solve varying sizes of Rubick’s cubes in the fastest amount of time. But this documentary focuses more closely on two of the sport’s fastest competitors. Max, a young up-and-comer who also has autism is quickly rising through the ranks, as he approaches and breaks records of past champion and his own idol, Feliks. The documentary is filled with high-stakes moments of the competitions, contrasting with the heartfelt role-model relationship between Feliks and Max. Again, this documentary isn’t trying to convince you of anything, it’s just there to tell a story and leave the interpretation up to you.

Becoming

A documentary that fits more into the observational style is Netflix’s Becoming. Becoming uses a series of interviews, past footage and more current footage of First Lady Michelle Obama to tell the story of her journey of becoming the first African American First Lady in U.S. history. The use of this archival footage intertwining with the present day of the documentary really makes the piece feel factual and objective, fitting it perfectly into the observational style. Though the past footage is used in more of an archival sense and wasn’t entirely filmed by the filmmakers, it still provides that level of wholeness to the piece that is hard to match.

The Last Dance

Speaking of using old archival footage to tell a new story, there’s no better example than The Last Dance, a docu-series about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls during their “last run” at a championship in 1997. Using never before-seen footage and obtaining interviews with the iconic players of that era, this docu-series feels like you’re stepping into the past to see in-the-moment, raw and unedited footage of players that the American public already thought they knew so well. A marquee aspect of the compelling storytelling is the constant then-and-now timelines, even showing how retired players now react when shown past footage of themselves or others in their prime. The filmmakers also used this as a tool to get new perspectives on old events, adding dimension and gray areas to moments that were thought to be black and white basketball history. If that’s not true objectivity, I’m not sure what is.

American Murder: The Family Next Door

Although not as archival, the documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door on Netflix uses footage to make one of the most unique pieces of the year. By only using police body-cam footage, news footage, social media posts and even a neighbor’s security camera, the story of the murder of an American wife and mother and her children is both raw and captivating. Due to the lack of voiceover or interviews specifically for the documentary, it feels like you’re watching a movie unfold, when really it’s entirely nonfiction. In showing the footage, text messages and sound bytes in the order that they happened in real time, it’s about as objective and raw as it gets. As I’ve said, some of these documentaries were really difficult to nail down to just one style. As more documentaries come out, they look to constantly push the envelope of style classification. I’m not complaining though - with the amount of documentaries that come out every month, it’s nice to still be surprised and entertained when you’re watching something unlike anything you’ve ever seen. If you haven’t seen some of these documentaries above hopefully this will encourage you to watch them and try to figure out their style on your own. But remember, these are just a few of the many documentaries to come to streaming so far this year. Who knows what other stories will be told and styles will be bent before this year’s end.

2020 Watch Habits: Winners, Losers and What's Next

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 13:29:50 Z

2020. A year where nearly every aspect of our everyday lives has changed. The emergence of COVID-19 has left no industry untouched. Seemingly overnight, professional sports were postponed, theaters and venues were closed indefinitely, and restaurants and bars switched to carryout only. Schools scrambled to switch to online learning, and many businesses moved to working remotely from home.

Undoubtedly, the media landscape would be rocked by all of these changes, the effects of social distancing and state-issued stay-at-home orders. The Washington Post reports that during the seven-day period of March 31 to April 7, Americans spent 93% of their time at home. This was the peak percentage of time spent at home so far in 2020, but numbers had averaged around 70-80% throughout all of March and April.

When people, especially Americans, are stuck at home with few options for outside entertainment, it seems only natural that binge-watching hours of content while sitting on the couch and stress-snacking would soon become everyone's most popular pastime.

Pre-Pandemic Patterns

Online video streaming services were already continuing their rise in popularity even before COVID-19 began affecting most countries. Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+, launched in November of 2019. By February, it had gained 28.6 million subscribers. With an explosion of numbers like that, it’s easy to see how the online video streaming market had plenty of demand - all before everyone was stuck inside due to a pandemic. This left me wondering - how have these numbers stacked up after the world as we know it is forced into dealing with all of these changes? What I ended up finding after doing some research is that certain industries fared better than others. In other words, some found themselves as clear winners - and others found themselves as the losers - at least for the time being.

Losers

First, let's start with what we’ll call the “losers” of this situation. These are basically the media sectors that seemed to have suffered the most from the COVID crisis. Theaters, as you can imagine, fall into this category. Theaters are often where movies debut, generating box office revenue for many in the video production industry. The LA Times reports that Wedbush Securities is forecasting a 61% drop in the North American box office for all of 2020 ($4.4 billion vs $11.4 billion last year).

Theaters weren’t the only ones to feel negative effects, either. TV networks that are normally dependent on live sports or other live events had to improvise to keep viewers interested. TNT, in particular, known for hosting games throughout the basketball playoffs, ended up losing 63% of its primetime audience due to games being postponed. Other factors have contributed to a decline in traditional TV numbers, like an increase in unemployment, resulting in less money to afford an expensive cable bill. This has led to around 1.8 million Americans cutting the cord in the first quarter of 2020.

Winners

Certainly there are many contributing factors in Americans making the decision to discontinue traditional cable or satellite: the availability, popularity and often lower price points of online video streaming services. As you might have guessed, there were few winners bigger than the video streaming market so far in 2020. According to MarketWatch, Netflix gained a record 15.77 million subscribers throughout the world in the first quarter alone, with their total subscriber count nearing 193 million globally. They weren’t alone, as Deadline reports that the aforementioned Disney+ ended up reaching 60.5 million subscribers by early August, surpassing its goal of 60 million that it had expected to reach by 2024. To put it in other words - Disney+ reached its five-year goal in less than nine months.

Other streaming services have successfully launched during the pandemic, with HBO Max and Peacock both sustaining over 4.1 million and 10 million subscriptions, respectively. Even some traditional media outlets on network television saw increases in certain instances. 24-hour news channels like Fox News, MSNBC and CNN have gained up to 129% viewers year-to-date, according to Forbes. It logically makes sense for networks that promise up-to-the-minute information to gain popularity during a pandemic.

