4 Steps to a Successful Product Launch Video: A Guide for Video Marketers
When it comes to making a standout product video, finding the right team and the right workflow is key. At MediaSilo, we worked with a number of production teams before we found our fit with Vidico, a full-service production company based out of Melbourne, Australia, specializing in brand and product videos for technology companies. Over the course of several successful video projects together, we developed a plan that worked seamlessly at each stage of the creative process.
The pre-production phase can be the most crucial stage of the entire video creation process to ensure a quality final product that matches your vision and brand.
This year, the MediaSilo and Vidico teams came together to produce the launch video for our latest feature Spotlight, a fully customizable site-builder within MediaSilo, to present and showcase your work with branded microsites and presentations. Project leads Tim, Producer at Vidico, and myself, Product Marketing Manager at MediaSilo, put our heads together to share these four best practices for producing successful product videos.
1. Prioritize the pre-production phase
The pre-production phase can be the most crucial stage of the entire video creation process to ensure a quality final product that matches your vision and brand. This is the stage where you gather the team for brainstorming, and hash out any creative differences. From a cost standpoint, it’s much easier to change a sketch or PNG file than it is to change an entire animation.
Our pre-production phase looked like this:
The script and storyboard phases are where the marketing team will want to really hone the details. We used Dropbox Paper to collaborate on the script, where we documented important project information and made use of commenting features to communicate asynchronously. Then, the Vidico team translated the written script into a visual storyboard using Boords, where the MediaSilo team was able to comment directly on individual slides.
With Boords, the MediaSilo team was able to make notes on individual storyboard slides.
When MediaSilo brought their product expertise and brand vision to the table in a clear and concise way, Vidico was easily able to propose creative to fit the bill. Once the storyboard is finalized and off to production, it’s mostly up to the animation team to bring the story to life.
2. Identify your stakeholders for each stage of the project
For a big launch like this, teams across the company will need to be aligned to balance the number of cooks in the kitchen. Not everyone needs to have a say on the color of the text or minor design details, but all key stakeholders should be looped in to provide input on the overall direction and messaging of the script and visuals.
Your stakeholders should include leaders from Product, Sales and Success teams who can help identify key “marketing features” that will hook prospects in.
Your stakeholders should include leaders from Product, who can help outline the overall direction of product messaging, and leaders from Sales and Success teams who can help identify key “marketing features” that will hook prospects in. Early on, the MediaSilo team identified its product stakeholders as our VP of Product and CEO, and its go-to-market stakeholders as the VP of Sales and Director of Enterprise Success.
We checked in with our internal stakeholders at each stage — briefing, scripting, and storyboarding — and made sure to over-communicate to avoid delays.
3. Establish project leads on each team
We created a shared Slack channel for the MediaSilo and Vidico teams to stay in touch on a daily basis.
Tim and I divvied up responsibilities at the beginning of their project to make sure both teams were on the same page.
Jane (Product Marketing) was responsible for developing the project vision from the MediaSilo team, organizing and facilitating project meetings, gathering timely feedback from stakeholders, and establishing feedback protocols at each stage of the project.
Tim (Producer) was responsible for keeping the project on time and budget, ensuring timely delivery at each stage of the project, as well as managing the creative and animation team at Vidico.
Since our teams were working across a 16-hour time difference (!), it was important to find a way to communicate quickly and efficiently. To solve this, MediaSilo and Vidico created a shared company Slack channel that we could all access from our own MediaSilo and Vidico workspaces. We took advantage of threads for sidebar conversations about details, and Jane and Tim made sure to broadcast channel-wide messages for record-keeping or when hopping on a call wasn’t possible.
4. Keep all your files and feedback in one place
There’s nothing quite as satisfying as using our own app to wrap a project. We created a dedicated project in MediaSilo that all project members had access to, and a subfolder for the Spotlight video.
We leveraged the time-coded review features in MediaSilo to make drawings and comments right on the video and track changes across versions.
The Vidico team would animate the project into life using Adobe After Effects (which MediaSilo now integrates with) and Tim would share the latest cuts as a secure link for the MediaSilo team to comment on in a 2-day turnaround window. We went through a few review cycles, first on the overall flow, music, animation edits, and finally some color and design tweaks.
With the right team, workflows, and tools, putting together a product video can truly level up your product launch, attracting the prospects you want and enabling your Sales and Success teams to do their jobs.
The rules have changed when it comes to how products and services are sold on television and online. Branded content has brought about a shift in commercial advertising, with creatives finding new ways to craft and tell stories no longer limited to 30-second or 60-second spots. Matt McDonald (BBDO), Trevor Guthrie (Giant Spoon), filmmaker and honto88 founder Shruti Ganguly, Ben Hughes (Squarespace), Angela Matusik (HP), and Ad Age associate creativity editor I-Hsien Sherwood gathered at IFP Week earlier this fall for a panel titled “Don’t Call It A Commercial” to discuss how the line between entertainment and advertising has blurred.
They addressed finding and knowing your audience, striking a balance between art and work, daring to buck convention, and knowing when to walk away. We pulled four insights from their discussion to illustrate the power of branded content for effective storytelling, as well as for selling products and ideas.
Going beyond 30- and 60-second spots
The status quo works until it doesn’t. Discussing commercials as vehicles for delivering messages, Ben Hughes, director of the brand creative team at Squarespace, suggested that as time passes, adaptation and innovation become necessary. “It’s really important to remember that there’s nothing sacred about a thirty or a sixty,” he said, referring to the traditional lengths of television commercials. Those blocks of time were sold by broadcasters to advertisers, who in turn had to find ways to tell stories confined by those time constraints.
Today that model isn’t the only one that holds.
While the 30-second commercial works for “snappy” ads, Hughes believes storytellers occasionally need a longer, wider, and more dynamic runway. “Anywhere where you need to get under the surface of something, explain something more complex, or want someone to have an experience with something that is closer to an experience you have with art,” he said, “longer form can make a difference.”
The medium is the message
Contemporary advertising media is more expansive than it was in the 1940s, when the first commercial aired on television. There are still magazines and billboards, but brands can now use podcasts, social media, digital platforms, and experiential activations at festivals and conventions to tell a story. Branded content creators must determine which of those channels best fits the audience they want to reach. “We’re taking our stories that aren’t really even about products or brand, but about a feeling or emotion or an idea that is part of our DNA and pushing them out on platforms where we know people are,” said Matusik.
“We’re taking our stories that aren’t really even about products or brand, but about a feeling or emotion or an idea”
“The thing that we’re doing is trying to build these worlds and then transport people into them,” Guthrie said about the immersive fan experiences that his company designed for Game of Thrones, Blade Runner 2049, Westworld, and other media properties. At the core of it all is the story; experiential marketing is just a different way to get from the beginning to the middle and the end, he continued.
The medium is in service of the goal. For McDonald, the Faces of Distracted Driving campaign he worked on for AT&T sought to get people to put down their phones; as a format, 30-second commercials weren’t good enough. Instead, BBDO created a series of videos featuring interviews with families affected by distracted driving.
“Can watching the story of this family and seeing the trauma and hearing them talk about just how they’re struggling with their lives ten years later and really exploring that over the course of seven or eight minutes — does that convince you to put down your phone?” he asked. “For me and for a lot of other people, it did.”
Sell-outs no more
There are artistic components to advertising and branded content, but the end goal is always to sell, be it an idea, brand, or product. How do creatives reconcile the idea that they’re just another cog in the corporate wheel and that their vision has been compromised? Matusik believes that, while many artists, filmmakers, and storytellers used to feel like their voices were being “muddled” or that they were sell-outs for working with brands, their attitudes are changing.
“As a roomful of filmmakers, you should be thinking about ways that you can speak true to your voice and what it is you’re trying to accomplish,” she told the audience. “Think of a brand as a partner. If you can find the right one that has a similar alignment or goals in mind, that’s how you create great work.”
Taking care of biz
Speaking for creatives, Ganguly emphasized the business side of brand partnerships, which come with added responsibilities. “You have a client that has an audience and a purpose and a reason for spending that money. That short or project that you’re working on with them has to fulfill a bigger purpose, and you have to stick to your deadlines, stay within budget, and deliver,” she said. “The guidelines have to be set forth, and they have to be followed, and there are no excuses.”
