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Posted August 12, 2022 by Diego Escala

Video can be both the simplest and most confusing thing to have to deal with. It’s very much something that feels like a mountain of an obstacle to have to climb over to understand, but honestly when distilled into small parts it’s overall a pretty simple concept. And video is definitely something worth investing the time into learning, as people continue to gravitate toward different types of video consumption from their preferred media sources. If you do decide to break into video content for your product, here are a few things to keep note of.

One Size Does NOT Fit All

A common misconception is that you can make a single video and simply toss it on any app or platform, and it’ll look perfectly fine. A standard HD YouTube video will clock in at 1920 x 1080; but just because you made a video that fits on YouTube doesn’t mean you can take that same video and throw it up on Instagram. 

“Reels,” as they’re called on Instagram, measure in at 1080 x 1920, or video posts can come in at 1080 x 1080. Taking a landscaped (horizontally oriented) video doesn’t always transfer well to other resolutions. A nifty trick that’s grown in popularity recently is to sort of “cheat” thing a bit by taking a landscaped video, centering it in a portrait (vertically oriented) or 1:1 square resolution, and taking the same video but blowing it up to fit the background space while heavily blurring it so only the centered video stands out. 

If you’re a frequent Instagram user you’ve likely seen videos like this, and it’s a quick way to be able to circumvent the size differences of various apps. So if you plan on reusing a video you’ve created, just be aware of the size differences of every platform out there; it’s a quick thing to search for and it’ll save you any stress of having to scramble to fix an improperly sized video after it’s been uploaded.

The More the Merrier

When devising a video concept for your product or company, it can be easy to imagine how it’ll play out and make a sort of imaginary checklist of all the shots you want in the video. A common mistake with this is that videographers or photographers end up going out and getting only those specific shots, and when they finally get into the editing room they realize they might have too little footage for the timeframe they want to hit, or perhaps the shots they took weren’t good enough. This could cause you to have to spend more time (and money) to go back to the filming stage, and in turn delaying the project. It’s almost always better to have more footage than you actually need, because at the end of the day it’ll save you an immense amount of time and stress on the chance things go sideways in the editing room.

 Learn Your Shortcuts

This may seem like an obvious one, but you’d be surprised how many people I’ve met who neglect this. Whatever video editor you decide to use, take the time to learn the shortcuts for the important actions; trust me, it’ll save you a ton of time. If you’re feeling particularly bold, buy one of those videogame mice with all the buttons on them; you can use all those extra buttons to set custom shortcuts and even have that mouse as your dedicated mouse purely for video editing!

Need a video concept to turn into reality for your food or beverage brand? Contact Brightly Creative for more information on creative video pitches and implementation.

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