3 Myths about Video Production

My name is Jim Mather. I am Media Two’s video director. I was brought onto the design team to help incorporate videos into our ad campaigns.
As many of you reading this know, video has become the new buzz word on the net. Since faster connection and higher bandwidth have entered the private sector, online video viewing has grown by leaps and bounds and with the recent writers strike, we have seen online videos go through the roof! Everyone wants a piece of this new pie so for my initial blog, I thought I’d dispel 3 myths about video and online video production.

1. Myth #1: Any one with a camera can (and should) produce a video.
   

   Client says: “My nephew has a camera he got for Christmas, can we use him? He makes great skateboarding videos.”
   Jim says: “That’s great. Next time I’m producing a free skateboarding video, I’ll look him up.”

   While it’s true video production doesn’t take as long as it used to or that computers make video editing more accessible to the enthusiast, quality video production does not take any less talent or knowledge. In fact, producing high quality video today is harder then ever before! Every video produced requires skills in several fields. From pre-production (concepting, writing, storyboarding, etc…) to production which includes lighting, set and sound design as well as quality camera control such as framing shots, smooth zooms, pans and tracking shots and finally, to post-production which involves motion graphics, titling, editing and compressing your video. Each of these skills have work flows and techniques specific to the program being used and the viewing medium which changes for online viewing vs. DVD viewing vs. iPod viewing and so on.
   Spend 30 minutes watching YouTube and you’ll see this first Myth in action.
   
   
2. Myth #2: Video is cheap.
   I have a fantastic Sony HD consumer camera that I use at home. It cost roughly $1,200 with all the bells and whistles and it shoots full High Definition 1080i onto miniDV tape. This camera looks fantastic… but only in certain situations. For how good this camera looks in typical sunlight, it looks equally bad at dusk or night. The microphone is terrible and there is no way to use external microphones. The automatic color balance is inconsistent at best and I have lost the ability to quickly and easily adjust my focus or exposure settings which is a problem when moving from indoor to outdoor or trying to selectively focus on a subject.
   Consumer cameras are great for catching Johnny’s Soccer Game or Jane’s Ballet recital, but will fail miserably when needing fine control of focus or exposure for quick changes in lighting.
   

   Simply because consumer camcorders (and industry cameras) have dropped in price, this does not reflect a rise in talent or ability of the general public.

   To create a high quality, professional level video, you will use many of the techniques we have been using for decades in the industry. Editing techniques developed in the late 1920’s to tell a story still hold true in today’s computer editing environment. The same goes for shot composition and general lighting techniques. While today’s workflow is much more forgiving then the past you must be able to wear several stylish hats to get your video out on a client friendly budget.
   In a typical video post-production work flow, using a mac, you will likely use the following programs: Final Cut Pro (editing), Live Type (titles), Motion (animating graphics), Photoshop (creating graphics), Soundtrack Pro (audio), DVD Studio Pro (DVD authoring), Flash Video Encoder/Compressor/Sorenson Squeeze (or some other video compressor if you’re video is online). If you aren’t at least an intermediate user of all of these programs, the quality of your video will suffer.
   
   
3. Myth #3: You can fix everything in Post-Production
   

   I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a client or producer say “it’s OK, we’ll fix that in post”.

   While a skilled editor can repair some things, like a camera not being properly calibrated for color, there are many things he/she can not fix. You can not add light if the scene is too dark, fix bad writing or inconsistent ambient sound, poorly framed shots or jerky camera movements. Nor can you produce big budget, high quality graphics to compensate for bad production quality.
   There’s a saying: “if you put paint on a pig, it’s still a pig” meaning, you can dress up your video in pretty graphics, all shiny and fancy… but you can’t hide the pig that lies beneath.
   

Simply put, cheap is cheap. If you don’t allow for proper time in production, from concept to completion, some aspect of your production will suffer and come across as amateurish. Quality is the most important part of your production and quality is entirely dependent on the sum of steps taken earlier in the production.
I’ve never heard someone complain about a video being too high in quality, but I’ve heard endless complaints about bad production.

This being said, Reality TV does nothing to help my argument.