Collaborative partnerships, not compromised relationships
Having worked with Hollywood directors including Kathryn Bigelow and Taika Waititi, McDonald finds that the best ones understand that making anything is a process. Collaborating while also being able to articulate and defend one’s vision is key. “It’s not necessarily like you’re losing if your vision is compromised,” he said, adding that it helps to take notes when given feedback and to find a different path to quality content.
In the end, it’s also important to recognize when a partnership with a brand isn’t going to work and to have the courage to walk away.
Size queens, beware: When longer isn’t better
While branded content has largely broken the mold of 30- and 60-second commercials, longer doesn’t always mean better. “Whether it’s an ad, or a seven-minute piece, or a 17-episode series on Netflix,” said Hughes, “you have to approach it all with the same initial point of view: What is going to keep an audience engaged?” During the edit, brands and their collaborators should make cuts when and if it benefits the story they’re trying to tell, regardless of where it’ll be told.
Searching for a counter example, Ganguly pointed to her time at Conde Nast, where she produced the popular 73 Questions video series. The series is framed as a single shot walkthrough of a celebrity’s home, with the talent answering seventy-three rapid-fire questions. When Ganguly presented the first episode with Sarah Jessica Parker, her bosses felt that it was too long at six minutes. She tried explaining that there would be sound design and music that would change how the video would flow, but they could only see the length. “I think they were expecting it to be this massive failure, and I was getting ready to get fired,” she said.
Ganguly revealed that, before the video went live, she reached out to a contact at Buzzfeed and asked them to post it at the same time that Vogue did so that it would be seen by a much larger audience. Ultimately, the video’s length wasn’t an issue, and 73 Questions became one of the biggest digital series online. “It needs to be as long as it needs to be, and that’s it,” Ganguly said. “I don’t think editing this is going to make it interesting.”
With great length comes great responsibility
As branded videos and experiential activations become longer and more involved, brands and creators must remember that they’re asking viewers to commit to more. Guthrie believes experiences and films should be thoughtfully designed to respect the viewer’s time. Skipping unnecessary pre-roll and getting to the heart of the content will mean more engagement and greater receptivity to strapping in for the entire ride.
But how should longer stories be framed to keep audiences interested? Spoilers are the answer, according to McDonald. “As storytellers, naturally we want to hoard the end of our stories. We want to keep them secret, and we don’t want to give away the big reveal,” he said. “I found that it’s much more effective to give away what’s going to happen.”
With the deluge of content currently competing for the limited attention of audiences, it matters how quickly you get to the punchline. “You have to sort of give away your best parts, give away your ending to really entice and to get people to commit and invest that time,” McDonald added.
Everyone has to get their start in this industry somewhere. Maybe it’s as a runner, shuttling hard drives and other materials around town. Maybe it’s on the front desk, or directly as an assistant editor, colorist, or a logger. Then, eventually you not only move up steps in the industry, but you yourself get the chance to hire that next wave of post workers who will keep creating the content of the future.
Odds are when you start hiring, you’re going to assume that the people you are hiring will be a lot like you were at their age. However, that’s just no longer true. While every generation in human history has gripes about how “kids these days” are different than they were at the same age, there are some very real differences about the current generation of entry level workforce that need to be reckoned with if you are going to hire and onboard people properly.
While the exact boundaries of what defines each generation is an argument best left to the sociologist or the makers of memes, we’re going to go with “Generation Z” here to talk about this new wave of employees. If you are hiring an assistant who has recently entered the workforce, odds are the generation Z/zoomer label is the closest to one they’ll identify with.
References
The first thing to understand is that it’s no longer fair to assume the same base level of references for film and TV that applies to your generation. This point is one that frequently comes up in a complaint about this generation. “I asked them about Raiders of the Lost Ark and they hadn’t even seen it!” someone will say after an interview when discussing why they didn’t hire someone. “Clearly they aren’t serious about movies if they haven’t even seen Raiders.” While that specific example is due to age (Raiders came out 15 years before most zoomers were born), the bigger issue is the end of monoculture.
Even if you grew up with cable TV, if you are 30 or older odds are there were only a few cable channels that showed anything good. You had to go to the video store to get movies, where selection was limited. A lot of your choices about what you could even watch was incredibly limited by choices others had made for you. Yes, “The Shawshank Redemption” is a good movie, but it was also shown on cable movie channels nearly 24/7 for a period of years, so everyone you knew had seen it at least once without really trying. You could reasonably assume anyone “interested in movies” had seen it.
Zoomers have grown up with infinite media choice. Netflix (on disc, then streaming) was common, and they have always had everything available to them to watch and have gone down rabbit holes of niche exploration that just weren’t possible in years past. If you got into the french new wave in high school, you had maybe 5 movies you could watch at your video store or library, then you needed to mail order tapes or do inter library loan. The zoomers had all of everything ever created at their fingertips.
How do you deal with this? First off, understanding. Don’t judge your job applicants just because they haven’t seen some movie you love that comes up in the interview. It’s not a deliberate insult or a lack of curiosity that has left them without seeing the specific movies you think are important. It’s just how big the canon has become and the extreme increase in quantity of choice.
This also affects their education. If Zoomers did go to a media studies program, they still likely only had 1-2 “history” classes, with the rest often focused on other areas like production. That would mean only 30-60 films get assigned in those classes at most. It’s likely somewhere along the way someone asked them to watch “Citizen Kane,” but it’s also likely that there are a lot of films and media you consider vital that just never got assigned. You still hear people say things like: “You haven’t seen The Conformist? But I thought you went to film school!” which usually shows a lack of understanding for how little time some film programs put on film history and exactly how much film history there is out there to cover.
Secondly, if it’s important, create a references list for a project. Working on a horror film, it’s acceptable to suggest 5-6 films that should be watched to have the language of that project. The same applies in all media. Working on a historical doc TV show? Have a list of shows with which would like entry level employees to familiarize themselves.
Even in as mainstream a format as reality TV, there is so much content out there that you can’t assume familiarity with your individual show and its needs. Most new employees are eager to learn what they need to know to do their job well, and if that involves watching a few episodes of a given show that is very influential on your style, so be it.
Research
One common task of the new employee in post is research. Whether it’s knowing the newest workflows because they are fresh out of a training program, tracking down information on how to deal with a new file format or camera media coming in from production or even just chasing down answers to an Avid bug when the engineer is busy, junior employees are often given side research projects in between more routine more.
This generation has more successfully made the transition to video for information than previous generations. This means both that they would rather be trained with a video, and also that they are more likely to find video results for answers than film workers of even a decade ago. There is not only a huge film and post community on YouTube (such as Film Riot), but even TikTok is starting to be a place where people share small tips and tricks and solutions to workflow problems.
If you ask a new employee a question and instead of getting back to you with a forum link or a .pdf they respond with a TikTok link, that doesn’t mean they didn’t take the research problem seriously. It just might be where the best answer is to be found these days.
If you are creating new training materials, consider including more video content than you would have with previous efforts. With new audio search tools, it can be just as keyword searchable as a .pdf. And will often be more engaging.
Politics
One thing you might have heard frequently about the zoomer generation is that they expect a higher level of political engagement and “purity” from the companies they work for compared to previous generations. Some of this is purely fear mongering nonsense, but some of it is true, and it’s important to understand some context for the situation as you go about the hiring process.
The fear mongering nonsense is when you read headlines that young people are refusing to work or are expecting political alignment and purity from the companies they work for. That’s not the real experience for most of us hiring in post production. Young people are eager for jobs and paths into an industry they are passionate about. They want to work on projects that excite them, but they also are just excited to do the job and tend to have a pretty broad set of projects they are eager to work on. Recently, we did have one potential hire who heard we also worked in commercials and passed on a job because commercials as an entire concept “didn’t fit with their values,” but that candidate was actually over 30.
If you are working on projects for political campaigns, you’ll find that folks won’t want to work on projects they don’t support. And certain special topics such as working on an ad campaign for a bombing system will be difficult to staff. But largely, this generation understands that they won’t get to work on the perfect project all the time.