Looking to the Future

The big question is how long will this kind of huge growth last? That’s still very unclear. Some productions have now resumed and theaters are beginning to reopen, but society at large is still in an in-between state without a clear timeline of when things will return to “normal.” That’s also considering that there is a “normal” to return to. With results like these from only about 6 months of social distancing, it’s hard to imagine that it won’t have long-lasting effects on the media landscape as a whole.

Some production companies have even decided to cut their losses and release digital versions that "open" at the same time their films are debuting in theaters - or forgo a theater release altogether and go with only digital. The jury is still out as to whether these methods will be seen as more profitable, even after the world isn’t dealing with a surging virus. Disney CEO Bob Chapek explained that a digital version of Mulan will be going to their streaming service for a one-time fee of $29, but even he admits that they are using it as a “learning” experience. It seems that, for now, all anyone can do is look at what patterns and habits we’ve seen so far and try to hypothesize from there. After all, if there’s anything that we’ve learned throughout 2020, it’s that you can plan all you want, but in the end, there’s no way to know exactly what the future holds.

User-Generated Content: UGC in a 2020 WFH World

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 14:04:03 Z

COVID 19. WFH. UGC.

All of these are abbreviations that you’ve seen and heard a lot about lately. And they’re pretty interconnected to each other in many ways - including in video production. The actions taken by many states during the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic have caused many businesses to work from home. And although this is the case, these now remotely operating businesses are still looking for new ways to advertise and connect with their audience through video.

What is UGC?

User Generated Content, or UGC for short, is actually pretty self explanatory. It’s a piece or multiple pieces of content created and submitted entirely by users of an online platform or wiki. For example, a brand’s twitter account could start a hashtag asking for their followers to submit videos or photos of their pets at home using the hashtag #PetsLife (creative, I know). All of these videos and photos that are posted can then be gathered by the brand and turned into another piece of content entirely. This end product could be a collage, photo slideshow or more commonly, a video.

Benefits of UGC

Due to the recent societal changes taken to combat the spread of COVID 19, UGC pieces are popping up all over social media and broadcast advertisements. Since many states are requiring businesses to work from home it severely limits the ability to film video on location. Also, most places aren’t sitting on a lot of relevant content to post during a pandemic. With this as the case, many marketers are looking to their own followers to make something out of nothing and send a message during this unprecedented time. An added benefit of the age that we live in is the fact that many people own a smartphone. Smartphone video has never looked better or been easier for the average person to pick up and record. This, combined with everyone being cooped up in their houses looking for new things to do have really primed the market for this otherwise uncommon style.

Challenges of UGC

Along with these advantages that make UGC such a great option for content during this time, there are some challenges as well. The first being - you have to hope for participation. By using a UGC route, you are relying on content to be submitted by users and you are hoping that content fits any narrative you were hoping to achieve. And once you get that content - the average person doesn’t have a barrage of production equipment to use when recording their content. There’s no true way to match the full potential of professional video equipment even with today’s newest smartphones, but there are a few steps that can be taken to maximize the quality of the video. (We actually have a guide where we outline these steps that can be downloaded here.) Taking these steps will result in better looking video and better sounding audio, even if it still doesn’t seem like something straight out of Hollywood. There are also the challenges of gathering and compiling all of these user submitted pieces of content. Cloud based storage systems like Dropbox or Google Drive can be great solutions to contain all of the submissions in one place, that way they can be downloaded by the editor at any time. Once all of the content is collected, it can be another challenge to form all of these separately recorded pieces into a single cohesive project. For example, if you follow our guide, you’ll see that the best orientation for smartphone video is horizontal. Even with this as the case, there may still be a few submissions that were filmed vertically. If you don’t want to rule those pieces out, you have to figure out a way to conform vertical to horizontal, horizontal to vertical or some other option that you’re conforming both to. This can make a UGC project suddenly become very tedious in the post production stages. This is why it’s best to plan out what you want this final product to look like before anything is submitted, that way you can instruct users as specifically as possible and hopefully save a lot of time when you’re putting everything together.

Examples of UGC

There is already a plethora of companies that have produced videos featuring user generated content during the COVID 19 pandemic. Facebook and Apple have both released videos with a dramatic tone, showing the humanity and raw emotion of photos and videos from everyday people. Mastercard had a similar approach, except their video was entirely comprised of user generated content, where Facebook and Apple had some shots that were clearly taken with more professional grade equipment. Jack Daniels also had a piece that included only user generated content, including the music track that is played underneath the entire time. A video from Buffalo Wild Wings takes a uniquely upbeat tone, focusing on user generated content of sports being played at home. All of these pieces do a great job of incorporating both vertical and horizontally shot video, by allowing crops to fall wherever they may or by using the same overly frame throughout.

Key Takeaways

All of the previous examples show the impact that user generated content can have. Even if the footage is a little shaky or the framing isn’t perfect, you’re still able to feel something from the piece, which is always the end goal of video. Don’t let the lower video quality fool you though, it takes a lot of thought and post-production work to end up with something composed of so many individual clips that still tells a story. The biggest key to a successful UGC video is authenticity. The reason UGC can be effective at all is that real-world feeling that it can provide the viewer. Viewers are more cynical and media savvy than ever, which means the content that is shown can’t feel tampered with. People are already wary of the marketing that brands do on social media, and a UGC video that feels fake will do a lot more damage than good. Another important thing to keep in mind is proper accreditation. Most social media users would not be pleased to see a personal photo or video that they posted themselves all of the sudden on the next commercial for brand x without ever being asked. It’s crucial to ask permission before integrating any content that wasn’t specifically submitted to you AND to explain if/how the original content creator will be credited in the final piece. During this time many are experiencing an increase in stress and anxiety, which can make online outrage for an inorganic UGC piece grow exponentially. On the flip side, UGC can be some of the most relatable and touching content to watch, making it not just efficient during a period of social distancing but effective. No one knows exactly how long these times will last, but it’s a safe assumption that UGC, when done correctly, will remain useful and compelling well into the future.

