What to Consider When Making Web Videos

More and more, companies are turning to web videos over plain text, even for things like About Us pages. Videos can be inexpensively professionally produced, and they are more engaging and dynamic. There are lots of cool things that you can do with videos that just can’t be done in writing. Plus, there are more people willing to watch a video than there are those who will spend the time to read information.

Naturally, there are pros and cons to using videos over text, and vice versa, but if you’ve decided to make the plunge and see how things go, there are some things you should consider.

Should you hire a professional? The most likely answer is yes. While it is easy for anyone to shoot and upload a video to the web, the results aren’t usually very polished. You want to find someone who has experience shooting web videos, since the process is different than putting together a typical video. There are, however, some types of videos where it might be okay to go it alone. For example, vlogs (video blog entries) can be fairly basic, and testimonials can be shot fairly easily with a simple background.

How much money do you want to spend? This will inform the kind of video you shoot, or how many of them you can do.  A single camera by itself may be enough if you’re just recording yourself talking, but you may require multiple cameras, lighting and sound equipment, or even shoot days and a crew if you are trying to take on a more complicated project.

What camera is right for what you want to do? Is this simply going to be a talking head video where the camera can be mounted and pointed in a direction? If so, a relatively simple model will do. Just make sure it has an external microphone port, a headphone port (to make sure the audio is being recorded correctly), a firewire port (for connecting to your computer), and a remote control (since presumably you’ll be recording yourself) at the very least. If you plan on creating a more professional video that will require several locations, you’ll probably want to go with something higher quality. Check out sites like Consumer Reports and CNet for comprehensive reviews on the features of different video cameras.

What kind of lighting do you have available? One of the most common mistakes amateurs make is using inadequate lighting. Professional packages can run you hundreds or even thousands of dollars, but if you are shooting a fairly small area, you can make use of desk and clamp lights to get a better look. Be sure to invest in full spectrum light bulbs, which will help you get better color.

Who will edit your video? Now that it’s shot, the video needs to be put together into a finished product ready to upload. Often, when you hire someone to shoot your web video, they will also offer editing services or be able to provide you with a reference. If you decide to go it alone, there are many programs available on the market designed to make it simple.

Ultimately, it’s important that your video helps to build your brand by showcasing your professionalism and adding new value for your visitors. When formulating a strategy for your web videos, keep this ultimate goal in mind.

Using Online Videos For Recruitment

Recruitment videos are not so much a new idea as they are just now becoming properly utilized by organizations. While the video resume or virtual career fair arguably never took off (I may get hate mail from their supporters), the recruitment video is a strategy that more companies are implementing every day. In my opinion, it comes down to Generation Y. Organizations have been racking their brains over the past few years to figure out how to hire, manage, and retain the notoriously entitled, disloyal, ADHD generation of graduates coming their way. Though I don’t necessarily agree that the stereotypes apply to all Millennials, I do recognize that Gen Yers respond to digital enticements. We are living in the Digital Age and they are Digital Babies. The new problem for employers is that these technology habits have snaked their way into the lives of older generations. It’s no longer one specific recruitment strategy for certain age groups. Now potential employees are all over the board.

With this in mind, it doesn’t make much sense to stick to one recruitment method, or even two for that matter, if that is how you currently operate. Online job postings, paper advertisements, career fairs, networking, employee referrals, social media – you can’t choose one and expect to find the best talent. Spread your resources across the spectrum. Though more characteristic of Generation Y, online videos are great way to widen your scope and reach a more diverse group of candidates.

According to online job site CareerBuilder, in June 2011, there were more than 178 million online video viewers. With the popularity of sites like YouTube, this number will continue to increase. Recruitment site TalentMinded cites an Adweek and Harris Poll suggesting that in the next three years, brands are projected to more than double their spending on online video advertising. Those that sell their products recognize the trend and if you are a recruiter looking to “sell” employment with your company to potential candidates, you should begin to recognize it as well.