Zoomers are also more aware than previous generations of how valuable their skills are and how those skills contribute to a company. Whereas previous generations tended to focus more on getting any foot in the door and looked for raises as they moved from job to job, this generation is much more willing to actively negotiate for a raise quite early in the process (even just a few months after getting hired). This can be surprising the first time you experience it, since most of you who are now at the mid level had a year or more of low paying work as a way to “break in” to the industry. This generation is often less willing (or with rising housing prices less able) to do that.
Gen Z is also more interested in seeing a fair and equitable workplace and calling out management for situations they see as inappropriate. Asking someone to stay late without overtime to wait for a drive to get dropped off or a render to finish will get much more pushback from a zoomer than it used to.
It’s important to remember that just because we all had to do it doesn’t actually make it right. Oftentimes they are pushing back not just because they feel they should be paid overtime, but also because that’s the labor law. The film industry has always been notoriously lax about labor law enforcement since everyone is so eager to “prove themselves” and “move up the ladder” that they do whatever it takes to get ahead. This generation is more willing to put a focus on being treated fairly right now in a way that can feel aggressive the first few times you experience it.
Conclusion
As discussed at the top, every single generation in human history has had “kids these days” observations. The concept of a new generation having different values is nothing new. The key to remember is that it’s not the individual zoomer you are interacting with who changed; it’s the world they were raised in that changed around them.
They are likely just as eager and excited to be in this industry as you were at their age, but they are going to show it in different ways and with different boundaries. They are the future of the industry, and with a little consideration it can be invigorating to bring the next generation into the workplace. Show them what you’ve learned, and also learn from them.
MediaSilo allows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback and out of the box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
I’m spending 2022 making up for lost time.
After a few years sitting in front of a screen on seemingly endless Zoom calls, I’ve spent most of this year in airplanes, on the road, and in front of partners and clients. And after a few particularly busy weeks of travel, I finally took a moment to look back on our first in-person IBC show in three years.
Like any good trade show, this year’s IBC was exciting, eye-opening, exhausting, and a little indulgent all at the same time. We won’t talk about the lines at Schiphol trying to leave Amsterdam! After some reflection, I wanted to share a short summary of what I took away from IBC, in one word, one theme, and one feeling.
One Word: Optimism
The only thing that people on planet earth do more than consuming video is working and sleeping and people are watching more video than ever before, and that trend is creating big opportunities for our creative clients. However, if you look across the economic climate, there’s a lot of heaviness out there too. The specter of a potential recession, a rising interest rate environment, and armed conflicts around the world are creating a lot of concern, and the need for many in our industry to do more with less. Despite that turmoil, I saw example after example at IBC of technology solving problems that enable creators to bring compelling content to subscribers faster and more efficiently. I see a real opportunity for our industry to come together and partner across our environment to solve the hard problems that need solving. Business models are changing from perpetual to recurring models. The industry is moving towards the cloud. As an industry, we need more innovation, more automation, and more simplification. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I’m also hoping to see a little less of vendors beating down on price and more examples of innovation that helps creators do what they’re really great at: Making more cool movies, TV, and content.
Maybe this is a stretch of the concept of optimism, but I can’t tell you how good it felt to connect with people I’ve only had a chance to meet with virtually, and how much I’m looking forward to doing more of it in 2023. More than once I found myself closing a conversation on the floor with a handshake and a “good to see you again”, only to realize (or, on a few occasions, to be politely reminded) that I had only ever met the person over Zoom. Some of these folks have been customers of EditShare for multiple years now, and we are having our first in person introductions. So many of us still have so much catching up to do.
Our week in Amsterdam reminded me how much I’m looking forward to more of those connections later this year. For those of you joining us at NAB New York, or our channel partner training programs in Watertown, Basingstoke, and Thailand, I look forward to seeing you in November!
One Theme: A more flexible approach to Cloud
Cloud has been a hot topic for our channel partners and customers for some time now. But this year’s conversation around Cloud is noticeably different when compared to a few years ago. The conversation has shifted from “should we move to the cloud” or “I’m never going to the cloud” or “I just don’t get the cloud” to “I’m in the cloud” or “I need to know you can take me to the cloud when I’m ready” or “I don’t believe in the cloud, but… convince me because I might be wrong”.
At our last in-person IBC show in 2019, I remember a lot of “in or out” cloud conversations. Our industry was conceptualizing the cloud at that time as a full commitment, “either-or” proposition. You either kept everything local, or you moved it all into the cloud. There was no middle ground. That’s not the case anymore. Even the language people use to talk about the cloud is changing. The stuff we labeled “cloud” before is now much more likely to be referred to as “hybrid workflows.”
That’s a small shift, but almost everyone on our team noticed it. As we debriefed the show and discussed the changing perspectives on the cloud, the word that kept coming up was “flexibility.” Creative teams have different appetites, different needs, and are starting from different places as they consider how to equip their people. Some of our best conversations at IBC centered on how creators can make the “right first move to the cloud”, and helping our customers diagnose where they are and what they’re ready for in their cloud journey. My biggest takeaway? There’s no one right answer. Teams can and should take a flexible approach. But flexible approaches can also be daunting – there are so many options to consider. Having a framework to lean on sure seems to help. We have some good thinking to share here. Our CTO, Stephen Tallamy, will also be sharing some of his evolving point of view on a more flexible journey to the cloud in an upcoming IBC recap, and I encourage you to keep an eye out for that in a few weeks.
One Feeling: Pride
I walked out of IBC feeling proud. Proud of what our product can do, proud of what we’ve accomplished this year, but most of all, proud of the people on our team.
I won’t lie. I like to win. After being awarded a technical Emmy this spring, EditShare took home a Best of Show award for our Universal Projects approach at IBC. The team was elated. Being recognized for innovating in a room full of innovators is the kind of recognition you hope for in this industry. It’s validation for all the work we’ve done to translate what we hear from our customers into how our products work and what we choose to build next. It felt great.
But like I said, our win isn’t what I’m most proud of. What makes me most proud is simply how our team showed up. Every company out there talks about culture. But anybody who visited the EditShare booth got to experience ours and feel just how special our team is. They got to see firsthand how EditShare’s core values make this not only a great place to work, but also how they inform our product decisions and corporate strategy, and how they help us simplify storytelling for hundreds of clients around the world. We dig deep. We are all around athletes. We have deep customer empathy. We are humble. We win together. We’re EditShare. We are excited and optimistic about today and the future.
We’re looking forward to seeing many of you as we continue the [tradeshow tour] in Q4 and into 2023. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to drop us a line if there’s anything we can do – or if you’d like to hear more of what’s standing out for us so far this year.
Hope to see you soon.
For a TV series production, a show bible can be almost as important as the scripts themselves. Bibles are the definitive guide to a show, usually written by the series creator.
They cover every aspect of the series: characters, detailed story arcs, tone, theme, world, with episode breakdowns and ideas for future seasons. They’re mood boards. Bibles are a north star for a writing staff. However, bibles can also offer incredible pointers for post-production as well. Bibles can tell a team how to score a show, what the ideal pacing should be, whether to tease out the horror or the comedy in particular scenes, and so much more. Below are a few ways that editors and post-production supervisors can use series bibles to help inform their decisions.
Stranger Things
Perhaps one of the most iconic bibles ever produced, The Stranger Things bible, expertly establishes the show’s tone. The bible describes the ways in which the series will draw inspiration from 80s blockbusters. The visual style of the bible is also oozing with a classic Spielberg aesthetic. The writers also specifically call out John Carpenter. Editors reading the bible will be able to draw inspiration from those same 80s movies when it’s time to cut and color the series.
The Stranger Things bible also takes away a lot of the guesswork for post teams. The writers describe the soundtrack, and how the series should be scored to feel like movies from the era. It also explores the show’s approach to CGI and effects, making this document a true working roadmap for editors.
Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks was unlike any other teen show, and it wears that fact proudly on the first page of its bible. This series bible says that instead of glamorizing high school years, it’ll faithfully, and hilariously, explore all the discomfort and disorientation of high school. It spells out themes of confusion, isolation, yearning, sexual desire, wanting to fit in, and so much more. As a result, the series editors relied heavily on close shots and reaction shots in awkward moments to highlight the themes outlined in the bible, showing us the ways that the characters are processing and trying to navigate the strange newness of the world around them.
Fargo
Fargo’s bible opens with the premise that Fargo is not just a place or a movie title: it’s a genre. It’s a world of true crime and dark comedy and grittiness. Fargo’s four seasons span decades and cross state lines, but their visual style is consistent and all flows from that first page. Fargo’s world is cold, funny and cynical not just in the writing, but in its pace and it’s aesthetics. The bible is a roadmap to that style, and allows production teams to be unified in that vision from the first slug in the first script to the score of the closing credits.
The Wire
The Wire’s bible is one of the longest and most thorough bibles ever written. It peels back every layer of the show. It also establishes the city of Baltimore as a major character in the series. As a result, post-production teams found ingenious ways of bringing to life this character that had no dialogue from detailed establishing shots to fast, slice-of-life sequences. The result was a visual tapestry that inspired a generation of television, and a portrait of a city that every viewer immediately recognizes.
True Detective
This bible firmly establishes the two primary imperatives at the heart of the show: suspense, and humanism. The work that editors and post supervisors did on bringing these two themes to life shows up in the final product—the interplay between the plot, and the haunting drone shots or shots that seem to follow the detectives as they step into a world of danger. The show is stitched together in a way that can make the hairs on your neck stand up at a moment’s notice. But this series also had a way of finding the lightness in the dark, of bringing us back from the edge with the beauty of the landscape and the intimacy of its characters.
Summary
Each of these bibles is a masterclass in creating a road map for the people bringing the vision of a series to life. These aren’t just tools for writers and directors. Color, score, pace, focus all happen in post-production, but they stem from the ideas spelled out in the series bible. From highlighting visual comparisons, to demonstrating themes, these bibles are definitive guides on how post-production can continue to highlight a show’s themes and messages long after it’s been written and shot.
With that in mind, what are a few things that each stakeholder in the post workflow could stand to gain by ingraining a series bible in their creative process?
Editors: Bibles often make distinct references to films or to eras of filmmaking. Editors can then use these bibles as North Stars for both style and pace. In Stranger Things, for example, the creators call out horror movies of the 80s, which allows an editor to draw inspiration from the editing styles of the time in order to align their work with the vision of the show’s creator. Similarly, if a show is intended to be built around episodic themes, editors can take cues from the bible on how to arrange shots and sequences to further underscores those themes.
VFX Supervisors: Style is one of the core principles of a bible. Will the show aim for realism, or heightened science fiction, or will there be extended stunt shots like John Wick? As a bible explores these ideas, a VFX supervisor can begin to map out their work. Take The Wire, for example. The gritty realism spelled out in the bible suggests that violence in this show will be the polar opposite of the high octane VFX style of something like The Matrix, which was increasingly popular while The Wire was in development.
Colorists: Bibles rely heavily on stills from movies and shows as well as stock photos, and are frequently put together by a graphic designer in order to reflect the aesthetics of the series. When looking at a bible and making decisions on how to approach post-production, a colorist can take cues from these components in order to align their work with the creator’s vision.
Sound Designers: Bibles dedicate a significant portion of their word counts to defining a show’s tone and what an audience should be feeling as they’re watching. A sound designer can use this deep dive into tone as a roadmap for sound and score. For example, is a series supposed to be an ominous slow burn, or will it have fast-paced jump cuts? Bibles even sometimes call out specific musical artists, tracks, or other shows and movies they hope to emulate which can give further direction to sound designers.
Post Production Supervisors: Bibles are often some of the most expressive pieces of development material. They try to encompass the full viewing experience in a single document, from screenwriting to camera work. They’re a roadmap for how the show should look. A post production supervisor can use these documents in order to see if the various steps in post are falling into place with the creator’s original vision.
MediaSilo allows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback and out of the box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
Our guests from Green the Bid have a long history in the advertising industry, and are using that expertise to encourage their colleagues to think green when it comes to creating new advertising content.
Jessie Nagel – Founder – Green the Bid
Julian Katz – Founder – Green the Bid
Michael Kaliski – Founder – Green the Bid
Grace Amodeo – Program Manager – Shift
Grace: Before we jump into Green the Bid, can each of you introduce yourselves and tell us about the work you do outside of this initiative?
Jessie: I’m Jessie Nagel and I have a communications agency that I co-founded called Hype. We do PR communication and social media marketing, primarily for creative content providers behind the scenes in entertainment and advertising.
Julian: I’m Julian Katz, I spent 23 years as an agency producer. And most recently have been working on contract at Facebook, helping to oversee all of our external agency production work including all of our DNI, sustainability, and other social impact programs.
Michael: I’m Michael Kaliski, founder of Good Planet Innovation. We’re a sustainable production consultancy, originally from the film and television industry. And Good Planet also greens films, TV shows, and commercials.
Grace:
Michael, can you give us a little bit of context around the “green” initiative in film, television, and advertising? Where is this movement coming from, and where are we now?
Michael: When I was in the film and television world, it was early days for this concept. When I first started in the nineties, nobody wanted to hear this conversation. They actually looked at me like I was a little bit crazy to even bring it up. In the 2000’s I had a production company geared toward humanitarian and environmental issues, but realized that we were generally preaching to the choir. So I started Good Planet, originally to integrate sustainable and ethical behavior on screen. And right after we launched we started to also look at the production aspect, and making productions zero waste and net carbon neutral. When we first started 10 years ago, it was really client driven. So the brand would mandate it and the mandate would roll down through the agency and then to the production company. We would execute the plan, but it was just a one-off – it was the exception, not the rule. A couple of years ago we started a partnership program which partnered with production companies, agencies, and brands to green their entire slate of productions. That was a great step in the right direction, but we don’t have time to do it one company at a time. Green the Bid was a natural evolution where we are engaging the entire industry, all the stakeholders from brands to agencies, production companies, post houses, and vendors to communicate together and share resources to make this a global movement.
That was a great step in the right direction, but we don’t have time to do it one company at a time. Green the Bid was a natural evolution where we are engaging the entire industry.
Grace: How would you describe Green the Bid to someone who hasn’t heard of it before?
Jessie: When we started talking with people many years ago about this, we heard that people were having difficulty being able to enact as many of the things that they wanted to do. So we said, how can we bring everybody together so that they can take their part of the responsibility and sort of link arms. I really agree that as a community we can try to affect change by identifying who is really responsible for what, and then learn from each other. We started to really talk about this in earnest well over a year ago, and we were ready to launch in March, but then the pandemic hit. Obviously it changed things for everybody because we were on pause, but it also provided us with an opportunity to dig a little deeper and really refine the way we want to develop this. We recognized in that moment a time where people maybe felt isolated, and it was time for us to really try to forge a community. And so that’s what we set out to do with Green the Bid.
Grace: Since the advertising agency is so multi-faceted, how does Green to Bid engage with all of the different stakeholders?
Julian: Well, the most important thing is that we elevate this conversation, that it becomes a top-of-mind consideration for all of the stakeholders. Just by asking people to think about it and talk about it, that’s what we’re doing with this work. But specifically, each sector is responsible for a different piece of the equation. So obviously the brand is the one that’s paying for the entire production. This is advertising for their products. So if there’s any financial consideration to having a sustainable production, that falls on the brand, and we ask that the brands accept that responsibility. The agencies are the next tier below the brands, the agencies are the ones coming up with the ideas, hiring the production companies and the post houses, et cetera. So the agencies we ask to advocate for the brands to pay for whatever is necessary to have a sustainable production, and to take responsibility for elevating this conversation to the advertisers. The production companies we ask to include a line item for sustainability, if there are costs associated with it, and that they defend that if challenged. For post houses it’s mostly about data storage and their energy plan within their office. And then each individual vendor, whether a caterer or a grip and electrical truck, is going to have very different considerations, but we have guidelines that we ask them to adhere to as best they can.
