An Outline of the Video Production Process - Part 3

An Outline of the Video Production Process - Part 3

An outline of the video production process. All the steps in creating a video product. What to watch for and what to expect along the way, plus how a professional artist and crew can take the intimidation and stress away!

ORIGINAL MUSIC or LIBRARY MUSIC TRACKS
There is almost never a production where music should not be used. Music is a fundamental element that provides an emotional identity and an emotional impact to your production. The choice of a particular music track, then, is very important to most productions.

There are two approaches to acquiring production music. The ideal way is to have an original track created for or scored to your video. A custom track will literally be made to work and fit your specific production. This can be prohibitively expensive unless the company you work with offers in-house virtual instrument music production, and a composer who knows production.

If you decide not to use a custom track, the next step is to turn to “library music” tracks, which are rights-cleared and produced for production. This was once a second-rate quality solution, but today’s top libraries are wonderfully produced and vast in scope. Often, name-famous performers and composers are contracted to create various collections of music – music that you can use in your production, available in any imaginable style.

 

VIDEO EDITING

The heart of video post production is editing. Generally speaking, “post production” is anything after the shoot and voice recording sessions. All the elements have been acquired, and now the puzzle must be assembled. Unlike a pre-set puzzle, though, this one is always freeform and requires an artist to bring the various elements together in a way that not only works logically and emotionally, but also serves to deliver your important message in the most efficient way.

Editing is much more than just sticking bits of video and audio together in a line. A great editor can bring footage to life in a manner that an average competent editor just cannot do. This is because editing is an intuitive art form that has to be learned over years of handling footage and making the right decisions by learning from past mistakes. An artful, excellent edit can bring average or even sub-par raw footage to life and rescue an otherwise dull program.

The first stage of the edit process will be for the editor to go through the various raw footage sources and “digitize” them into the computer memory, making them available as virtual “clips” to choose from. Then, an initial or rough edit will be made with just the raw video set against the voice track and music. This is important because the audio establishes the timing of everything and many video edit decisions are based closely on the audio elements.

Once done, this initial edit will be taken into another stage where graphics, special effects, and other design elements are added.

MOTION GRAPHICS & SPECIAL EFFECTS

A wonderful edit is magic in and of itself, but It is in this next stage of post production where a more obvious and exciting kind of magic happens.

Motion Graphics – In modern video production, almost everything moves and develops visually throughout a spot or program. Logos fly and morph into other graphics, video appears in windows that superimpose over other backgrounds, and colorful borders and shapes make an emotional impact and catch the viewer’s eye and hold their attention. Even the simple “name matte” in the lower screen over a speaker is rarely static text, but is animated, glowing, and evolving in and out of existence.

This technique and approach is generically referred to as “motion graphics” and this is what makes today’s television “look” have that polished, animated, and interesting feel. Without it, a production looks boring and “amateur” – exhibiting the dreaded “Cheap Local Look.”

As an artist, I love to put the graphic “polish” on a spot or program, and sometimes the graphics are the only elements we have to work with. Many excellent spots and programs or segments of them have no actual video resources, but are graphics, photos, or other design elements ONLY. These are presented in an animated and interesting manner using the techniques of motion graphics!

Special Effects – Motion graphics are a special effect, of course, but here we refer specifically to what most people think of by that term – special visual effects like explosions, keys and mattes (like green-screen shoots of people that are superimposed over other backgrounds), star trails, smoke, glints and gleams off objects or logos, image tiling, morphing and bending of objects, and so on.

The possibilities are truly endless, and many will be surprised to learn that the effects that can be achieved at a single computer, boutique level are every bit equivalent to Hollywood feature films, and often are used for such films. That means that you can have an effect that is truly Hollywood quality without that big L.A. price tag.

One important note about motion graphics and especially special effects. It is the sign of an artful and experienced editor or digital artist that he or she is reserved in the use of effects. "Effects for effects sake" can ruin a project and place it immediately in the “amateur” category for viewers because the effects distract from the message. That said, a judicious and artistic use of just the right effects can bring an otherwise plain piece to life and propel the viewer’s interest and involvement with your program or spot.

Once the effects and motion graphics are added to the base video edit, the combination of it all is “rendered” into a separate piece of video (a movie file) and is sent back to the edit system for finalizing and mastering.