River Tees Rediscovered have requested we make a short film which will promote the projects which run along the River Tees, hoping to increase awareness and increase visitor numbers. In this task, I will present examples of Digital Video and how it is used so River Tees Rediscovered can use similar methods with their project.
Short Films - Vimeo
Starting with the same kind of digital media we aim to create, Short films. Currently, one of the best platforms for short films is Vimeo. Founded in 2004, Vimeo is a video sharing website in which users can upload and share their own creations. Unlike other video sharing websites, Vimeo is primarily used by aspiring filmmakers and the website itself promotes that, sharing 'Staff Pick's of the best short or experimental films every few days, as seen in the screenshot below which shows Vimeo's home page:
In this example of Digital Media, the media (short films) is very accessible to the people using the site with 'the best' short films being presented in a very prominent banner at the top of the page. The banner shows a series of 5 short films that Vimeo recommend you watch. The colours are very bright and draw attention to the banner since the rest of the website background is plain white.
This is the sort of digital media that could help River Tees Rediscovered on their own website, having a banner at the top of their site showing the short film we create. This would instantly catch the attention of the audience, drawing them in to watch it before they do anything else.
Promotional Material - YouTube
Another type of digital media comes in the form of promotional material or advertising. YouTube, another video sharing website similar to Vimeo, heavily advertise on their website. From the second you are on the home page, advertisements are seen before anything else however these adverts fit in well with the rest of the site as they link to videos which have been uploaded in exactly the same way any other use content will have been uploaded and is equally accessible. The home page advertisements blend in even more on Mobile Devices as they are displayed exactly the same as other videos just with an 'Ad' symbol underneath.
Another type of digital media comes in the form of promotional material or advertising. YouTube, another video sharing website similar to Vimeo, heavily advertise on their website. From the second you are on the home page, advertisements are seen before anything else however these adverts fit in well with the rest of the site as they link to videos which have been uploaded in exactly the same way any other use content will have been uploaded and is equally accessible. The home page advertisements blend in even more on Mobile Devices as they are displayed exactly the same as other videos just with an 'Ad' symbol underneath.
Advertisements are also shown before the majority of videos. They are usually 30 seconds and can often be skipped however the shortness of these videos means they should aim to grab the attention of the viewer in a very short time.
Promotional material could be a very helpful digital media method for River Tees Rediscovered as they could advertise the short film and their other projects through YouTube and other websites which allow advertisement
User Generated Content - YouTube
YouTube is also the biggest and most used website worldwide for use created content. Anyone can create a video and upload it for the world to see. Too put the scale of YouTube in perspective, in the 10 years it has been running there have bee approximately 816,417,600 hours of footage uploaded to the site. Because anybody can upload a video, the types of video can range from an official film trailer by a professional companies verified YouTube channel to a lyric video to a song which somebody decided to make in their spare time. There is a such a variation of content on the site. The home page of the site is set out to show a mixture of all the kinds of videos from different creators. The videos on the home page are often the videos which have received the most attention i.e. most views, best like/dislike ratio etc.
Since anybody, anywhere can watch videos someone has uploaded, many random, second thought videos people upload have actually gone viral and sometimes led to the uploader receiving internet fame, even if just for a short time. However, many professionally made videos, intended to go viral also have received massive attention on the internet. Viewers are able to share the videos they watch on sites such as Facebook or Twitter. This makes YouTube the perfect platform to upload a video to be shared on other sites, possibly in hope of it going viral.
Film Trailer - IMDb
The first thing a user will see when they open IMDb is a series of links to the latest film trailers. This is a form of promotional material but not just for the film, it also helps the site as well. When someone visits the site they instantly see trailers and feel inclined to watch them and even if they don't want to watch any of the trailers shown they will be under the impression IMDb has many other trailers to view. This will also be shown by the 'Browse more trailers' button below the 3 shown on the main page.
The first thing a user will see when they open IMDb is a series of links to the latest film trailers. This is a form of promotional material but not just for the film, it also helps the site as well. When someone visits the site they instantly see trailers and feel inclined to watch them and even if they don't want to watch any of the trailers shown they will be under the impression IMDb has many other trailers to view. This will also be shown by the 'Browse more trailers' button below the 3 shown on the main page.
Virtual Reality Tours - Google Maps
Virtual Reality Tours are a form of Digital Media in which a user can navigate around an area which has been captured by 360 degree cameras and aims to simulate actually being in that area. The most common form of VR Tours is Google Maps which allows you to explore the entire world via VR Tour or, as Google call it, Street View. On Google Maps the user drags a small orange figure onto the map, anywhere in the world, which will transition them to Street View, allowing them to explore the area without actually being there.
Virtual Reality Tours are a form of Digital Media in which a user can navigate around an area which has been captured by 360 degree cameras and aims to simulate actually being in that area. The most common form of VR Tours is Google Maps which allows you to explore the entire world via VR Tour or, as Google call it, Street View. On Google Maps the user drags a small orange figure onto the map, anywhere in the world, which will transition them to Street View, allowing them to explore the area without actually being there.
Virtual Reality Tours are also used in other ways too such as on University websites, allowing the users to explore the accommodation and other facilities without having to visit the University itself.
There are all kinds of different types of Digital and Interactive Media which use different file types/video formats. There are all kinds of Video Formats but here are some of the most common ones:
- QuickTime (H264)
- AVI
- Windows Media Video (WMV)
- MPEG-4
- FLV
- WebM
Some of these Video Formats are better than others. For example, the H.264 video format is considered the new standard when compressing a video down. In comparison, H.264 is now much better for compression then MPEG-4, which was considered the standard previously. H.264 has advantages over MPEG-4 such as a smaller file size for longer recording time better and more fluent video quality and playback after the compression.
Compression can be either lossy or lossless. Lossless means that when a file is compressed, none of the information is lost. This means that you would be able to decompress the file afterwards and the file would be restored to it's original condition with all the original information. However, with lossy compression, some of the information is removed from the file. This means that if you were to decompress the file again, it would not be the same as the original as some of the information has been permanently lost. This does not mean that it is majorly noticeable to anyone looking at the photo but not all the information will have been restored.
Lossless compression is mostly used in image files whereas lossy compression is mostly used on video files because it is not entirely detectable to an audience. An example of lossless compression is the GIF image file type. An image file type that does use lossy compression is a JPEG.
Websites such as YouTube or Vimeo accept all these different video file types. YouTube also gives recommended resolutions when uploading video files to their site:
- 2160p: 3840x2160
- 1440p: 2560x1440
- 1080p: 1920x1080
- 720p: 1280x720
- 480p: 854x480
- 360p: 640x360
- 240p: 426x240
1080p is now the standard in television and film but YouTube and other online video uploading sites allow much higher video quality to be used. The highest quality available now is the recently incorporated 2160p, otherwise known as 4K.
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