What did I learn in the Course «Video and Multimedia on the web» in my first semester of the master «Content Strategy» in Graz? Well, there were lot of useful things I can take back to my job:
- Developing the right product message: it was great to learn how to develop a statement message for a product by creating a «Killer argument». Based on a «Boss-statement» (something like: Snickers consists of chocolate with peanuts and after eating you feel really good) you start to develop the «Reason» why people should buy your product. An example for a reason would be: “You loose your good mood when you are hungry”. Then you take it a step further and develop the “killer argument”, something that attacks your product in a surprising way. In the case of Snickers: You are not yourself when you are hungry. Ingenious – wish I had been part of that team.
- Budgeting: I learned that budgets for professional videos have to be thoroughly calculated, including all material and the daily rate of professionals, as well as pre- and post-production. Good videos cost don’t come cheap.
- Animated storyboards: as a newbie to the topic, I was surprised by the fact that an animated storyboard can already be created by simply using three different camera shots.
From Theory to Practice
A very useful part of this course was the “day of practice”. We created 360° pictures, Cinemagrams, Stopmotion Stories and a vertigo film. As you can see below, this really motivated me to keep on trying long after the day had finished. In my first 360° video I will explain to you how we created our first vertigo.
One note in advance: My next tiral session will be outdoors, where there is more light (and no backlight). And I really do hope that the next generation of cameras will not create such blurred recordings. However, I think this is the real additional benefit of this course: every time you start to put theory into practice, you keep learning new things. And this will definitely help me in my job as an online-communication specialist for Pro Natura, the Swiss NGO I currently work for.
If you cannot watch the video due to technical reasons, please try to watch it on youtube:
Link to Youtube «Howto create a Vertigo Effect – a 360° Video Explanation»
The Final Vertigo
Selected Links for Further Information
Wikipedia Article about Camera Shots