Jessie: On the website we have guidelines so that people can reference the recommendations that we have. And a key part of it is this conversation point, which is really to bring the community together. We have member meetings on a quarterly basis, and we also have conversations in between. You can’t know everything, and we’re all often working in siloed ways. By talking to each other, things come up. And then we’re able to either address those or find the right people to be tasked to research something.
Grace: Do you also advocate for sustainable practices being shown on screen, and not just in the process of the production?
Michael: That’s a really important piece of it. We’re spending a little more time on the physical production bit right now, because the creative is really subjective and it’s up to the agency to make that happen. But we are definitely encouraging, in a non-prescriptive way, that they should be looking at their projects through that lens. For example if you had a party scene, everybody in that party should not be holding plastic cups. Even what’s on the grill, let’s have some more plant-based stuff on that grill. You don’t have to be preachy about it, you don’t have to point it out. But we present on screen aspirational characters, so we ought to have those characters behaving in a responsible way.
We present on screen aspirational characters, so we ought to have those characters behaving in a responsible way.
Grace: How have you been outreaching to the community and spreading the word about Green the Bid?
Jessie: We all work in these different aspects of the industry. So although we know a lot of the same people and our paths individually crossed many times, we do collectively have a pretty good network. So we started there, with the people that we know that have maybe even had conversations with us in the past about sustainability. In fact, because of COVID and because people are home, in some ways we had more opportunity to talk to people in a way that it would have been more difficult if we had to make an appointment to see them in an office. Another key part of it is partnering with various organizations, like D&AD and others who have an interest in this area. Even partners like AdGreen and Albert in the UK who are doing similar sustainable things.
Michael: It’s also kind of growing organically because people are hearing about it indirectly. Ford found us, for example. We were going to get to them, but they called us before we reached out to them. There’s a certain social proof once you hit a critical mass, and we’re just at the beginning. It’s just going to cascade organically, hopefully, to where it’s the standard across the entire global industry. It sounds audacious, but we’re heading that way.
Julian: And some of our members have relationships with a lot of different companies. Like an agency is going to have 5, 10, or 20 different clients, and if they really truly commit to doing this and to elevating this conversation, then that means that they’re introducing this notion to a lot of different brands and production companies. It is this ecosystem of connections and communications that are going to make this a much more mainstream, broadly accepted topic.
Jessie: We are a word of mouth industry, that’s how most people get their business and it’s how we do business. And I think that’s the same here. When companies look at each other and they recognize each other as member companies, they know that they’ll uphold their part of it, or do their best to uphold their part of it. So when they feel that, it can be very powerful.
Grace: Why is it uniquely important to do this type of work in the advertising industry as opposed to film or television?
Julian: The short answer is that’s the industry we’re all in. We see what’s in front of us. We see what the problems are. We see how we can improve things. And so we get together and that’s what we’re going to focus on. That certainly could expand to other areas of production and perhaps beyond, but I think that’s why our work started where it did.
Jessie: There are a lot of brands that are making commitments towards being more sustainable brands. And as they do that, they have to consider the elements of production, including how they’re communicating to their customers. We think many brands haven’t yet considered that. But when we talk to people at brands, they immediately understand it.
We’re seeing a shift in society right now where people are really holding the brands and products that they purchase and consume and love, in many cases, accountable.
Julian: We’re seeing a shift in society right now where people are really holding the brands and products that they purchase and consume and love, in many cases, accountable. They want the companies that they buy from to express their values in the marketplace. People really keep a mental track of what the brands and products that they consume stand for, at least in their minds. And so I think we’re seeing that change, brands are really taking notice of that and realizing they need to step up and reinforce that image that they’re projecting.
Michael: I’d also say that just the sheer volume of commercial production is why it’s so important to really push this through in advertising. Film and television it’s important too, and there’s a lot of film and television production, but there are so many commercials being shot all the time, all over the world. And the gestation period from concept to delivery is much shorter than for a film or TV show. So you can actually affect more people and more communities by shifting the advertising industry.
Jessie: I think in film and television there has been a movement to make this change. And then when people in the advertising space were looking at some of the guidelines and recommendations, it didn’t really snugly fit with the way that things get done in advertising. So sometimes the reaction was, we just won’t do it. Or we don’t know how to do it, or we can’t relate. We wanted to make sure we were speaking the language of the people that we wanted to be able to hear it.
Grace: What is your hope or vision for the advertising industry, 5-10 years from now?
Julian: I think that all of us would agree that our hope would be that 5, 10, 15 years from now you don’t need Green the Bid. That we’re not talking about green sets and sustainable production, it’s just a set. It’s just a production. It’s just completely the norm.
Michael: I’d like to see us net carbon neutral and zero waste as an industry by 2025, which is ambitious, but it’s very doable. I’d like to see it actually truly regenerative by 2030, so that we’re actually net carbon negative. Sustainable is just the status quo, to be sustainable is just to make it not any worse than it is. But regenerative is the real direction we need to head.
Jessie: Coming out of a year that’s been really difficult for a lot of people, one that’s made us confront a lot of the worst sides of society and try to envision what better might look like. I hope that 10 years down the line we’ve solved some of these problems. That we can live a more equitable, a more world-friendly and healthy lifestyle so that we can have a world for our children to enjoy as well.
From meeting the Na’vi creatures in the groundbreaking film Avatar (2009) to navigating the desert landscapes in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian (2019), virtual production is one of the fastest growing tools in the film industry.
Virtual production involves the process of combining virtual and physical elements. For years, audiences have been captivated by this advanced technology. Storytelling techniques are unlimited with virtual production.
This powerful technology can save production time in scheduling and post-production costs. Virtual production will only continue to grow in popularity among filmmakers. Hollywood studios and indie filmmakers alike can use this technology to bring their creative visions to life.
Pre-Visualization
Pre-Visualization, or pre-vis, is an important component of virtual production. As part of the pre-production process, creative teams implement storyboards and digital software to plan the design of animated characters and virtual locations. Any complex scenes or intricate camera movements can also be blocked out before shooting even begins.
During this process, crews can also explore virtual set scouting. This technique involves the creation of digital assets with AR technology to “walk around” the virtual set. Filmmakers can customize a meta-human to tour the location or use VR headsets to explore the new world.
The art department on season 8 of Game of Thrones partnered with The Third Floor Inc. to use virtual set scouting. The visualization studio generated virtual copies of the sets that the team was able to explore before starting construction.
Virtual set scouting is beneficial for crews looking to build an interior set, a set on a backlot, or even design a virtual set to use as digital assets during filming. Pre-vis serves as an important guide for virtual production. The digital assets can be altered seamlessly throughout the production process.
Post-Visualization
While pre-vis helps you design the vision for your project, post-visualization, or post-vis, can help carry it out to completion. Post-vis assists the creative team in viewing the virtual effects while the camera is rolling.
Cameras can be calibrated to sync with digital assets to give accurate perspectives in the shot. The virtual set, or animated characters, can be observed on monitors. This advanced technology aids the cinematographer in accurately setting the frame. The director can also give feedback in association with their vision.
VR trackers help align the camera with the virtual world so that when the camera moves, the digital elements move as well. Filmmaker Ryan Connolly, the host of Film Riot, used Unreal Engine, a 3D creation software, to test this technique.
Connolly demonstrates in his virtual production video how he viewed his digital assets on the monitor while filming his live-action scenes. He used the Vive Mars CamTrack system to sync his physical camera with his virtual camera. This tool helped him successfully execute movements in his shots while immersed in his imaginary world.
Like pre-vis, post-vis is meant as a guide to represent the creative team’s vision on set. Once the shot is approved, the digital assets are handed over to the editorial team for final animation and compositing.
Motion Capture
From imaginary characters such as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and the apes in the revitalized Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), motion capture has inspired filmmakers for decades.
This technology equips the performer with a motion capture suit, also referred to as a mo-cap suit. This suit tracks the movement and performance of the actor. The data from the mo-cap suit combines with the digital assets of the character so the crew can view the animated character on the monitors during filming. After wrap, the assets are sent to post-production to finalize the character’s animation.
Live Projection
There are two types of live projection in virtual production: front projection reflects light off the screen, while rear projection diffuses light from behind the screen.