5 Ways to Break Through a Creative Block

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 10:41:58 Z

Imagine a high-octane, in-your-face sports hype video filled with motion graphics and moving at the pace of a booming music track. Now imagine a powerful, emotional video that pulls you in and personally invests you into what you’re seeing. What about an inspirational origin story that explains how an idea was brought to life by an ambitious entrepreneur. The end result for all of these might be captivating and full of excitement, but the process to get there can end up being more complicated than originally planned. Between organizing, sub-clipping, cutting and color correcting the footage of a project – you may feel like you’re up against a wall. A wall that creates such a block that it seems easier to go back down and give up than to push forward. What do you do when you arrive at such a point? Here are five ways I use for breaking through those creative blocks.

One: Go For A Walk

A quick walk is one of the easiest and most effective ways to reinvigorate your mind and body. Taking a walk outside can allow your mind to flow freely while giving it a literal breath of fresh air. Or if the weather outside isn’t the best (like the usually cold and gray months of winter here in Akron) then even a walk around your workspace can get the productive blood pumping. This is especially helpful when you’re color correcting footage. There have been many times when I’m tweaking color and can’t get it to look exactly how I desire. In those situations, the fresh perspective that I gain while away from the footage can provide me with a clearer thought process upon return.

Two: Visit Your Well of Inspiration

Everyone has a certain hobby or activity that can immediately get them to feel inspired. For some this might be visiting an art museum, reading a book or going to the theater. For others, it could be as simple as browsing the internet. When I find myself struggling to come up with something new, I like to look up music videos in particular. Music videos can be some of the most creative and stylistically unique pieces in all of the video field. They constantly help me come up with new ideas or techniques to try and achieve something that I’ve never done before.

Three: Switch Out The Music Track

Sometimes changing the music track can give you a brand new perspective on a project that feels like it’s going stale. When visuals are synced with a music track it can make it a much more engaging experience for the viewer. Likewise, if you find yourself getting bored by a particular track, odds are that the viewer will too. That’s why a new track can really open another door to an edit by giving you more beats and musical elements to edit to. You may even need to try out multiple music tracks until you arrive at one that truly inspires you. It can be a time intensive process to find this perfect track, but it saves you a lot of time and effort later during the editing process.

Four: Try Working on Another Project

If you don’t have a tight deadline, you could take some time away from the project that you’re stuck on and work on something else instead. Maybe you have another project that has a different feel to it and can provide you with a new way of thinking. Even when you’re doing something else entirely, your mind will keep thinking about your previous project so that the next time you revisit it you might have a new spark. Sometimes truly the best thing to do for an edit is to sleep on it (but again, only if you have the time to do so). A new day can bring a fresh perspective to both you and the project that you’re working on.

Five: Try Out Something Totally Different

When you’re really at the end of your rope and you’ve tried everything else, I recommend going with any creative ideas that come to mind. I know you’re probably saying, “But I don’t have any creative ideas for this project.” Even still, you can start plugging away with something that you might’ve been afraid to try. First and foremost though, make sure you save a new sequence so that you don’t end up doing anything that’s too irreversible. Don’t be overly critical on whether you think it will work or not - what’s most important is that you keep moving forward. When you reach the end result you might end up with some aspects that don’t work, but you could also end up with a look that you wouldn’t have tried otherwise. This kind of risk/reward outcome is why I would say to reserve this as a last resort, but know that it could still be effective.

Main Takeaways

Try to use each opportunity that you edit as a learning experience. Understand that not every project is going to be jam packed with excitement and that’s okay. Every field presents itself with tasks that are mundane and sometimes you have to trick yourself into making it more than what it is on the surface. I always try to think of it like this: being an editor comes with a lot of power. You’re deciding what’s shown and how it’s shown. The audience has no way of knowing what did or didn’t make the cut, so you have the ability to choose what you see as best for them. Of course, with this comes the responsibility of how to best serve the audience, but it’s still an opportunity nonetheless. Maybe the audience won’t agree with every edit that you have, but at the end of the day you were the one who had the privilege of editing it to your own taste. By continually looking at ways to pick up new editing skills, you’ll consciously and subconsciously make your videos more interesting. Really push your limits and challenge yourself to make something that you’re proud of and could never have made before. You have to think of editing like any skill, as a muscle that needs exercising regularly and challenged in order to grow stronger. Your newfound skill and ingenuity can make the difference between a bland, boring video that puts everyone to sleep or something that inspires others with something that they’ve never seen before.

What to Watch Next: A Look at Documentary Styles

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 14:13:44 Z

Wild animals in their natural habitat. Infamous serial killers. Music festival fraud. All of these topics have been covered by documentarians who want to tell real-life stories about the creepy, intriguing or otherwise interesting aspects of the world we live in. Now coupled with the ease of streaming, documentaries have been able to reach new heights. Thom Powers, host of the podcast Pure Nonfiction, told NPR that thanks to this growth in popularity, we’re in “an undeniable golden age for documentary filmmaking.”

That may be so, but the article also acknowledges that the new popularity and demand have exponentially increased the supply. This creates situations where topics will be covered by multiple documentarians at the same time, making it a race to see who finishes their documentary first (as was the case with the competing Fyre Festival documentaries that I alluded to earlier). With all of these documentaries to scroll through, it can be hard to decide which one you want to watch. Well, there are six main styles (sometimes referred to as subgenres or modes) and I’m going to use my knowledge to give you some binge-worthy examples to add to your queue.

