3 – 5 min max!!
Tube Mogul Research
These days I do my fair share of videography / multimedia / photo film or whatever you want to call it. Probably more than the average photographer and I love all the creative options it offers in being able to tell a story .
That being said, if you do start to get into this type of work you will probably run into lots more paperwork, budgets, scripts, 20 page proposals and complicated production schedules than your average photography job. Another thing I also find, is that most of my clients think they get more value for their money if they have a longer film. i.e. 10 min or 30 min.
The problem with that idea is that most of my clients don’t show their video in a movie theater or on TV, it is shown via the web with all the distractions of email, Twitter and Facebook to steal their audience away from their video. Clients love the web because it is an extremely cost effective way to publish their video to the public and it has added benefits that TV can never have like viral dissemination to help spread their message to more people than they could reach by themselves.
Most clients think that everyone will of course want to watch their video because they are amazing and if they don’t, it’s because you didn’t do a good job.
Well …… sort of.
Most of us that are hired for this type of work know how to make something that isn’t total crap, which is why they hired us to start. Where you failed in doing your job was not in the content that you created but that you didn’t convince the client to change the length of the video to something more watchable online. So as you can see this is pretty dam important. If you don’t convince your client to change their epic film ideas to something more realistic and effective they might think you did a crap job even though you didn’t.
So how do you convince your client to change their 15 min epic corporate video to a 3-5 min video?
- Ask them when they last watched a video in full online? What kind of video was it? How long was it? If it was a corporate film or NGO film that is more than 5 min put it on in the office and wait to see how long it takes for someone to start talking. Most of the time I find people start talking in 2-3 min. AMAZING!! You prove your point right there.
- Next show them some independent marketing research to back up your professional opinion. This helps out a lot with skeptical clients.
Ok the first part is easy and may be enough to convince your client, but sometimes …. I know wait for it…. Clients are difficult. Shocker I know!!!
So now armed with some independent marketing research on online video length you can change their mind and earn some professional respect to boot. But wait! Where is this marketing research your telling me about??? Well it is below so stay with me.
Back in old 2008 a great photography professor at the University of San Francisco, Ken Kobre, found some companies that published their research about the length of time people will watch online videos. Now you won’t find this awesome research on his new site but thank god he didn’t delete his old blog and you can still see his informative blog post here: http://kobrechannel.blogspot.com/2009/01/whats-perfect-online-video-length.html
Now I wouldn’t tell a client that “Ken Kobre says this and that,” even though he is my hero for publishing this great post. I would point them or give them a link to Tube Mogul. Tube Mogul is the company that did the research and they would be the authority http://www.tubemogul.com/research/report/18
I also like the other research that Kobre found from another source but strangely enough their website doesn’t work anymore.
Finally, I have found some other peoples thoughts about this topic that is more current than 2008. Here are the quotes:
Jeff Misenti – VP of Fox News Digital – “the drop-off (watching vid online) after 90 sec is pretty severe.”
Joel Schwartzberg, – A director at PBS digital – “[he] cites attention span of 3 minutes for video.”
Anyways, I hope this helps you out on your next web video project. If you have any comments, strategies or other research you use to convince your clients to change the length of their video, please share them below in the comments.
Painting with light
150 Layer Light Painting
For over a 2 years i have been lucky enough to befriend a really great guy and talented photographer, Boris Zuliani. He used to live on Truc Bach lake and we would have beers in the evening with other photo buddies talking about our love of photography and film (or until our wives or girlfriends called). Boris’s true love and art in photography is light painting. He uses it with great skill and passion in his personal work and for some commercial work.
When I first saw his work I thought it was just beautiful. I loved how soft the light was and at the same time giving the exposure a different kind of contrast then that of a normal photograph.
As Boris and I talked over beers I started to think about making a video of light painting. I didn’t want to make a “tutorial” video showing the process of light painting, but more about the feeling light painting gives to the subject and showing the gradual exposure of a photograph out of darkness.
Then some time later……. I met a randy young lady named Gillian. Boris had done a couple of light painting portraits of her and she said that the experience was so different from any other portraits she had posed for in the past. She explained it to me, but this was some time ago and my brain has been punished by Hanoi’s cheap beer so i don’t remember word for word. Though, I do remember her saying how much she enjoyed it and that the experience was something special.
