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As the online world transitions into rich media content and away from simple static web pages, it is critical to take the time to produce quality content. It is a smart business move to be heading in this direction, but the days of poorly produced video and audio content are behind us. Streaming media had been appealing to site visitors simply because it was unique and ushered in the promise that we had all heard about regarding the web and tv convergence. It was exciting … but it’s time to elevate the level of production quality.
There is precedent for this type of transition when the Mac introduced desktop publishing to the world and many thought that self produced collateral material was sufficient, and the creative skills required to professionally design a piece was overlooked, and in some cases have been lost to history, such as typesetting.
However, as competition tightened a quality control was implemented, it was understood that the knowledge regarding how to use the tools and how to art direct creative materials would return greater ROI and better results. This is the stage that we are just now entering in online content.
This is a Call To Action to start considering elements within the rich media content that you are producing, and to lead the field in elevating to higher standards of production quality.
Basics for art directing a video:
What kind of lighting do you have? Are you shooting against a bright background so that you end up appearing in silhouette?
What kind of ambient noise might be interfering with your production? Even the smallest sounds that you may not even notice every day like fans, refrigerators, typing on a keyboard .. outside noises like leaf blowers will be picked up by the omni-directional microphones that are in use.
Background & Framing of the shot — what is going beyond the focus of your primary element? Have you taken a look through the camera before hitting the Record button to see that there is nothing that will detract from communicating your message?
Have you thought about adding bed music to the recording so that it helps to set the scene and to communicate the emotions that you are trying to portray? Have you produce brand reinforcing opening and closing segments and credits.
It may not be happening now, but in the very near term if you don’t consider these factors when developing your content .. you will be going up against competitors who ARE doing this, and the more professionally produce pieces will win in the end.
Let us know if you are taking these factors into account these days, drop us a comment.
