Whole Body Vibration Has Many Benefits

Tag Archives: video production in toronto

Video Production Oakville – Professional Video Content vs User Generated Content

User engagement with video content is higher than ever and the statistics prove it. According to eMarketer, potential buyers are 40% more likely to proactively contact a company after watching their video. In fact, 51.9% of marketing professionals worldwide cite video as the type of content with the best ROI (eMarketer). Between interactive websites, YouTube, and social media platforms, Toronto corporations that have been utilizing video content are seeing tremendous benefits in conversion rates .

Many companies in Oakville who haven’t yet joined the new digital world of video content marketing are now hitting the ground running trying to catch up. Unfortunately, due to ignorance or lack of proper budget, some non-video professionals believe they can produce their company’s video content themselves by using a home camcorder or even through their smart phone or tablet–scary stuff.

The idea of a do-it-yourself or user-generated video production can seem very alluring for the micro-managing entrepreneur as well as for the middle management exec whose looking to stand out in the office. Why go through the trouble and spend the money to hire a professional Oakville video production company to produce your content when you can just produce it all yourself, right? More often than not, what they’re left with in the end is substandard video content that no one will ever watch due to the following:

• Shaky footage

• Shots with poor lighting (sometimes to the extent that you can’t even see the person’s eyes in the video)

• Amateur choice of room backdrops

• Person in the shot with a “greenish tint ” on their skin, making him/her look sickly, because of the fluorescent lighting in the office (no knowledge of colour balance, lighting, and camera white balancing)

• Lousy framing – diminishing the person in the shot

• Inaudible lines spoken from the person onscreen due to low consumer grade camera microphones, loud rumbling room tone from central air, and background noise from the office

• Amateur editing abilities and cheap editing software resulting in cheesy transition effects, on-screen text and titles, reminiscent of some of the early 80’s music videos

• Videos are way too long . . . no knowledge of modern trends for video duration

• Lack of script writing ability, concept development, and directing abilities . . . so often we see people (likely employees of the company) trying their hand at comedy and acting and delivering poorly written lines . . . sad to say we’ve all probably seen examples of this at one time or another. You know when you’ve seen one when it causes you to roll your eyes and sigh in aggravation

Bottom line the results of do-it-yourself corporate videos can be painfully subpar, totally irritating videos that smack of amateur handy work and that totally fail to deliver the message about the company’s products, services, and profile in the market. And if you think that production value doesn’t matter (that any video content is better than nothing) . . . here are some statistics that will prove this theory wrong.

• According to Comscore, professionally produced video optimized for eCommerce outperforms do-it-yourself or user-generated video by 30%.

• And Visible Measures reports that 20% of your viewers will click away from a video in less than 10 seconds. By the 30-second mark, you’ll lose 1/3 of your viewers. By the 1-minute mark you’ll lose 45% of your viewers.

With statistics like this, companies should not risk the integrity of their brand by producing videos through do-it-yourself means. From concept to completion, a video must be properly produced to capture attention in under 10 seconds and this is best attained by hiring a professional video production company with a proven track record for producing engaging video content.

In our 11 years of producing corporate video content in Oakville, we’ve witnessed the near death experiences of many a corporate marketing campaign and have been called in to save the day a countless number of times. Too often, the “in-house” produced footage was not salvageable and we had to re-produce everything from scratch.

Remember, saving money for your business is all well and good wherever possible but as we all know- time is money and to waste your time trying to produce a subpar video to the detriment of your brand is a waste of your marketing dollar.

Always go with the pros!

Professional vs DIY Web Design

Professional Web Design vs DIY Web Design

Need to develop a website? Thinking of using one of the many “Do-It-Yourself” web design sites? These sites claim to be the easy and affordable option, right? I’m sure you’ve all seen the ads on TV and Facebook telling us how easy and affordable it is to click together a website for your business using their platform. But is it really that affordable and easy? I often hear horror stories from new clients who have decided to seek out a professional when the ‘Do It Yourself’ web design route failed. In the interest of saving you time and money in the long term, I’ll explain why we should all steer clear of these DIY web design sites.

