A client wrote to me the other day. Here was her question:
CLIENT: A production company did a video on cup recycling, and I noticed this evening that if we could get stills from the video, we'd actually have most of the images we need. I recall you saying once that stills from video on are not high res/print quality. But I went back and asked, and they assured me because they shot it in high def, they could create hi res stills. In your opinion, is that accurate?
I responded first with these two sentences:
STANLEY: First I am really impressed you remembered my comment. My comments were not so much about the resolution, but how they are shot.
Then I went on and talked about these points below here. But to inspire you to read on here was her response to my comments:
CLIENT: This is AWESOME, Stanley. I hear every word of what you are saying. All of it. I am taking it to heart and will influence this on my own team.
Aesthetic
Video is about movement
and stills are about a moment. This changes a great deal of how things are
shot. Often many moving shots are not very compelling when you freeze them to
one frame from that movement.
This is why on every
movie set has a still photographer. The stills are done slightly different than
the video.
The Technical
If the video camera is 4k
then you might have a pretty high-resolution image that is usable, but if I
were to grab a frame from my video DSLR camera it still isn’t the resolution
when the camera is set for still photography.
Today many crews use a 4K
camera that is very much a usable high-resolution still image for print and the
web. Just want to be sure the image is sharp. Sometimes during the movement the
sharpness of a single frame isn’t that noticeable until you grab just the one
frame.
If you like the image in
the video and it was shot on a 4K video then the frame may just work.
Know who is pitching to you
There is way too much
emphasis on video. Those promoting it are selling them on this is a replacement
to stills—BIG MISTAKE!!!
Those motion capture guys
[new name for videographers] that are promoting this as a replacement really
are showing lack of knowledge of the industry.
The News Media
The news media have gone
through a lot of changes due to digital and most importantly since 1995 the
web.
For the first ten years
the issue that slowed the progress was the bandwidth. It took a while to get us
from dial up to now the ability to stream HD video on the web.
Once the ability to
deliver video became possible many naïve PR folks started to think this is the
new standard and that the still image was dead.
I recommend before
reading further you go to these television websites where you would expect the
video to be king. Take a moment and do the following.
- When looking at the main page notice how many images in general are used and how big the images are as compared to text.
- Pay special attention to the visual promoting a video link.
- Click on a few of those links to the videos.
- How often did the still image you click on actually show up in the video?
- Do your own survey of a few of the stories on the website.
Newspapers even realize
after trying to lead with video for a while that the numbers don’t lie. People
will click on the still image galleries more than they will watch a video.
Good article addressing
the use of stills as engaging Photos on Facebook Generate 53% More Likes Than the
Average Post
Notice that even when all
these news articles talk about Photos and Video they are using only stills or
graphics for engaging you and not a video Photos and video drive the most engagement on social
media
My point is you have video
production companies over selling and burning chunks of your budget on video
when your media may need that, but need still first. Video is in addition and
not a replacement for stills.
So think about it this
way. You have the opportunity to supply all that an editor needs to post to
their website the way they post their own stories. Sure in a pinch they may
grab a frame from a video, but this is the exception and not the rule for even
TV.
I think that PR needs to
start supplying the package as the media shoots it. Way too many PR firms
continue to operate the way they did in the 1970s. They continue to pitch is
assuming new media outlets have the budget to come and cover their event. Get them to like the
story and let them come and cover it, that was the mentality back 30 years ago.
This is 2014 where their
budgets have all been slashed. I worked at Georgia Tech where we supplied the
entire package. Text, Stills and Video for packages and were used all over the
media regularly. On average we were in the AJC every day of the year.
Georgia Tech is still
ranked one of the top schools and it had a great deal to do with the PR office
I worked in for more than 10 years created. John Toon, director of communication for many years, was the master of getting
stories placed. He knew to not pitch something just because a researcher or
professor wanted it promoted. He vetted those requests and help to get the
cream of the crop.
When John Toon’s material
went to a news director desk they opened it because he was known for giving
them great content and in a way they could use it with very little effort or
budget on their part.
Both—Not Either/Or
Please don’t hear me
saying don’t use video and use stills instead. I am saying you need stills and
video. I think video production companies does a disservice when they tell you
they can do it all and they never have their material in major magazines or
news outlets on a regular basis.
Many of these companies produce
high-end video that is used in meetings and events. Their work is superb. But
it isn’t what the media creates and runs.