Poetic

One of the simplest, yet lesser-known subgenres is the poetic style. These documentaries are typically abstract and take more of an art-oriented focus, focusing on a feeling more than a specific truth. The filmmaker will rarely incorporate anything other than footage, natural sound and maybe some music, leaving the meaning of the documentary to be interpreted by the viewer. This was certainly a style that I wasn’t really familiar with, but I was able to find a few examples that show the unique potential of the style. Life in a Day is a doc from National Geographic that’s a compilation of videos all submitted by the public and filmed on July 24, 2010. Producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin Macdonald then cut together the footage to provide a montage of humanity and show just how big the world is. Though cut down, they keep the footage in this raw form without providing a specific message or takeaway. Another great example of this style is the water focused documentary, Aquarela. This documentary captures water in its various form - be it ice, waterfalls or hurricanes - and showcases the raw power and beauty that it wields. While it’s as simple and abstract as it sounds, it’s still a moving piece that could have many interpretations by the viewer.

Expository

Next we move from what’s probably the least known style to one that’s the most known: expository. The goal of an expository documentary is to inform or persuade the viewer on something in particular. This is normally accomplished with the use of historical footage, photos, and interviews with relevant experts. Famed director Ken Burns has used this style to produce numerous documentaries on subjects ranging from the Civil War to the old West to his new series on PBS covering country music. A slow digital zoom or pan on an image is sometimes literally referred to as a Ken Burns effect due to how he popularized the style. A more unique example of this is the recent miniseries The Family on Netflix. This series is done in a similar style to a typical expository documentary, but with a tweak: rather than only relying on historical or archival footage for b-roll, they produced reenactments with actual actors (including actor James Cromwell).

Observational

Beginning around the 1960’s, the observational subgenre has a more objective style. The goal of this style is to capture history as it’s happening and is often referred to as cinema verité, which is French for ‘truthful cinema’. This style is often 'film now, worry later' approach to piecing everything together to tell the story. Conversely to the expository style, observational is aiming to show all sides of a topic while covering it to give it a true objectivity. The production seeks every angle and is usually done in a run-and-gun shooting style. Observational documentaries are often seen covering things like political campaigns - where the footage or the story is being captured before the outcome has been determined. The perfect example of this style is the Academy-Award-nominated Hoop Dreams. The film is a coming of age story that follows two young basketball players that have high hopes of making it to the NBA. The filmmakers followed the players through all four years of high school, never knowing whether they’d actually make it to the NBA in the end. A more recent example is the Netflix documentary American Factory. This documentary covers the challenges that occur when a Chinese business owner re-opens an auto glass factory in Dayton, Ohio. Again, this is a case where the documentarians knew that something worth showing would come out of it, but they had no way of knowing what that something would be. Typically, observational documentaries have the ability to focus more on the present (or present at the time of filming) because of their own run-and-gun footage, where expository documentaries tend to focus mostly on the past using archival or found media.

Participatory Documentaries

In contrast to expository and observational documentaries, participatory documentaries involve the director themselves. The director is often in an interviewer role, participating in the narrative by asking questions. This gives them more control on the story that they want to tell, but there’s still a level of unpredictability given that they’re not scripting the answers. A good recent example of this is the Netflix documentary Icarus. This documentary explores the subject of performance enhancing drugs in sports, with a focus on the doping scandal from the Russian Olympic team. Filmmaker Bryan Fogel’s inclusion during the interview provides context for each answer and makes it feel more journalistic versus cinematic. The question/answer format also promotes a sense of tension between interviewer and interviewee, especially because the subject at hand is so controversial.

Reflexive Documentaries

Reflexive documentaries take the filmmakers involvement to the next level. And focus on the filming process as well as the topic they’re trying to cover. This style was developed to promote a larger sense of objectivity as documentarians knew there was no way to objectively capture subjects as they truly were with a camera involved. Think of the last time you were somewhere that you knew you were being filmed by a surveillance camera. You become hyper aware that you’re being watched, so even if you aren’t trying to act differently, you’re still not truly being yourself. Reflexive documentaries acknowledge that this is the case, so rather than leaving the objectivity of their story up to question, they include the production itself as part of the story. This might sound extremely complicated, but it’s easy to observe in Hulu’s The Amazing Johnathan Documentary. Director Ben Berman essentially becomes the second main character, behind the subject, comedian-magician The Amazing Johnathan. The documentary as a whole is a great example of the reflexive style, but also portrays the current state of the genre due to the demand created by streaming. This piece explores the now competitive nature of documenting when a second documentary crew comes into the fold while Berman is still producing his. At different times this film is biographical for both subject and director, bringing a level of meta and creative storytelling that makes this one of my favorite documentaries in recent memory.

Performative Documentaries

Lastly, the performative style takes this filmmaker involvement to the farthest level possible. The subject, who’s often the director, gives their point of view for the entire film, preferring to see truth as relative and not truly objective. This style has been popularized by Michael Moore - in films like Bowling for Columbine - and others who want to guide the viewer to a specific, often social, message. A recent documentary that falls into this style though not in a typical way is Risk on Netflix. Director Laura Poitras spent over six years filming this piece that covers WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. She does a great job of telling his story while also providing her own point of view and fears when producing something for such a controversial figure. You could argue that this style is more reflexive than performative, but what tips the scales for me is how it feels like she’s guiding you through the story versus just showing the production. Many filmmakers are blending these styles together, using unique production techniques and creative editing to separate themselves amongst the sea of competition. The compact engineering and low price-points of many cameras have made it easier than ever for anyone to capture and create their own documentary. Even something like an iPhone could be used to tell a story if it’s interesting enough (although it might be harder to sell to Netflix or Hulu that way). Who knows whether the current documentary boom will hold up, but either way there’ll probably be a documentary on it that we can all stream on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon in the future.

