Starting from the End: Finishing a Video's Journey

Presenters:

Manny and David, film producers, work with youth, spend a lot of time shooting video, editing, etc.; this presentation begins at the point where you have created the video and now what do you do with it.

Introductions:

• David Valdez, Digital Media Program, YMCA: emphasizes making everyone in the organization video-production savvy.
• Manny: Program associate: he is the tech guy.
• Vy, Center for Multicultural Collaboration: teach youth to make videos about their community.
• Mackenzie, The Redwood Voice: will train new journalists how to create their videos.
• Frankie, CMC/SacYes: wants to know what kind of software is recommended; recently switched to adobe.
• Casey, CMC/SacYES: works at school site.
• Rick, E.D. of youth nonprofit: interested in how to generate video content through youth video production contest and then use it for advocacy.
• Gemika, video assistant with Media Arts and Culture, RYSE:
• Colin, E.D. of EJCW: how to integrate video into community organizing, education, mobilization, etc.

Equipment:

• Record at full HD (1080p); creates a very large file, roughly 1GB per finished minute.
• For uploading to Internet, takes up a lot of space.
• Adobe suite comes with a compressor software component.

Compression:

• Asks, Do you want to upload video to Vimeo? You say, Yes, and compress.
• Helps you avoid hitting your cap on whatever online video host you use.
• Two sites: YouTube and Vimeo.
• Manny likes Vimeo more because it offers a simpler, cleaner look and less advertising.
  • Vimeo offers free account and paid account. Free account limits you to 4GB per month; paid is capped at 50GB per month.
  • Another compression option is to reduce the file size when you export.
  • Vimeo also has channels, playlists, and themes.
  • Offers a nice clean page for your organization.
  • Takes one day to be able to access the video you just uploaded.
  • Vimeo has a music library available, some of which is free, some of which is paid. You can use it for your videos.
• VideoBlocks provides music for videos as well that are free of copyright issues.

Vidoe components:

• Credits
• Supporters and funders
• Signage, i.e., information for a contact, logos, etc.

Toolkit:

• Manny keeps a file on each supporter, including logo, etc. Ask for highest quality logo image.

Post on site:

• this is not where the work ends.

Video sharing:

• Film festival
• Vimeo account

Q: How do you drive traffic to the video?

• Vi uses YouTube b/c it is more popular.
• Casey includes the URL to the video when he gives presentations to youth. The icebreaker for meetings is to have everyone upload the video to their websites, FB pages, share it with their family, etc. It is effective to have a message, “I worked on this. Please visit it.”
• David also adds meta tags.

• Meta Tags: some argue they are obsolete, but he thinks they are still useful. He adds meta tags that include, for example, the name of the organization, the name of the supporters, thematic words, etc.

• Organizational help: Some organizations have a statewide or national reach.
  • Manny had the national CEO add a link to the video and local website in an e-mail blast.
  • Send it to your donors to help them share with their contacts more information about how they are supporting a worthy cause.

• Another note on quality video: It is better to have good audio than video. Invest in a good microphone.

Copyright infringement:

• Garage band (Mac) is royalty free.
  • You can use music available on Vimeo music source.
• Creativecommons.org also has sound and music.
• VideoBlocks also has sound effects.
• AudioJungle.com has additional audio that you can use.
• RYSE has its own audio production studio that comes from the Beat Studio.
  • RYSE has a beat instructor. They record every week.

• Back to generating video content through contests:
• Good to be clear about the components that must be there and the rules for entry, i.e., must have logos, no copyrighted material, etc.
• Good to provide a theme. Can be between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. Can compile them all in one place to share. Can create multiple categories, i.e., most viewed, most shared, top vote getter, etc. Remember, KISS, Keep it short and simple.

• E.g., PSA created for the L.A. Pledge campaign, “Don’t text and drive”. David showed it on his iPad.

Q: What is the set of tools you use for graphics?

• Adobe After effects
• Final Cut / Motion

Resources:

• Youtube.com
• Vimeo.com
• Videoblocks.com
• Creativecommons.org
• Audiojungle.com