While recruitment videos can be a vital addition to current strategies, unless your organization is vested in terms of allowing proper time allotment to online video initiatives, I suggest you shelf the plan until it gains proper support. Placing the wrong video out there for the world to see could have negative consequences regarding your candidate pool. This is assuming your video is viewed at all. Take the time to create an action plan. Budget for what you’d like to accomplish, spend time creating something of quality and authenticity, launch the videos using a well thought through and detailed approach that considers your prime target audience, and take the necessary steps to ensure you obtain as many views as possible.

Online video-for-business promotion site On-Live provides a few valid points when figuring out how to maximize the number of views your videos receive:

• Whenever you use the video, whether in blog posts or a website, embed it from YouTube. Every time you embed your video, it crawls further up the search rankings.
• Remember that YouTube is a social network as well as an online video platform. Find videos like this and comment on them using links to your own video. And, as with a presence on other social network be prepared to field comments on your own content – every negative comment is an opportunity to look like you care what people think of you, and further extol your virtues.
• User Generated Content isn’t the only valid form of video for graduate recruitment, but it’s the most powerful – you can (and should) produce videos explaining your interview process, what each of your roles actually does, what your corporate goals are, etc. but remember, this generation can smell a fraud  -either be UGC or don’t be, but don’t try and fake it, the results of getting caught on a social network would be catastrophic!

While there is a lot of time, energy, and resources required to implement video recruitment in order to reduce the risk of experiencing drawbacks, the benefits of utilizing these videos may be worth the effort. The advantages extend beyond simply conveying your reputation and culture in a new way to talent prospects.CareerBuilder outlines their argument for “Making Video Part of Your Recruitment Mix”:

Increase Your ROI: As technology gets more sophisticated, producing and housing online videos becomes increasingly cost-effective – even more so when you consider the high level of engagement and interest online videos generate over static text. You can also get a lot of mileage out of these videos by distributing them over multiple channels – and encouraging employees to share them with friends and over social media.

Stay competitive: As video increases its dominance as an online communication tool, recruiters who stick with text-based career sites and even text-oriented social networks will find themselves overshadowed by competitors who are using this medium to reach potential employees.

Widen your audience reach: As noted earlier, 178 million internet users watched online video for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer in June 20111.  Video’s popularity as a source for information is only growing, and it is reaching wider audiences on a broad scale, representing the opportunity for employers who use this medium to reach out to a larger, more diverse candidate base.

Strengthen your employment brand: No other medium so completely enables you to showcase your organization and truly make it stand out. Videos help you communicate your employment brand more clearly than any other medium, because potential recruits get to “see, feel, and hear” what it’s truly like to work at your organization from the employees and leaders themselves.

Get higher response rates: According to CareerBuilder internal data, job postings with video icons are viewed 12 percent more than postings without video. On average, CareerBuilder customers receive a 34 percent greater application rate when they add video to their job postings.

Eliminate irrelevant candidates: Videos allow outsiders to decide for themselves if they are a fit for your organization – by enabling them to “meet” your employees and executives, tour the facility and get a feel for what life is truly like at the organization. A good recruitment video covers the most crucial questions job seekers have about why they should apply for your organization. Once job seekers understand what it means to work and be successful at your company, those who do not possess the relevant skills or see themselves as a cultural fit will be dissuaded from applying. As a result, they’ll effectively weed themselves out (saving you the trouble of doing it later).

Don’t get defeated by the prep-work necessary in order to launch an initiative like this. In the end, the candidates should become more aware and invested in what your company has to offer, saving you future time and effort wasted on the wrong type of applicant. Keep an open mind, research your options, and develop the recruitment strategy that is right for your organization. If your processes are the same as they were 15, 10, even 5 years ago, you are probably in need of an update. Once again, we are full-fledged into the Digital Age, so it’s time to accept the changes. Welcome Newbies.