In his tutorial video, Ted from Indy Mogul went behind the scenes at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema to investigate front projection. He discovered how this technique gives more creativity and control on set.
This method might be one of the more cost-efficient tools for independent productions. Projection gives your actors a reference to enhance their eye-line. This technique can also add color and texture to your shots.
It’s important to ensure that the lighting matches both the projected background and the live-action filming. The closer those elements match, the more realistic your shot will look. When set up correctly, live projection can look practical and add simplicity to your project.
Green Screen
One of the most traditional forms of virtual production is the green screen. Introduced in the early 1930s, the green screen used to require active imagination from the cast and crew. The crew would film a scene against a solid green or blue background. The footage would later be sent to post-production to replace the background with the fictional world.
Now, the crew can use virtual production software on set to observe the digital assets on the monitor. News stations replace green screens with live weather reports while on air. Creative teams can view the imaginary world on the monitor during filming.
Virtual production has taken the guesswork out of green screen technology with more accuracy in camera movements and realistic elements, saving your production time and money.
LED Walls
An LED wall is the most advanced form of virtual production. The Mandalorian (2019) used this groundbreaking technology to take their visual effects to the next level.
A video wall becomes a backdrop that adds realism to your dynamic world. With the wall encompassing your entire peripheral vision, you are completely surrounded by your imaginary setting. With virtual production software on set, your digital assets can also be adjusted quickly and easily in real time. The revisions are transferred to the wall instantly.
Although green screens can be more affordable, LED walls are the best investment. They offer the most immersive experience as your cinematographer accurately frames the shot. They also allow your actors to better react to the imaginary world around them.
An LED wall also creates realistic lighting and reflections that match your digital assets, while green screens can cast shadows and spill over additional green light. A green screen requires more time in post-production, while there is a quicker turnaround time with an LED wall. However, if your production involves explosives or dangerous special effects, a green screen would be the better option to avoid damaging an expensive LED wall.
LED backgrounds are a monumental advancement in virtual production. With the immense benefits, LED walls will only continue to grow in popularity.
The Future of Filmmaking
With the ever-growing popularity of virtual production, there is no limit to creativity in your project. This modern technology has helped many crews integrate the imaginary world into live-action filmmaking.
The innovative advancements in virtual production have led to more seamless collaboration among different departments. Crews can effectively carry out the creative vision from pre-production all the way to completion.
According to Variety, the FX series Snowfall (2017) adopted virtual production in its fifth season by using LED walls. The show has saved up to $49,000 an episode by reducing shooting time, transportation between locations, and crew quantity. Shooting on a virtual stage can also reduce the production’s carbon footprint.
With a variety of tools and techniques in virtual production, these methods can be adapted to any budget. Filmmakers can let their imaginations run wild with the endless possibilities virtual production brings.
Are you looking for an effective way to collaborate during your virtual production? Using a tool like MediaSilo helps video teams access media assets anywhere — quickly and easily. With real time collaboration and secure organization, MediaSilo has helped teams stay more connected and efficient. Learn more about how you can streamline your workflow.
While it is definitely a hot topic at the moment, at EditShare we have been helping users create and operate successful cloud solutions for many years.
Those early adopters, and the many who have followed, tend to be organizations who are reasonably cloud-savvy. They are comfortable using EditShare FLEX Cloud Edit software, alongside tools like the Adobe® Creative Cloud suite and Teradici for remote desktop control.
To make the best use of the cloud for post-production, you have to be able to manage the processes and optimize post-production storage. The much-lauded advantage of the cloud is that you only pay for the computing power you use, so you have to be able to rapidly spin up instances as you need them, and equally quickly release them when you are finished.
Some organizations will have the detailed cloud knowledge to be able to implement their own management layer. For teams without this knowledge, we now offer FLEX Cloud Edit+. Essentially, Edit+ takes over the detail of the cloud management so you don’t have to get into its depths.
FLEX Cloud Edit has been around for a number of years, and gives post facilities the ability to edit in the cloud using their preferred software, including Adobe, Apple, Avid, Autodesk, DaVinci and more. What FLEX Cloud Edit+ adds is workstation management capabilities, and integrated file transfer acceleration.
As we are talking to customers, one of the biggest areas of concern about cloud migration is how to get the material up and down from cloud video storage. When you are dealing with the very large files of professional video, it is natural to see transfers as a potential major bottleneck.
To solve this, we have partnered with Data Expedition, a specialist in accelerated communication. Its product CloudDat can push data transfers up to 5 gigabits a second on a single instance, and instances can be stacked when exceptionally high performance is required. The EditShare integration allows for direct upload to FLEX storage for online use or to Amazon S3 for archive or to use with EditShare’s Seamless Proxy Editing feature.
This file acceleration is bundled into a turnkey system and it works out of the box. It also fits into the cloud philosophy in that you pay for it only while you use it: the license is by connected time.
The second major challenge is management of the cloud workstation environment to reduce costs and overheads for management. FLEX Cloud Edit+ integrates the HP Teradici Cloud Access Manager (CAM) to handle the management layer.
As an administrator of the system, the Cloud Access Manager allows you to allocate users to workstations, giving the flexibility to choose from allocating one user to one workstation, through to allowing all users access to a pool of workstations (or any combination between). From the end user perspective, they simply use the standard PC over IP client to connect to the CAM. Once authenticated, the user will be shown the list of workstations they have access to, which workstations are in use and the ability to remotely start a workstation if it is powered off. Not only does this simplify the user experience, it provides significant cost savings – you are only charged for the workstation whilst it is powered on.
FLEX Cloud Edit+ has built-in Active Directory management to support single log-in credentials for all users and functions, which can be used stand-alone or connected to existing Active Directories.
In summary, EditShare has worked with two other industry leaders, HP Teradici and Data Expedition, to build an integrated solution to cloud editing for users who do not want to get into the details of AWS administration. It is a seamless, turnkey experience: a fast on-ramp to the cloud for those businesses who would rather focus on their core creative skills.
Alconost is a localization company, but we also create videos for games.
We’ve been creating game videos since 2013, and in that time we’ve amassed considerable production experience that I think you’ll find useful. In this demo reel you can see what our experience is based on.
Videos vary considerably. But to produce any video, be it a trailer for a marketplace or a teaser for an advertising campaign, we use the same video production workflow for each project. You can easily follow the same process when creating a video on your own.
Our standard production pipeline is as follows:
Brief
Script
Storyboard
Music and voiceover
Animation
Sound design
Today I’m going to guide you through this process and give you some practical tips on how to end up with a game video that you can be proud of.
The brief: prioritize game features from square one
Everything starts with a short questionnaire that determines the framework. Our brief contains 12 questions, but I’d like to highlight four of them. What you decide here will influence the decisions you go on to make at subsequent production stages.
Select your goal: visit the game’s page vs. install the game
First, ask yourself: is your video intended to bring the users to the game’s page? Or is its goal to convert game page visitors into users? When you know the goal, and understand the context in which users will be watching your video, it will be easier for you to develop your ideas.
Select the audience: age, knowledge, cultural background, gaming experience, etc.
Next, think about your video’s intended audience. Their perception, their red lines, and whether they will understand the idea you wish to convey depends on factors like their cultural background, gaming experience, etc. This can affect your creative decisions regarding the concept and style of your video.
Requirements: technical and creative restrictions
Your decisions may also be influenced by the rules of the platforms where you are going to place your video. For example, if you need a video for the App Store, its duration must be from 15 to 30 seconds — no more, no less.
Moreover, to meet the App Store’s recommendations you need to focus more on showing actual gameplay than on telling your game’s universe story. So give the platform’s guidelines a close read to avoid having to redo your video significantly.
Prioritize your game’s key features
Finally, keeping in mind all of the above, prioritize your game’s key features. For example, if your target audience is users who are not overly experienced in gaming, it might be a good idea to focus more on basic functions than, say, to delve deep into combat tactics or other features that advanced players would appreciate.
In the screenshot below, you can see an example of how the prioritized list could look.
Of course, prioritizing isn’t as simple as it seems, because you’re a developer: each feature is like a child of yours, and it’s hard to choose what to omit. But this is an essential step in order to emphasize the features that have the best chances of grabbing your audience’s interest.