Selecting the Right Music Track

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 09:38:00 Z

What’s the first sense that you associate with video? Most would likely say sight, especially in today’s world of scrolling through social media and being bombarded by a barrage of content. By definition video means the recording, reproducing, or broadcasting of moving visual images, so it makes sense to think of sight first. After all, you “watch” a video, you don’t touch, taste or smell one. (Unfortunately, Smell-ivision hasn’t been invented at the time of this blogpost.)

Listening to Video?

That leaves one sense left: listen. Sound is an often-overlooked aspect of video, but in many cases what you hear is just as important as what you see. Just imagine watching a horror movie that has no suspenseful music to build up tension. Or a sitcom without its iconic theme song. Or a chase scene without hearing some Yakety Sax. Okay, maybe the last one doesn’t apply as much, but my point is that the music and sound design choices are essential to establish any sense of engagement with an audience.

Choosing the Right Track

When choosing a music track you have to have the end product in mind. You need to choose an appropriate track that, perhaps most importantly, suits the mood that you want to establish. The beginning of your search is normally the most difficult, as there are so many options to choose from even if you know the direction you want to go. I’ll often start off by narrowing down what specific genre the music should be. Then I’ll try to narrow down a feeling, whether it’s uplifting, emotional, corporate, ambient, etc. I’ll continue to listen to samples until I begin to find tracks that I think would work. If I think I’m heading in the right direction, but haven’t found the perfect track yet, I’ll try to listen closely to determine what I like specifically, be it certain instruments, sounds or other production elements. An extremely important factor when deciding on a music track is what tempo you want to go with (if you’ve ever watched the movie Whiplash you’ll know what I mean). Music tracks will have a specific beat-per-minute number, or BPM for short, which can tell you how the pacing will feel. This is so crucial when choosing a track for a video because often times videos are edited to a beat. So if you want a fast-paced video with lots of cuts and motion graphics flying in and out, you’ll have to get a track to match. On the other hand, if you want a slower cutting, more emotional video maybe with some slow motion shots for extra dramatic effect, you’ll want a slower track.

Using a Scratch Track

Music is such an important part of a video that it’s good practice to use a demo of a music track, sometimes called a scratch track, before fully purchasing a license. This is a free download of the music track where you’ll hear a somewhat intrusive voice periodically saying an audible watermark over and over. Many who work in the industry are all too familiar with these watermarks, but they serve an important purpose. A song might sound perfect when you’re previewing it, but you might end up having a terrible time meshing when editing it with the footage. Many times I’ve been editing a project with one track in mind, just to go back to the drawing board after realizing it doesn’t quite sound right.

But Remember, It's All Subjective

As we all know, music is something that’s very easy to have an opinion on. Just like when filling up a playlist on Spotify or Apple Music, people are very particular when selecting music for a video. What sounds great to one person could be a total turn off to another. The key to this is to try to match the sound that you think your audience will like the best. A good rule of thumb that I always use is to find a track that no matter how many times you listen to it, you’ll never get sick of. This keeps you from getting burnt out while editing to the same song over and over and over again, and will keep you inspired. Despite your best efforts, sometimes you’ll have a track that you absolutely love and can’t imagine replacing only for someone who needs to approve the video to ask to have it replaced. This can be frustrating, particularly because a whole video’s edit might revolve around the track. Still, I’ll always at least try replacing the track just to see how it sounds. You never know, sometimes the alternate track that’s suggested ends up working better than the originally intended track. Once everyone who needs to approve a video likes the track in place, that’s when you purchase the licensed version and do a quick swap to finalize that piece of the project. You (and whomever is paying for the track) will be all the more relieved when there’s only one expense rather than multiple costs for music tracks that didn’t make the cut. At the end of the day, when choosing music the most important thing is that the final product is a video that you and your collaborators can be proud of. Sometimes you’ll still miss the first track that you chose, but at the end of the day music is very subjective, and as long as it sounds right, you should consider it a win. (As long as that new track isn’t Yakety Sax.)

Getting to Know: James Miller

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 09:41:24 Z

Hey everyone! In this episode of Getting to Know, I'll tell you all about why I have a collection of socks, what I like to grill and what I enjoy most about putting content into the world.

What I've Learned So Far... James Miller

Mon, 08 Jul 2019 14:30:39 Z

It’s difficult for me to put everything that I’ve learned during my first six months here at Pritt Entertainment Group into words. I was fortunate to begin my time with the PEG team right at the start of 2019, so at least from a calendar standpoint it’s very easy to track how long I’ve been here. From a non-calendar, memory-based standpoint, it’s hard for it not to feel like longer.

Now, I know this might sound like a bad thing, but really it’s because I’ve grown so much in my short time here that it’s hard for me to believe that it hasn’t been a longer amount of time. I look back on every project that I’ve worked on while here and I can think of so many things that I’ve learned in each one. Upon each project’s completion I could look back and feel how I had improved – be it in filming techniques, editing procedures – really any area of the production process.

With each of these leaps in knowledge also came the realization that there’s even more out there to learn and experiment with. This doesn’t discourage me though, because I look forward to learning new techniques and incorporating new ideas into each new, upcoming project. One of the aspects that I love most about working at PEG is being able to work on such a wide variety of projects for numerous clients.

In my six months alone, I’ve been able to work with professional sports teams, innovative businesses that design and sell unique products, as well as non-profits that are working to improve their communities and the people in them. Having such a diverse workload means that I’ve been able to vastly sharpen my skills while creating pieces that I’m truly proud of. It’s not just our clients that’ve been a catalyst for my growth over these last six months either. Being surrounded by coworkers that are passionate about what they do everyday and really apply that passion into their work is continually inspiring. I know that if I need help on a shoot, an opinion on an edit or have a question on anything in the industry, I can count on them to work with me to get the best result.

These people aren’t just work acquaintances, but I consider them my friends. Whether it’s attending a local event, playing volleyball or grabbing some post-shoot Swensons, I always love hanging out with our team. Reflecting on everything that I’ve learned in the first half of the year makes me excited to see how much I’ll grow in the second half and beyond. I feel incredibly lucky to work somewhere where I can’t predict exactly what the day will bring. Again, this is something that might sound bad, but believe me when I say that I love it.