Growing Scope of Animation

Glossary

Article Category: Career Options, More Careers

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Growing Scope of Animation

The scope of animation art is limitless

No Kidding!
Can you imagine yourself in that enviable Gucci dress or the chic Calvin Klein denims that your favourite actor donned recently? Isn’t it a little difficult to visualise? Well, fret no more and picture this: you are seated in the privacy of your home, in front of the television set and you plan to throw a party, however, have no idea of what to wear. Instead of fussing, you switch on the TV and take a virtual tour to the local shopping mall, pick a dress, and try it on using your body profile programmed into the online shopping portal. In a few moments, the store delivers that dress at your doorstep and you are ready for the bash! With motion-capture software, as the next big thing to hit the animation world, animation is no longer just a child’s play.

The more the merrier
Case in point: Project Natal from Microsoft, which is the controller-free gaming concept that uses human body movements to play on the XBOX 360 gaming console. Likewise, animation has grown beyond cartoon films and reached the internet, mobile phones, video games and television channels. This way it is reaching the older generation. It has made the concept of virtual dressing rooms and make-up rooms possible along with online gaming. Supreet Bhamrah, Centre Head and Managing Director, Frameboxx, feels that today hi-speed net is the in thing, which has doubled the scope of animated content and data on mobile sets in the form of 2D flash animation. “Intelligent games such as Sudoku, cricket and picture puzzles are capturing the interests of the corporate world too,” Bhamrah informs. Along with web games, Indian animation is making a mark in the video-gaming world rapidly. Recently, Gameshastra, India’s largest game services company developed the fully indigenous ‘Desi Adda- Games of India’ for Sony Playstation.

Thus the scope of animation art is limitless. Upholding this fact, Bhamrah, gives another relevant example. If you think a handful of sand, a glass of water and a few matchsticks are things too trivial. Think again. These three with a pinch of animation can blow your wits out of proportion. For instance, veteran director Dadasaheb Phalke was among the first few in Indian cinema to create animation using simple objects like coins and matchsticks and photographing them frame by frame. He also used special effects in ‘Harishchandra’, the first silent movie of India!

Designed to thrill
“Indian animation industry is en route to experimental animation that can create animation out of anything under the sun,” adds Bhamrah. The list includes sand, water, light and smoke animation, besides stop motion, chuckimation, puppetry, cut-out and flip-page animation, clay animation and animatronics (use of robotics in mechanized puppets to simulate life). Animation has broadened in scope to include ‘acting for animation’, which, according to Farooq Ahmed Mir, General Manager, Technical Operations, Frameboxx, is a way to teach students to be good actors to be able to breathe life into the characters they create. Through this technique the actor’s emotions, body movements and facial expressions are captured and passed onto that of the animated character.

Animation also covers visual and special effects – VFX and SFX that make surreal look real in movies. The Indian film industry is all set to release its first expensive animated movie featuring Rajnikanth called Sultan the Warrior, which uses 3D, giving it an edge over other Indian movies made so far. Besides outsourcing animated content, Indian animation industry is poised to grow within the homeland due to extensive use of animation across all media.

The Animation Society of India (TASI) believes, “Animation is not just ‘kids stuff’. Today, it is a major industry and a serious career choice for thousands of artists. The global animation industry, which covers TV, games, mobile, films is worth billions in dollars. This industry is making rapid strides in India with the ever increasing availability of creatively satisfying and lucrative career options.”

Learning the art
Animation, literally, means to breathe life into something. “To make a successful animated film, whether 2D or 3D, it is essential for the animator to convey the story well,” opines Bhamrah. Even today there is no other animated film that can beat the popularity record of the simple 2D ‘Ek Chidiya…anek chidiya’ film. For this, he says, it is necessary for students to opt for institutes that give them leeway to build expertise in their favourite field. The course should not be generic; it should offer specialised training in different fields such as modeling, texturing, lighting, storyboarding, scripting, compositing, editing and sound designing among others, depending on the creative abilities of the student. “Before joining a course, one should be able to enjoy the process of making movies besides a basic knowledge of animation,” he adds. With the huge platform available to promote animated content, an animation enthusiast can earn highly both as a full-time and freelance professional. Thus, with the lure to make good money combined with creative instincts, an animation artist can make a virtual trip to Mars a possibility!