Codes & Conventions of a Corporate & Promotional video

In this article we will be looking at the various codes and conventions of a corporate & promotional video. For the first example I will use the promotional video for Graphistudio - a graphics design studio based in Italy with clients across the world.

Codes and conventions of this video include:

Music

The music is slow and not very noticeable which is recommended when making a corporate and promotional video. It fits well with the video.

Interviews

Interviews with the company officials feature in this video. It shows them talking about the history of the company. The video also shows that they have directors from countries such as the UK, US/Canada, France, Spain and others, this portrays the company as being large with investors from around the world. They are also informing possible clients about the type of technology they use and how the company has evolved.

Length

The video is just 6 minutes long, which is the average time for a corporate/promotional video to last.

Lighting

The use of lighting in this video is good and no shot is too dark. This makes the video appear more inviting.

Transitions/Titles

Various transitions are shown in the video. For example the names of the people talking on the video, also the logo of the company is shown at the start of the video.

Here is a second example of a corporate video, this one is similar but the aim is different. The purpose of this video is to motivate employees of BAPD in the United States.

Here are the codes and conventions of this video:

Introduction

Throughout the first minute of the video we can see various people working in open offices with a view of an analogue clock every few seconds on various hours as well as a fast time lapse of people working. This may indicate the work they do is fast and motivates employees to complete all work by a deadline.

Music

The music is fast pace which also shows the company is fast and has motivated employees.

Interviews

These begin after the one minute introduction and show various people from the company including the deputy director, customer service team leader, program analyst, pension benefits analyst, division manager, the actuaries and others. They give a brief statement on what their job is and how they enjoy it. This is good because it shows a high motivation and friendly atmosphere in all departments of the building.

Length

The length of the video is about 5 minutes which is about the right length for a corporate video.

Transitions/Titles

Transitions constantly appear throughout the video, usually showing the name of the person speaking and what their job role is. There are other titles that appear also, for example at 1:50 a headline appears on the screen stating "BAPD's Greatest Resource is its Talented Team". This is done to give a good impression of the company and shows that teamwork is good and regular.

The next example I am going to show is much different from the rest of the others. This next one is a message from the executive of a company to all of his employees. The message is recorded by Greg Secker and the message is directed at the Knowledge To Action Group, of which he is the founder and CEO. It is an end of year Christmas message from the end of 2010.

Music

The first thing that makes this video different from the others is the fact that there is no music anywhere in the video. This is because Greg speaks throughout the entire video and any music playing would distract the viewer from what he is saying.

Transitions/Titles

Again these do not exist in the video either, because there is only one speaker. However some companies may provide videos with subtitles for any employees without hearing.

Background

Since it is an end of year Christmas message, a decorated Christmas tree can be seen behind Greg. It should also be noted that Greg stands to the left of the tree to ensure it is in view on the video, this probably means the tree is meant to be shown in the video to try and get employees into the spirit of Christmas. Lights can also be seen next to the tree.

Interview

Greg Secker is the only person who speaks in this video. He starts off by wishing everyone a merry Christmas and new year and then goes into talking about what his company has achieved throughout the year, he mentions about a new project they have launched in Australia and how well it has grown as well as an awards ceremony in London and The Sunday Times newspaper rated Knowledge To Action in the top 100 fastest growing businesses in the UK. He then thanks the graduates and employees for their hard work that made all of this possible and then goes on to talk about his plans, hopes and expectations for the next year,  2011 before finishing by thanking the graduates and employees for their work and supporting and wishing them a happy Christmas and new year.

What's good about this is Greg has a very positive attitude while speaking, he knows what he is talking about and is very proud of what his organisation has achieved.

The Development and Principles of Editing

The Development of Editing

Eadweard Muybridge was a photographer whom had an interest in how things move. He used camera stills and played them back at at speed which created an illusion to make it seem like that images were moving. His largest amount of work was when he lived in Philadelphia where he produced over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion. The idea behind this is that if you play a series of images together at 24 FPS (Frames per Second), it will trick the brain into thinking they are a video, when they are actually just moving images.



The above is an example of some of his work. This three minute video is a collection of pictures of women. The images are played back together so it looks like it is a video.

The first video cameras were invented in 1895 in France by Louis Lumiere. The United States had their own video camera too, invented by Thomas Edison. Both were invented around the same time. Since these were the first cameras they were too primitive to edit what the films they produced, it was usually one single shot from a single point of view.

Proper edited films did not come about until the concept of editing in camera was invented. This means the film is created shot by shot and the movie progressed by filming the next scene. This is still practiced today, mainly by the Straight 8 film festival - http://www.straight8.net/. This is a competition where a film maker can make an edited in camera movie on a single 8mm film cartridge. The earliest historical example of this is from 1902 "Life of an American Firefighter" shown below.



We can compare this to a more modern video. Here is one from 2011, called "TRAPPED", it was a finalist in the 2011 Straight8 competition.