Learning DaVinci: Pros and Cons

Thu, 23 May 2019 14:04:26 Z

The Pros and Cons of DaVinci Resolve

In today’s world, every stage of the video production process is crowded with a plethora of tools to choose from. What kind of camera should you use? How should you record audio? How should the scene be lit? And those are only some of the choices that must be made in pre-production. After recording, then all post-production decisions must be made. How should this piece start out? What should the audience be hearing while they’re watching this? How should the color of this piece look?

Perhaps the biggest post-production decision of all is what kind of editing program should be used? Normally, this isn’t one of the burning questions asked after every shoot because editors tend to stick to their favorite non-linear editing program every time. There are also quite a few options when it comes to Non-Linear Editing (NLEs). Some prefer Final Cut, some prefer AVID and others like myself prefer Adobe Premiere Pro.

Lately, though, there’s been a lot of buzz about a program that’s been climbing the ranks of NLEs. DaVinci Resolve has primarily been known throughout the industry as the preferred program for colorists, due to its superior capabilities of correcting and grading color. Having never really used the program before, we decided to see what the buzz was about and give it a try on a recap video that covered the 2019 NFL Draft event in Lock 3 this past April.

The following is my experience using DaVinci Resolve 16 through every phase of this project and what I’ve learned along the way. In no way is this a comprehensive summary of everything the program can do, but I hope it will inform you on what some of the positives and negatives were for me while using the program. I tried to be as objective as possible and keep an open mind throughout, so that I wouldn’t blame DaVinci for not being something that I’m already familiar with. I’ve also assigned ratings to each category based on how I think it stacks up to other NLEs out there, but also how it would compare to what I would consider the “perfect” editing program.

General Layout: 8/10

Pros: My first impression of the layout for the entire program was that it was a similar set up to what Premiere Pro does with workspaces. I soon realized that this was not the case, as unlike Premiere, DaVinci allows only certain windows and specific tools to be usable only when in certain tabs of the program. Some might consider this inferior to Premiere’s ability to display any window no matter the workspace, but to me it’s a nice feature that keeps you organized and moving through each step pretty seamlessly. Cons: Not much to dislike about their clean and modern looking layout. I’d describe it as a nice mix between the simple Final Cut effects parameter adjusting with a Premiere style timeline. The lack of an ability to swap window positions is something that could be implemented to make the program a bit more customizable when working in dual screen mode.

Compiling Footage: 7.5/10

Pros: DaVinci’s bin structure is almost the exact same as Premiere’s with a few exceptions. In both you can create bins to sort your footage, but DaVinci offers up what it refers to as smart bins. These bins will automatically store items based on information that is plugged in to metadata. In other words, all you have to do is keyword the footage clips based on what they contain and they’ll be placed into a corresponding bin automatically. This would be especially helpful if you had a lot of footage to go through in a short period of time and didn’t want to go through the process of sub-clipping or renaming. Also, DaVinci features a “facial recognition” feature that, while I’ve yet to try to its full capacity, proved to be pretty amazing in the NFL Draft project. This feature will comb through all of the footage and try to identify and sort based on what it defines as the same face. This would be a huge time saver if you had multiple camera angles for interviews or multiple b-roll clips featuring the same people. The program does get pretty confused when there are multiple faces shown though. Cons: I mentioned sub-clipping in the pro section above, but overall I was a bit disappointed with how sub-clipping works in DaVinci. Creating a sub-clip is simple enough and functions as it should, but once you place a sub-clip in a timeline and try to extend beyond those in and out points, you’ll realize that you can’t do it very easily. Instead of being able to roll edit to access more of the clip, the only way to extend is by adjusting numeric values of the clips duration. This would work if you knew that you wanted exactly three more seconds on the tail end of a clip, but in a situation where you’d like to preview the clip during the extension to see where a good visual ending would be, you’re going to struggle.

Editing: 7/10

Pros: The editing workflow is another aspect that seemed very similar to Premiere, but again offered some features with added benefits. The overwrite, replace and insert abilities that are built into the program’s panel provide for quickly placing footage exactly where it’s needed no matter the stage in the assembly process. Also, once you know what action to use and familiarize yourself with the shortcuts you can work super efficiently. Cons: The timeline and program panels look simple, but when just starting out in the program they aren’t as intuitive as you might think. It took me a while of trial and error while also working through tutorials to fully understand the difference between the regular trim tool and the dynamic trim tool.

Color Correcting: 10/10

Pros: As I mentioned earlier, DaVinci originally gained its popularity from how great it was at editing the color of footage. Therefore, it may not come as a surprise when I say that this is my favorite part of the program. Having mostly edited color for video using the Lumetri Color effects in Premiere and After Effects, it took me a while to get used to editing with their node system. Once I got used to it though it made the whole process of color correcting and grading easier, and actually pretty fun to work with. My absolute favorite aspects are the Hue vs. Hue, Hue vs. Sat and Lum vs. Sat curves. With these tools I could pluck whatever specific color that was in my footage and immediately adjust whatever I wanted to that color only. When I wanted to narrow my adjustments down even more I would incorporate the program’s HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance) system or masking and tracking. I was blown away by the precision and immediate responsiveness of both of these systems and would say that they’re miles ahead of what Premiere has to offer. Cons: The one thing that I would knock the color editing for is that all of the masking seems to take place either in the color panel or in the motion graphic tab. I really wish that it was also the editing panel, as there are times when it’s most helpful to mask out a clip while you’re also viewing the clip directly underneath it.