Then some more time passed…….. Boris called me up and pushed me to make the video. Then Gillian called me up and pushed me to do it as well.
Time to put my thinking cap on. I had to figure out a way to show a light painting photo slowly exposed in video format using the extra variable of time. Hmmmm…. then i figured it out (oh that engineering degree served me well).
I would use a very slow shutter speed and do a kind of time-lapse while Boris did his painting. Then i would layer the photos to be gradually exposed over time and make all the layers add the new exposure to the old one (yeah i’m a nerd for this stuff).
So me and my gun-hoe /semi intoxicated team went out one night by West Lake (Ho Tay for the natives) and shot this video in 40 min.
Post production took an incredible 24 hours of rendering in CS5 Premier Pro with my i7 core iMac (thing was burnin’ up!!!). I guess that is what you get when you have 150 layers in a video editor.
No grading, special effects or effect editors (After Effects or Motion) were used to make this (except for my logo). The video and photos were shot on a 5D Mark II and the video was all shot hand held at 50mm.
Now making sure that the subject was fully exposed is tricky because when we did the light painting in this way you can’t see what you have exposed, which is why some of Gillian’s leg is not exposed. Also you have to remember that each exposure adds to the next exposure so i also had to be careful not to make my image too bright or too dark other wise the final image would be over or under exposed. I think the exposure was perfect for the layering, we just missed a part of the leg. I’m putting blame squarely on the intoxicated aspect of the project.
All and all, I am happy I was able to do this and thanks to my buddies for helping do so. It was something fun, different and somewhat challenging.
It could be interesting to make a clothing designer commercial like this. If your keen for that please drop me a line.
And now the final video. Thanks for watching.
Light Painter: Boris Zuliani
Model: Gillian Sturtevant
Photography & Video: Ehrin Macksey
Music: NiN
Nha Trang, Vietnam Wedding Video
*** UPDATE ***
If your looking for Vietnam wedding photography or videography services please visit my new wedding business : MWeddings | Destination Photography & Film | Vietnam & Southeast Asia
*******
Back in 2010 Kim, the bride to be, and i started to talk to her about making a video of her wedding day. I asked her a lot of questions about music and what will be some of the activities at the wedding. Since she was overwhelmed with organizing the wedding she didn’t have much time to respond to me. So i kind of went into this job half blind, which always makes me nervous.
About 2 weeks passed by and i found out that the wedding would be held at the Six Senses Resort. Six Senses is a private secluded island that you can only get to it by boat. Not such a bad place to work if i do say so myself.
Since there were 2 photographers already going to be at the wedding taking photos Kim didn’t want 2 guys filming as well. She felt that it would have made it a circus having that many people documenting the event. I agree with her and don’t. Weddings happen fast and no one waits for the photographer or the video guy to prepare something. You have to think fast and work even faster to get good images. In my opinion, if i had another guy shooting video i could have covered sooooo much more of the actual event and of the preparation. With two shooters one person would cover the groom getting prepared and the other would cover the bride.
Since i was working on my own, i had to run back and forth between the two which means i lost time filming since the groom and bride were staying 15min away from each other. If i was to do another wedding video again i would also suggest getting a full Steadicam system which has a vest and a stabilizing arm. It would have been nice to have gotten some good movement shots of the wedding.
I did shoot almost 99% of this video handheld using a custom built RedRock system I designed. To me hand held gives you an almost a POV of what you would have seen if you attended the wedding. I like that.
Later on when I was documenting the preparation of everyone in the wedding I found out that Kim’s sisters and brothers were pretty famous musicians in Australia. They had written a song for the occasion and were going to perform it on stage at the wedding dinner. So with not much preparation or an idea on how i would edit it, I shot as much as I could of their rehearsal so that I could maybe cut together a nice music video of the wedding and the song they wrote.
I really like how this video turned out, but it would have been nice to be able to shoot some more or have another shooter with some more angles ect. Also I really wish I could have had time to record the song separately from their performance as the only audio i had was recorded through the PA speaker system they used. This is defiantly not the best for recording sound and at times the recording has some distortion because of this.