Once the framework has taken shape, it’s time to start thinking over the script.
Script: think of the scene’s function, the action in the frame, and the voiceover text simultaneously
Scriptwriting is an exciting process, but this excitement can cause you to lose focus. When your thoughts are scattered, a comprehensive approach can help.
Let’s have a look at the sample in another screenshot below.
This is a sample script structure that shows how each scene has its own function — for example, to elaborate on a specific game feature. And this function should be emphasized by more than just the visuals — the calls to action on the banners and the voiceover text should tell the same story, so that everything in the scene is connected.
To make it even easier for your audience to follow your thoughts, try to stick to the “one feature, one scene” principle. This will help keep the narrative clear, avoid overloading, and transition smoothly from one feature to the next.
Although working on scripts is riveting and absorbing, it’s crucial to remember what can affect the production in your particular circumstances. You may have a tight budget, limited manpower, a deadline, or all of the above.
So when thinking over the visual part of your video, ask yourself: what assets will comprise each scene? Would just actual gameplay footage be enough to demonstrate a specific feature? And if not, do you have the resources for a more complex demo of this feature? Give this question at least preliminary consideration. If you make a mistake, it will come out at the storyboarding stage.
Storyboarding: arrange your assets wisely
When developing a storyboard, remember that for some scenes you may need to design multiple stages. For scenes where gameplay capture is supposed to be shown, consider recording the gameplay at this stage, reviewing the captures, and making sure that they fully convey the idea of the scene.
If the capture doesn’t work as well as you thought, there are at least three options to avoid disaster. First, you can always come back to the script and revise it.
Another, arguably better, option is to allocate resources for building the scene in the game engine, make all the necessary adjustments, and record the gameplay not from the build but from the engine. One more option is to show the feature using animated graphics, be it new art that you design specifically for the video or preexisting game assets.
If you need a video in different aspect ratios, storyboarding for these extra versions isn’t a must, but it may still be something to consider. For instance, a given scene may not be understandable in a vertical version due to cropping. And you can conserve resources if you allow for variations in advance.
To simplify things for your production team, organize all your visual assets wisely. Select only the art that is necessary, and make this collection of assets easy to navigate.
Let’s look at an example of a video that required really well-planned storyboarding. It consists of scenes with animated graphics. And arranging all the art at the storyboarding stage was a good way to simplify the animation stage. Check out this teaser for the game Monster Hustle.
If the video you need for your game is along these lines, it may turn out that certain essential visual details do not yet exist in your assets, in which case you may need to draw them specially for the video.
When you are all set with the storyboard, it’s time to proceed… not to the animation just yet, but to the background music and voiceover track.
Music, voiceover, and why they go before animation
Let’s start with the music. The best solution is to select the background track before you start working on the animation. This will allow you to set your animation “dancing” to the tempo of the music, so that the audio and video sequences echo each other. This makes the watching experience more immersive and enjoyable.
Remember that you don’t have to stick to the in-game music. For instance, the ambient music from locations may prove too monotonous and unsuited to the dramatic structure or emotional load of your video. The solution is to either browse royalty-free markets or, if you work with a composer for your project, get them to write a custom musical theme for your video.
For voiceover, before you record the text with a native-speaking professional, record the voiceover on your own and try combining this draft narration with the storyboard and the music. This way you’ll be able to double check whether the voice and the picture support each other semantically and tell the same story. If you notice any deficiencies, at this stage it’s quite easy to correct them.
Next, once you’ve made sure that the voiceover text is flawless, provide a professional voiceover artist not only with the text to be read aloud, but also with the storyboard, music, and specific instructions. For instance, elaborate on what kind of a storyteller you want them to impersonate: describe the desired manner of speaking, voice tone, and pace.
Last but not least, explain to them how your characters’ names or even the game’s title should be pronounced, including stresses. It may seem a small thing, but it really matters.
Once the music has been selected and the professional voiceover has been recorded, it’s time to move on to the animation stage.
Animating to the beat of the music
This is the stage where you focus on motion design. To simplify and speed up the production process, try assembling the video scene by scene. Animate one or two scenes and evaluate the intermediate result.
Remember that your team may have something to say as well. If you encounter mutually exclusive ideas, your task will be to reconcile the different points of view, structure your team’s comments, and provide a motion designer with consistent and coherent feedback.
When evaluating the intermediate result, remember that you need more than nice-looking animation — you need an attention-grabbing video. For this purpose, focus on how the viewer’s attention is being controlled. For instance, you can:
Zoom in
Make the camera follow a key moving object
Highlight this object
Magnify it
Add an animated pointer
This is not an exhaustive list. Tricks like these make the video easy to watch, which is something that doesn’t just happen on its own: it has to be embedded into the animation.
What should also be embedded is synchronization of the motion to the beat of the background music. To achieve this, create a metronome that will follow the tempo of the music and try showing key animated actions on the stressed beats.
Have a look at the example below. In the screenshot, you can see that the stressed beats of the metronome correspond to the beat of the track. Believe it or not, a simple thing like that can work really well as a skeleton for the animation.
Of course, there are many more details that can make the animation really terrific or, conversely, spoil the impression. But careful execution isn’t the only key to perfection. Consider the animation not simply as an embellishment, but as a means of transmitting ideas. Make your animation meaningful. Try to make the motion convey emotion. When the right ideas and the right emotions meet, the result is magic.
When the animation is ready, it’s time for the final stage: sound design.
Sound design and a convincing reason not to skimp on it
At this stage you may need to cut the music track to match the duration of the animation, and to match particular parts of the music to particular events in the video sequence.
Using sound effects you’ll be able to enhance specific emotions, be it excitement, suspense, or even fear. Actions such as scene changes, tagline fly-in, or the game logo’s appearance can also be emphasized with sound effects. But don’t go overboard. Use sound effects wisely, emphasizing only what needs to be emphasized.
There is one factor that may discourage you from investing in sound design for your video. The fact is, one to two thirds of users watch their videos muted. The game video creator’s job is to make the video ideal for both those who watch the video with sound and without. In the long run, since sound design won’t cost you an arm and a leg, it makes little sense to skimp on it.
As an argument in favor of giving attention to sound design, you can check out this video created for the game Infinitode 2, where the music and sounds are essential components.
Pitfalls & snags: 12 mistakes to avoid
Sometimes it’s not easy to tear a video to pieces in search of the secret ingredient that makes it cool. Usually it’s a combination of a well thought-out concept and flawless execution. However, if I had to rate the most common mistakes in game video production, I would mention these twelve points (see image below).
Those listed on the left have their roots in the conceptual part. It’s all about loose ends at the briefing and scriptwriting stages.
Others, listed on the right, are the result of imperfect production, like the absence of visual accents, camera shake, pixelization, and so on.
Lastly, the ones listed in the triangle in the middle are not deal breakers, but without them the video would have a more polished look. These include undue screen time for the game’s title or the studio logo at the beginning of the video, scene duration imbalance, and imprecise synchronization of the animation with the music.
On top of that, sometimes you wince at missed opportunities to send shivers down a viewer’s spine. Together, all these drawbacks sometimes just… don’t let the magic happen.
How not to fall into these traps? Of course, there’s no silver bullet, but let me give you a piece of advice: try to put yourself in the potential player’s shoes. Imagine the context in which your videos will be shown, and imagine that you need to explain your game to a person who knows nothing about it, and maybe has never played any game like this before. Help that person: motivate them to give your game a try.
Localization is everywhere. That is because the public can only enjoy entertainment products if they are able to understand them.
You cannot enjoy movie if you do not understand what the characters are saying or read a book if you do not understand the language, right?
The same applies to video games: titles have a much better chance of success in multiple markets when they are localized and adapted to them. This may appear obvious but often we don’t think about why this is the case.
This article details five reasons why localization matters based on statistical data, with practical examples to understand its power and how it can be used by video games developers and publishers to achieve their goals.
1. Make your game relevant
2. Improve user reviews
3. Engage communities
4. Leverage the power of local influencers
5. Achieve a wider reach
1. Make your game relevant
The first reason why localization truly matters may seem obvious but that does not make it any less significant: if we cannot understand something, it may as well not exist.
