Construction and Industrial Longterm Timelapse Video Production Lately, we’ve had a lot of calls from our construction and industrial clients to provide long term timelapse for projects that are going on. So here’s a primer on what timelapse video is and how we break it down. First, let’s define timelapse. Video runs at 24 or 30 frames (pictures, if you will, I don’t want to get into interlace or progressive discussion) a second. What time lapse does is to take one picture every so often, then you combine them into a video, which plays back each picture at 1/30th (or 1/24th) of a second. Interval – this is the length of time between the taking of a picture. The longer the interval, the *faster* the video will play. So if you’ve got a one month timelapse that you take one…
We’ve just come off of our client’s annual convention, held at a large hotel in the Washington DC area. Over the five days of the convention, we shot a lot of video, recorded the speakers in multi-cam, and did on-site editing to play back video as it was happening nearly live. But one thing we did was started months before. And that was creating video “packages” for playback during the conference. The term “package” comes from the broadcast world and refers to pre-produced video stories usually used in live event to highlight an upcoming act, highlight what was happening backstage or what transpired earlier. You see this a lot in the live portions of performance shows like American Idol or America’s Got Talent. You’ve seen them a hundred times– the video of the artist explaining why they chose this song,…
As we’ve been brought on to shoot a lot of different construction and industrial projects that are large in scope, we’ve had the opportunity to really dive into shooting time lapse. Timelapse photography is the use of cameras to take a series of “stills” that when played back at 24 frames or 30 frames a second, creates a “fast-forward” video effect. Because they are only stills, not officially video, just about any camera can be used for timelapse. And with the quality increase in cameras, the stills are usually a much higher quality than if it was shot at video. It’s really a matter of math: A high def video picture size might be 1920 by 1080 pixels or lines. A still might be 5000 by 3000. So you can shoot wide and zoom in potentially without any quality loss….
Today, businesses and corporations are seeing the power that comes from a viral video campaign. With sometimes minimal financial effort, companies can reach millions without spending millions. There’s only one problem– a successful viral campaign can’t really be guaranteed. You can spend the money and inflate the numbers somewhat, but at the end of the day, successful viral videos can be categorized into three styles and have one thing in common– compelling content. Let’s define “compelling” in today’s computer age. In a viral video campaign, the word means that a user readily and eagerly clicks the “play” button and more importantly, then clicks the “share” button. This is what “compelling” means. The audience is compelled to watch and share. So for companies that feel it imperative to take a company powerpoint and turn it into a viral campaign often miss…
A lot of corporate video companies have a “corporate” approach that may come across as too scripted or even fake at times. S-Films focuses on ensuring your company’s image looks professional while also allowing the personality of the individuals in the video to shine. Whether you need training videos, infomercials, or other type of video in a professional environment we have the expertise and team to make it happen. While we help you craft a good script we also do encourage the freedom of fresh ideas and spontaneous thoughts. Corporate video production doesn’t need to be cold or boring or scripted all the time. We can help your company produce a creative and fun video that highlights each person’s individuality and aspects of their personality that people can remember and connect with. We can also help you find local talent…
From time to time, production companies will hire freelancers to fill the gaps on various video productions. Rarely are two video projects the same– and each project requires a different set of tools and personnel. So almost every production company will hire freelancers at one point or another. The Four “A’s” When we look to contract freelancers, we run everyone through our “4 A” filter– Attitude, Ability, Availability, Affordability, and in that order. Attitude- Many years ago, we did a large corporate conference in Dallas, and the AV company promised me the best audio engineer in town. He was good, but he brought a real bad attitude and had to be replaced. Attitude trumps ability every time. Ability- The freelancer has to be talented. Their level of expertise can directly effect the production value of the project. And depending…
The key to powerful, effective corporate video productions is the ability to produce with different styles. When I worked for a video production house in Dallas in the 90’s, a client of mine would always tell me faces, faces, faces. We were doing sales motivational videos for people selling insurance. I had tried to put some fancy transitions in, and the note back was to get rid of the “color bars” at that transition point and to put in more faces, faces, faces. So as we shot for our insurance client, we adjusted to shoot close ups of the people. These sales people were not interested in cool effects, and brilliant cinematography– they wanted to see themselves up on the big screen. As we’ve shot some scope-of-project pieces for a construction client, the opposite has held true– the notes come…
Construction companies in the Dallas Fort Worth area are utilizing the powerful tool of video more often these days. A video can demonstrate the abilities of a construction company when still pictures and plans fail. We have been called upon often to film large construction jobs, important tools and equipment, and ongoing operations. If a picture is worth a thousand words, remember, there’s 24 of those every second in a video. And what we’re finding is that construction takes a special skill set to properly photograph and cover with video. Some of our clients have started a large multi-year job and call us in halfway through, relying on video shot by the contractor or the guy in the sales office. They immediately notice a difference when they see our videos and often express to us, that they wish they had…
Dallas, Texas, has been a hot spot for corporate video production, increasingly over the last 30 years. With the North Texas area being centrally located in the United States, Dallas is a strategic location for company headquarters. Back in the 1980’s Exxon moved it’s worldwide headquarters to Irving (a suburb of Dallas) and many other corporations have followed suit. This has led to a high demand for corporate video production in Dallas and nearby Fort Worth. Especially with the growth of web and internet videos, companies are searching for reputable video and film production houses to help create short web videos for sales and marketing. Dallas offers generally lower rates than the two coasts. Being a relatively non-union state enables the corporate client’s dollars to go directly to the production value on the screen. And the crew in Dallas and…
Dallas Event Marketing Video Production Services from S-Films Part of our specialty is covering corporate seminars and conferences. We’ve been asked to do everything from a one camera in the back of the room setup, to a live webcast through Google Hangouts, complete with multi-cameras and a switcher. Conference video coverage usually breaks down into these categories: Simple one-camera record and run; multi-camera coverage; shooting for iMag (image magnification); and broadcast. We have shot and handed footage over to our clients to take back to their in-house department to edit, and we’ve provided turn-key, all the way to finished edit for some clients. The simplest approach is the one person, one camera shoot. The videographer sets up in the room and shoots the speaker. Audio is patched through the in-house sound, or a wireless lav mic from the videographer…