Motion Graphics: 2/10

Cons: Just as color was my absolute favorite part of DaVinci, the motion graphics portion of the program, named Fusion, is my least favorite. I’m going to start with the cons on this one for that reason. My biggest complaint is that the node system that works so well for color seems to be both extremely confusing and tedious in Fusion. I understand that there’s a learning curve, but to me there’s no way to even grasp the basics of Fusion without a few hours of tutorials. And even then, once I sort of knew what I was doing I felt that everything could have been accomplished easier and faster in Adobe After Effects. Pros: Maybe Fusion would be better at specific effects with their particle and 3D environmental effects, but it still would feel like a very labor intensive task.

Audio Editing: 8.5/10

Pros: A built-in audio editing program called Fairlight means this program can edit audio tracks and add effects without having to leave the editing program. This saves time and organization especially compared to using Premiere and Audition, then round-tripping back to premiere. I wasn’t able to extensively try out each effect, but the interface in this program is pretty easy to navigate. You can actually view a window of the video so that you can edit what you hear while you’re viewing what you’ll see. Cons: The audio editing is near perfect with one exception: when key framing audio, it’s close to impossible to precisely move keyframes up and down to exactly where you want them. I’m not sure why this is, but I would really struggle to precisely place where I’d like a keyframe and would often end up overshooting it.

Exporting: 9.5/10

Pros: The delivery workspace is one of the simplest elements of the program, but still mind-blowingly effective. I never had an export that took longer than five minutes, which is astounding when compared to exporting in any Adobe program. Any editor will tell you that a faster export time can make all the difference because it means that you can review your projects immediately then jump on making corrections if they’re needed. Cons: I kept getting frustrated when I would begin a new export after corrections because your in and out points don’t carry over from the main edit workspace. Each time I would choose the settings for the output file and hit render, then realize that my in and out points had been set to include every clip in the timeline. This might be fine for some editors, but was really throwing a wrench into my process where I like to place extra b-roll options well after the final clip in my project. I then would have to cancel the render, adjust the in and out points then render again. Overall, it wasn’t all that time consuming and perhaps there was a project setting that I should have changed. Regardless, I found it to be an annoyance, but still worth the speed that came when exporting.

DaVinci Resolve X-factor

A feature that I wasn’t able to explicitly categorize, is DaVinci Resolve’s collaboration. We were able to test out collaboration in this project with our production specialist, Josh Kuss, jumping in to help with some color correcting while I was editing. The process worked just as you would hope with a few exceptions of what I would consider to be bugs caused by Resolve 16 still being in beta. The collaboration ability alone would pay for itself if you were a production team that has to turn projects around in a matter of days. You could potentially put one person on footage organization, one on editing, one on color and one on audio. You could also have one person working on motion graphics in Fusion or another program of their choosing then importing those files. With all of those tasks being done at once, production time could be cut down significantly.

Conclusion

All in all, I’d say I was very pleased with how DaVinci works. Clearly their team is focused on making a program that’s easy to look at, easy to work with (except for motion graphics) and fast. Their collaboration is maybe one of the biggest game changers with just how efficient it could make a team. I know the tracking, masking and color correcting will make it hard to go back to other programs that just aren’t as fast and responsive.

That being said, I do hesitate to make this my go-to editing program. Perhaps part of the reason is that I’m so used to using Premiere, but I do feel like it’s a lot faster and easier to be precise when putting together a timeline. I would use DaVinci over Premiere only in a project where collaboration and color correcting are crucial and motion graphics are not needed. In an ideal world, a program would exist with DaVinci’s collaboration and smart bins, Premiere’s timeline editing, After Effects’ motion graphics, either Audition or Fairlight’s audio editing and DaVinci’s rendering.

Until this perfect Frankenstein’s monster of a program exists, I’ll just have to keep using each program for a project that best fits, and hope for continued improvements in updates. If you would be interested in trying out DaVinci Resolve on your own, I highly recommend working through one of Blackmagic Design’s Definitive Guide Books. Between this book and YouTube channels like JayAreTV, Learn DaVinci Resolve, Casey Faris and Goat’s Eye View, I was able to answer a lot of questions that I ran into and become comfortable working in this program.

Check Out the Finished NFL Draft Even Recap Video Created in DaVinci Here.

My Creative Inspiration: James

Wed, 17 Apr 2019 10:27:19 Z

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”
— Pablo Picasso

I’d like to say that this is a quote that I’ve lived by for most of my life. I’d like to say that, but actually this is just a quote that I found on Google because I was running into some creative block.

Many people are familiar with the term “writer’s block”, but I find that when I’m working on anything that requires creative input, I can run into a block or inability to focus and elaborate creatively. Why is that? It can be frustrating how at times it can be extremely difficult to come up with any creative ideas on a specific topic, where at other times it can be impossible to focus on anything else.

Switching My Environment

When my creative tank is completely running on empty there are some actions that I’ll take to try to find inspiration. Sometimes it can be as simple as switching up the environment that I’m working in. I’ll often go to a coffee shop or library if I can’t seem to concentrate at home. Or if I’m at work then I might go for a walk or sit somewhere else besides my desk. The difference of environment means that when I glance up between work, I’ll consciously realize that I’m already out and physically somewhere else, so I might as well keep the ball rolling and continue being productive. This abnormal environment can also subconsciously inspire your mind, as you’re seeing the “world” from a new perspective.

Even At A Young Age

In terms of media that inspires me, I find myself inspired the most by pieces that completely suck me in and make me forget that I’m even watching something. As someone who makes content, it can be difficult for me to watch something without constantly trying to tear it apart, trying to figure out how it was made. I know that I’m watching something that’s truly inspiring me when those thoughts don’t occur.

The whole reason that I’ve gone into video production is because of pieces that inspired me at a young age. As a kid, I watched a lot of TV and movies, but was always enthralled by pieces that incorporated extremely creative elements. Shows like the Muppets, Fraggle Rock and Pee Wee’s Playhouse were some of my favorites. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed watching cartoons, but to me, animation has a certain element that causes my brain to say “this isn’t real” and keeps me from truly getting sucked in. Jim Henson and others that created entertainment using puppetry and other practical effects kept this switch from going off in my head, and caused me to enter the world that they had created. Even now, I enjoy watching these shows, not just for the nostalgia, but because I still find myself being inspired by their approach to environment building and storytelling.