Boiled down to its simplest implication, if a game is not understandable for a player, it has no relevance for them. The game that players would enjoy and invest time and money in is completely unknown to them.
You may have spent thousands of hours on development and promotion to create a compelling experience to be loved by many but it will have all been for nothing if the audience cannot get past the title menu.
In essence, this is what localization solves for; much more than just translating content. It makes that content exist for the target audience. It makes it relevant to them.
Currently, most Western companies will develop their game in English to reach the maximum number of potential players from the start. This means they still think of localization as ‘English to other language’ which, as we will see, is far from being the only way to go.
When playing the English language versions of games, those non-native speakers who are not proficient enough might see their experience hindered. This has been shown to reflect in their perception and reviews.
Even if they were native English speakers, not localizing a title created in this language would mean it would only be comprehensible by a minority of the world’s population, leaving the majority outside your scope.
But of course, English is not the only language games are developed in. It is not even the language most people play games in.
Any developer neglecting to appropriately localize their game into Chinese, will be missing out on the chance to obtain revenue in the world’s biggest market.
Of course, for Chinese developers, the same applies and focusing on the domestic market only will make the product invisible to millions of potential players outside China.
The examples mentioned before are so paradigmatic not only because of the size of the markets, but also the very patent differences in language.
Not sharing alphabet may make it seem like these two languages have a wider gap to bridge between them. The truth is that to a French speaker, for example, English or any other language can be exactly as foreign and impenetrable if they have not learnt it before. They may recognize the letters if they share the alphabet but have no clue what they mean either way.
Obviously, no one can localize into every single language that exists.
Take a game that has been developed in English: localization into four target languages would pave the way to access the five biggest markets per revenue (China, Japan, South Korea, Germany). Four more languages and you would cover the entire list of the 10 biggest markets per revenue, making a game relevant to more than a billion potential players.
2. Improve user reviews
So, we have established that localization makes games content relevant for target audiences. Once that is achieved and players pick up the game, you obviously want them to spend time playing and, ultimately, investing money in it.
The obvious driving force that will keep them returning to a title is if they have fun while playing it. Measuring “fun” is not an easy task but we do have a useful tool to track user satisfaction directly from their own experience: user reviews. So, the question is, can localization affect how users review a title?
The answer is yes, it does.
One study analyzed thousands of user reviews in different stores and platforms and found out that roughly 16% percent of them mentioned localization in one way or another.
Most interesting is the correlation between how good or bad those players perceive the game — or how much they would recommend the game to others — and the presence of a good/bad localization, or none at all.
The finding is that more than 80% of reviews with positive localization feedback were also very positive overall.
When presented with quality localization, players tend to give higher ratings to games, thus positioning it higher in the charts or making it easier to earn the coveted “Overwhelmingly Positive” badge on Steam, paving the way for other players to decide to play the title based on other people’s reviews.
Speaking of Steam, discovery in the platform is one of the best promotion tools any company has for their title and, as seen in this recent article by Simon Carless, to make it into the store as a default game for a player in China, you need to localize into Chinese.
This will put the title in a “different store view” with much less competition, which is an incredible opportunity.
On the other hand, in the absence of localization, players can reduce the overall rating by up to 25% while requesting to have the game in their language. These reviews come from the frustration of players that have tried, and maybe enjoyed the game, but know they would enjoy it much more if it were in their mother tongue.
One could deduce that these players would spend more time and money and leave a better review if they did not feel this frustration.
Finally, it is worth noting not all localization efforts will do. In fact, players mentioning localization give a slightly worse rating to games with bad localization than those that request having the game in their language.
The latter expresses a wish for a game they already enjoy but it seems that bad localization hinders the experience in an even more tangible way.
The lack of professional review or text coming from bad machine translation engines without proper post editing are sure ways to obtain a poor localization that will drive reviews downwards.
3. Engage communities
We saw how localization is an essential tool to put your game on the radar of millions of players and how good localization can be decisive in improving user reviews.
But once you have the players’ attention and they have enjoyed your game, can localization help to keep them coming back? Absolutely.
Story-driven single player games are usually bought once but other models, from games-as-a-service to hypercasual mobile titles, rely heavily on two pillars to keep players engaged and active:
New content streams: Players will not be replaying the same content for too long, so providing a steady flow of new maps, characters, gameplay mechanics is essential.
Curated events and promotions: Those periods in between content releases need to be filled with items that retain attention, special events or tasks with rewards that keep players engaged.
Those events and promotions need to be aimed at specific audiences. The players could well be active only in a region to celebrate a local festivity but to truly engage with those specific audiences, you need to speak them in their language, using their codes.
The principle of localization shines the most in these circumstances, where you need to capture the essence of a culture and communicate so that player bases perceive you as part of their culture.
It will never be the same to offer a 20% discount to celebrate Rio’s carnival in a game that is not even translated into Portuguese, than making that same promotion with your game localized, maybe even using puns or local slang to better capture the positive sentiments of those players.
4. Leverage the power of local influencers
Another great way to engage specific communities is to leverage the influencers and thought leaders in that specific region. Although there are a few big names that appeal to the global audience, most of the time the ecosystem is populated by local stars.
If you look at the biggest names of some countries, it is easy to see they prefer localized games that they know their audiences can follow while watching, not to mention the fact that they may not even speak the original language the game was developed themselves.
Failing to get streaming time from these influencers means you could be missing out on millions worth of free publicity for your title.
An example of a very popular streamer and their power is Marmok, Russia’s No.1 gaming Youtuber with 15.6 million subscribers on Youtube. Marmok’s videos are all in Russian and playing games translated into Russian (see screenshot below). A game not localized into that language will probably fall outside his and, most importantly, his followers’ radars.
The Russian market is especially attractive for free-to-play games, as these accounted for 47% of the overall turnover in 2020 (for comparison, on average in Europe, this share is much less, 20%.)
Over in Brazil, YoDa is the No.1 gaming streamer, with 2.1 million followers on Twitch and 11 million hours watched. This young streamer is another great example of a profile with penetration in just one area of the world but with extreme influencing power thanks to a massive local follower base.
Again, by watching his streams you can clearly see he favours games localized into Brazilian Portuguese, so chances to land a spot on his streams probably will only come if you decide to make the game accessible to him and his audience.
According to the latest data by Newzoo, the battle royale genre is the main driving force of the Brazilian market, which in global terms is estimated to see $2.3 billion in revenue in 2021.
Brazil is a booming market for games with an audience with a low English proficiency, so localization and its power to attract influencers and the general audience is key to successfully land in the region.
These are just examples, but we could mention hundreds of similar ones in areas with emerging markets such as the Asia Pacific Region or other Latin American countries.
5. Achieve a wider reach
One thing is certain: whenever a title is well-received by the public, localization ensues. If it had none before, it receives it, and if it did have some, it gets expanded.
We see from indie devs when they hit the spot with a game as well as with the bigger AAA players. This trend applies to every type of game, but it is particularly visible in those that require active communities and a steady following, such as esports.
The popularity and global reach of these can be measured by the number of hours watched on streaming platforms. Below you have a table of the 10 most watched esports on Twitch during April 2021, according to Newzoo. Looking into it, it can clearly be seen how a successful competitive game always has a significant localization effort attached.
One by one, these are the languages the first five are localized into (excluding English):
League of Legends: Text and audio localization into 14 languages
CS:GO: Text localization into 28 different languages
Dota 2: Text localization into 28 different languages
Rainbow Six: Siege: Text and audio localization into seven languages and only text into an additional 8. Total of 15 languages
Rocket League: Text localization into 12 languages
But this relationship between localization and popularity is not only seen in esports. Look at other major players in the industry such as King, who provides support into more than 20 languages, or think of the massive success of miHoYo’s Genshin Impact. It wouldn’t have been possible outside its native China without text localization into 12 languages and voice-over into three apart from Chinese.
All the big names and indie hits are trusting localization to expand their reach and keep their games engaging for players around the world. Anyone wanting to mimic their success might as well follow their lead.
