Philadelphia Magazine reached out to us to produce a short teaser for their December edition. This is the end-of-year edition for the magazine, and they wanted to do something a little different.
In this edition, Philly Mag sent journalists and photographers out into the field for a day and asked them to capture Philadelphia in their own way. Another unique aspect to this December edition is that the edition actually came out in four different covers.
The goal of the video is to create a short (less than 15 seconds) piece for Instagram to let viewers know that the December edition will be hitting newsstands soon.
Philadelphia Magazine provided us with some images, we talked through the copy (which initially was pretty long especially considering the square format) and were able to pare the content down to the most important talking points. We then had to make sure they would fit within the context of the video we were producing – a short, punchy kinetic text slideshow with no audio.
So why tell this story? Creating a video like this is not necessarily ‘difficult’ and the photos were provided by Philly Mag – we just had a hand in the editing.
This project highlights the importance of being strategic and tactical with video. Producing corporate videos are not only limited to long format documentaries, under two minute branding videos, or explainer films; there are other videos that are great for marketing. As a video company, we need to be cognizant of that, and be readily available for our clients to do what they need strategically.
At this moment, Instagram and Facebook are the 800 pound gorilla in the room for marketing. Everyone is trying to find a great way to leverage these platforms – and it’s important for us to be able to help them do that.
Something that we find anecdotally funny is the progression of video formatting. For years, we had square televisions and square formatting cameras, capturing 4×3 videos. Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when you were recording video of your kids, it was in square format. Hollywood always filmed in 16×9 widescreen format and it was so exciting when the first widescreen cameras became available in the late ‘90s. When the first widescreen televisions were released, everyone was ecstatic. Finally, we can watch a movie the way it was intended…
As a videographer, we thought “I am never going back.” Everyone has that ‘techy’ video friend yelling at people for years to “turn your phone sideways so your camera records in widescreen and not square!”
The rise of the smartphone gave life to Instagram, and suddenly we’re back to shooting square format again. In some ways it feels like we’re going backwards! But in reality, we just always need to be able to adapt.
Interested in working with Video City on a project? Contact us today.