All in all, it was a great experience and it was an honor to be able to document Kim & Scott’s wedding day.
Here are the two video. I hope you enjoy them.
Ehrin
Nha Trang Wedding Music Video from Ehrin Macksey on Vimeo.
Nha Trang, Vietnam Wedding Video from Ehrin Macksey on Vimeo.
5D Mark II & Bhaya Cruises TVC
In September, the agency that represents me, Noi Pictures, contacted me about a new contract they got from Bhaya Cruise. The contract was to produce a TVC type film in 5 languages to promote their cruises.
When i first thought about this project I instantly thought that i should use my 5D Mark II to make it. I had used the camera to make a short video for Blue Dragon and i really liked the results and image quality. Now, keep in mind, there are many issues with using this camera, but i found (after a lot of research) a lot if not all the solutions to fixing these. With those issues in mind, me and Francois (my super agent) set out to shoot the most beautiful TVC we could do in 3 days.
I did have some great talent, Ruth and Issak who made my life so easy as i didn’t have to direct them too much. Surprisingly enough they had read the script (like actors are supposed to do) and knew what i was looking for. Thank god for them and for them being professional at their job.
A lot of people have asked me what equipment did i use to shoot this? Well i did not use much. I used my dolly and boom that i bought as well as a trusty tripod. Besides that, i used the motion of the boat to my advantage to get some nice shots and stuck to my storyboard.
Also, if you look carefully the sunset it is a time-lapse i shot with the camera. These are all still photos connected together to create a time-lapse shot. I think there were 1000 something photos to make this. I don’t recommend this to everyone as it reduces the life of your shutter, but for me it is worth it.
If anyone has any other questions about this shoot i am happy to answer them.
-Ehrin
Me?? 100 notable multimedia professionals. Thank you!
Over the last 4 months I have had a serious increase in hits on my website. I went to my Google Analytics and low and behold the traffic was coming from Tracy Boyer‘s website Innovative Interactivity. Seems that she has put me in a list which has the top 100 notable multimedia professionals in the world. For those of you that don’t know what ”multimedia” means in the photography world, it basically means the combination of photography and video / film. I am highly honored to be included in this list with big industry name people like Andrew Devigal, multimedia editor for the NYT and Brian Storm, owner and producer of Media Storm.
Tracy if you see this post. Thank you for thinking so highly of my work.
Blue Dragon
About a month ago i met cool and friendly Ruth Mortimer who works for Blue Dragon. Blue Dragon is an local Hanoi organization that gives underprivileged kids a better chance at life. Ruth asked me if i wouldn’t mind donating some time to the organization and make a short video for them. I was happy to help.
I had one day of filming as i am in the middle of another project. This made all the shooting very fast. Ruth did a great job helping me organize the kids and getting the interviews done quickly.
The video is a thank you video to World Vision for their generous support.
So here it is, hope you enjoy it.
Finished
After months of meeting different organizations, officials and documenting my 2 stories about leprosy in Vietnam, my work is done. You can see my finished work at http://www.ehrinmacksey.com/Multimedia.html
I have asked a couple of people who are considered experts in the industry to review my work and i happy to receive that they thought very highly of my work.
When you spend so much time both emotionally and physically on a project like this you hope that it truly touches people and makes them want to help or understand more.
Here are some of my reviews below and thanks again to everyone for their support:
Duck Rabbit – where photography, art, audio and journalism collide
Week of Work
Well, I have been working like crazy to get my new websites up. I’m designing one for photography and another one for web design.
On top of that I have finished a new website for a group of talented journalists who I have joined in our quest for freelance multimedia. The website is http://www.ontheroadmedia.com
I very happy with the work I did on this website, it looks simple but is advanced in the navigation and operation.
Besides that I got some crazy skin things happening to me lately. I got smacked in the face with something while driving on the road (motorbike). Then I got some strange rash under my arm. Well things like this are kind of normal when your living in a developing country and should go away soon, I hope.
I attached a photo of my apartment. Nothing crazy or anything just so you can see that I’m not living in a hole.
I’m going to go out for more shooting next week so I will hopefully post some new stuff soon.