Cinematography and Storytelling

As I’ve grown older, I’ve found inspiration in interesting cinematography and more importantly, storytelling. Some of my favorite directors are Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant) and Spike Jonze (Her, Being John Malkovich) because of their unique styles of storytelling. When watching their films, I can easily get swept into the universe that they’ve built and completely forget about the outside world. Even when I’m not directly relating to the characters, I feel extremely compelled to keep watching to find out what’s going to happen. I consider their films to be like wells that I can always go back to and find something inspiring that I had missed before.

Or Maybe a Music Video

If I don’t have time to watch a feature length film or binge watch some episodes of Fraggle Rock, I’ll normally go to YouTube and watch music videos for inspiration. Because music videos are such short form, yet still be entertaining, they can result in more creative risks than any film or series can. My biggest go-to and probably my favorite of all time is the video for Beyonce’s song Blue. I’m genuinely a fan of Beyonce and I think this song is one of her most underrated, but the real reason why I love the video is because it’s so simple, yet beautiful. All of the shots of just regular people in their everyday environment, doing work, playing soccer and just living makes this piece feel so human, which to me is a rare feeling for a music video. The piece also reminds me that beauty can come from anywhere, even just a small town or village, and it just takes some inspiration to see that.

For anyone else who, like me, runs into a creative block at times, I’d highly recommend reading the book “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. In it, the author breaks down the relationship between productivity, creativity and resistance. I’ve found it to be pretty enlightening to read up on some of the science of creative blockage. By far the most helpful lesson that I’ve learned is that everyone experiences it, even the true professionals that are seen as creative legends. The difference is that they don’t wait for inspiration to come to them, but they keep working until they arrive at inspiration. Even though I found the aforementioned quote by Pablo Picasso while I was experiencing some creative block, I was able to use it to inspire me to think about my inspiration, and subsequently turn that into this blog post.

My Editing Playlist: James

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 14:11:13 Z

It’s interesting to see how content follows such a never ending cycle. Content that is already created will often inspire, influence and assist in the creation of something else entirely. Often times when I’m working on something creative, I’ll listen to music, a podcast or even just have something playing in the background. I like to listen to a variety of media, but I tend to have a specific categories or genres that I prefer in specific situations. Let me tell you what I mean:

Video Editing

I generally like to edit video projects to a beat, so I try to choose rhythm or beat-heavy music. This is especially true when I’m editing something high energy and fast-paced. I feel that it allows me to get zoned in to whatever I’m working on, making it harder to be distracted. One of my big go-to’s for this is the Deantoni Parks album “Technoself”. I was introduced to this album by a friend and found that not only does it have a beat heavy, high-energy sound, but it also inspires me to edit something because of the heavily edited production of the songs themselves. There are other artists and albums that fall into this category that I find perfect to edit to, such as Jamie XX and J Dilla, but I don’t listen to their albums nearly as often as I do “Technoself.”

Fast Turnaround

I also find that when I’m in a crunch to get a lot done in a short amount of time, I’ll turn to old swing musicians like Louis Prima or Frank Sinatra to push me to work at a faster pace. I find that the inclusion of many instruments, especially horns, and the overall fast pace of the songs will keep me alert and moving forward (which is also why I listen to them when traffic gets hectic). Similarly, if I find myself bored while trying to be productive I’ll throw on some jazz. I know jazz as a genre is very hit or miss with a lot of people, but I find that with it’s more complex melodies it keeps my mind continually interested. I’m not by any means a jazz savant, but one of my favorite artists is Thelonious Monk because of the offbeat and hard to predict nature of his songs.

Ambient Options

Another thing that I try to be careful of is making sure that what I’m listen to doesn’t influence what I’m working on if it’s not supposed to. This might mean that if I’m working on something that requires a lot of focus, I’ll throw on a more ambient song. What I’ve found to be most productive in these instances are movie or video game soundtracks. As the goal of this music is to keep attention on what’s actually happening in the movie or video game, it makes it easy for me to listen to it and still focus entirely on the project that I’m working on. Some of my favorite soundtracks are from movies like Drive, Birdman, Django Unchained and video games like Animal Crossing. In these situations the more simplistic and subtle the music the better.

Podcasts

If I’m working on something that doesn’t require listening to the project itself, like editing still photography or coloring footage, I’ll often seek out a podcast to listen to and stay entertained while doing what might be mundane. I’m a big fan of comedy podcasts, so I listen to a lot of shows on the Earwolf and Headgum networks. I try to keep up to date on their podcasts like Comedy Bang Bang, Doughboys and How Did This Get Made among others. I also regularly listen to the Thomahawk Show, a podcast hosted by former Cleveland Browns players Joe Thomas and Andrew Hawkins.

Leisure Listening

If I’m listening to music while I’m not working on anything, my tastes can vary quite a bit. I’ll listen to most genres depending on my mood, but I find myself primarily choosing indie bands that have female vocalists like Mitski, Big Thief and recently Snail Mail. I’m not sure why exactly I prefer this kind of music, but for the time being it’s a sound that I don’t get tired of. If I’m looking to mix it up I’ll listen to some hip-hop or r&b artists like Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar and SZA. Sometimes I’ll even listen to the radio, and being a University of Akron alumus of course my number one station is 88.1 WZIP! If I’m trying to find new underground or indie music I’ll go to INHAILER Radio, an online independent radio station based in Cincinnati that always highlights lesser known artists that can fly under the radar. My tastes change pretty consistently, so I imagine in the future I’ll have an even more expanded library filled with some music that falls into these categories, as well as other music that’s entirely different. I hope my tastes have inspired yours, and that you have your own go-to’s that allow you to get what you need done!