This was a difficult way to create a film, so earlier film makers would trim shoots to alter a film, these were called clips. However no device or machine had yet been invented that could do this, so it had to be done manually, using a magnifying glass and scissors. The first machine that could do this was invented in 1924 by Iwan Serrurier whom founded the Moviola company. Whether this type of editing was done manually by hand or by using a machine, the technical term for it is "Linear Editing." This is because the clips are being assembled one after another. Between 1920 and the end of the Second World War this was the primary method used to edit films.

In 1945 a new machine was invented by a German company, called Steenbeck. These quickly became the industry standard and they are still used today. Steenbeck continue to produce and market film editing decks - www.steenbeck.com. Below is a demonstration of how a Steenbeck machine was used to edit films.



Another editing machine was invented in 1951 by the Ampex research team. The machine was used to record films onto a video tape. These were also linear editing systems. However these were primitive systems and only suitable for TV, not cinema.

The first non-linear editing systems were invented in the 70s., but they were unsuccessful in the market. EditDroid was invented in the 80s, which was a non-linear system, but again these were also unsuccessful in the market. The first successful non-linear editing systems were invented in 1989, launched by AVID. The Avid editing system was a hardware and software and was based on Apple computer technology. It was also the first computer based system that turned taped data into files. That way the files could be placed onto a timeline to edit. Major developments to allow this to happen included the creation of digital video cameras. The first professional one to come out was the Sony D1 which came onto the market in 1986.

The change from linear to non-linear editing was based on an idea that film or video could be turned into digital information and then changed or altered without being destroyed. Otherwise known as non-desctructive editing. Digital images allowed editing that was not possible with linear editing systems.

The Purpose of Editing

Editing is done on a number of different genre of films or media but it is all done for the same purpose - story telling, It is done by taking control of the audiences point of view. When the media is being filmed it must tell the story the filmmaker wants to tell.

Genre = This is how a film is defined by either it's content or style. For example some genres include comedy, detective, action, romance, thriller.

 

This is a trailer for the TV show Criminal Minds, this is an example of both a thriller and a fictional detective show. Since this is more action-based the scenes in the trailer are fast and change very quick. This is done to make the show exciting and persuade people to watch the show.

 

This is the trailer for the film Happy Gilmore. This is an example of a comedy film.

This is the trailer for What Dreams May Come. This is a drama film.

The Conventions and Techniques of Editing

Setting in and out points

 

 

Dissolve transition between 2 clips

 

Wipe Transition between 2 clips

Cut-away into an interview

Cutting to a sound-track

My Animation compared to others

In this post I will compare my animation to other people's animations.

These are from my own animation which features Jason, a small cut out figure from Friday the 13th, traveling from London, England to Rome, Italy. He walks past the 2 famous landmarks of both cities.

These screenshots are from Cameron Loftus' animation. The storyline appears to be a superhero of some sort flying around Europe and Italy. He also made use of my map and picture of the Colosseum which I used in my own animation.

This is from Tim's animation titled "Lego Dayz'. It is set in a lego based world and although the storyline is hard to pick up on, it appears to be about one lego figure attacking another lego figure for no particular reason. It is a good animation however because the music fits in with it and it is short.

This is actually one of my favourite animations. Made by Marco, it is a recreated animation of a Mario type of video game. It is quite realistic to the game which is what I like about it. It has been very well made and the background is from actual video game footage.

Extra Research

Here are some facts and figures about different types of animation:

Cell Based Animation - The Simpsons

• Created by Matt Groening
• Started in 1989
• First appeared as a short on the Tracy Ullman Show in 1987

Model Based Animation - Gumby

• First model based animation
• Original run 1955 to 1989
• 30 minutes run time

Cut Out Animation - South Park

• Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone
• Originally started in 1997
• 22 minutes run time

Response to comments on my animation

This is my response to the comments I have received on my animation. First off, I do agree with many of the comments in response to my animation. The music worked well with the animation and it was very smooth, however I feel that I could have made some improvements, for example perhaps shown the figure of Jason on the video more as throughout London and Italy not much more than his head could be seen. I think the video was not too long and not too short so the time was perfect. I would have added information about the music on the end credits but at the time when I wrote the credits I had not got the music so I did not know what it was going to be. I have enjoyed working on this StopMotion Animation.

My Animation

This is my animation, NJOY

How I made my animation

Now my animation is complete I will explain how I made it. First off, I had to decide exactly what I wanted my animation to be. Since I have an interest in traveling I decided it would be about that. I managed to take some screenshots from Google Maps of the UK, Europe and Italy. I also got printed off a small figure which was Jason from the 1980s film "Friday The 13th". I printed off pictures of Westminster in London and the Colosseum in Rome. I created in iStopMotion the figure walking from England to Italy and showing the pictures of the 2 cities. After the animation was created I added titles and credits in iMovie and added music in Garageband. The music was traveling music found on YouTube. Here are some screenshots from iStopMotion and Garageband.