DIY websites just don’t work in the real world. Sure, web design themes and templates look great when you’re thinking about purchasing one—but when you actually go to customize and add your own content and information to the them, they just don’t usually work out. It can be very frustrating, you just can’t force someone else’s design to work for your content/web needs. Templates get the entire process backwards and result in very awkward websites.

DIY websites are not as simple as filling in the blanks. How many times have you seen a business website that is empty on some pages, un-balanced on others, and just appears to be an all around unfinished project? Chances are, these sites come from website creation services that sound good at the time, but very rarely end up with professional results. What they do end up with is your money, month after month, and your best intentions “to go in and make the needed improvements sometime soon.” Business professionals don’t have time to worry about this—that’s why they hire web design professionals instead.

DIY websites are not necessarily cheaper. Yes, pro quality web design does have an upfront cost. True, there is a fee to host your websites on a business-grade server (you should expect no less). But when you average out the total cost over 3 or so years—a reasonable life span for a website—you’ll most likely find that professional custom web design is every bit as affordable as paying month to month for a mediocre DIY all-in-one website/hosting service.

DIY websites don’t make the grade when it comes to SEO. SEO requires individual attention and professional experience to get it right. And the code has to be super speedy and impeccably clean for best results. These DIY sites may promise the moon for your SEO but the fact is they just can’t provide the kind of individual attention and customized solutions that you require to build a proper online presence for your company. At the very least, the basics of SEO are mandatory for any business that wants to be found on the web. Without it, you might as well not even exist. This is the unfortunate outcome for many business owners that choose the DYI option.

DIY websites aren’t created with an ROI mindset. Many choose to think of websites as an expense. But the bottom line is that your business website should be making you money and supporting your efforts to earn a profit offline. When working with professionals and clear goals, achieving an attractive return on your investment becomes a primary objective.

As technology improves in the future, so may the options for DYI web design platforms, but for the time being these sites are nowhere close to replacing the personal touch and attention of an experienced professional web development company. For more information, contact Groovy Concepts, corporate media specialists.

When it comes to your business – hire a professional

In 1985, a year after the Apple Macintosh computer was launched, the first desktop publishing program, Pagemaker, was released for the Mac. It launched a world of professional page layouts and home-made garage sale flyers, all on a home computer.

Suddenly everyone was a graphic designer! The number of brochures being produced soared, but the number of bad brochures soared as well.

Today we see the same phenomenon in the world of video. Small, HD video cameras and inexpensive desktop video editing software have legions of people producing and editing videos.

It’s certainly suitable for hobbyists to edit short videos and post them on YouTube for fun, but in the business world that can lead to disaster. A poor quality video can lead to an unsatisfactory impression of your company and brand. You can’t go back and make a new first impression.

With video becoming an increasingly vital component of commercial websites, your business requires the production values that a video professional brings to the job.

VR & 360 Video (Part One)

All it took was one epic James Cameron movie to cause a huge hype for 3D video viewing in Oakville. More than 15 years in the making, delayed in part by the need to develop the needed technology to make the film, Avatar was a visual masterpiece, and fundamentally changed expectations of the viewing experience in theatres throughout Oakville and the world.

It was also the first film to gross more than $2 billion, making it clear that 3D films were financially compelling as well. With its tremendous success, Avatar helped ignite public interest in 3D film and video production in Oakville. Consumer technology struggled to keep pace with early 3D TVs costing a fortune for home theatre enthusiasts. Yet 3D TV just never took off in Oakville for household viewing, and for good reason. First, you’d have to spend a lot extra on a TV that supported the technology, then you’d have to invest in enough glasses for everyone present to wear, and finally, you’d have to find content worth watching in 3D – all of which combined to be too big of a hurdle for most Oakville consumers. Recently, Samsung, the biggest TV manufacturer in the world, stopped producing 3D TVs. Other manufacturers have severely limited the number of models that will support 3D technology. The handful of TVs that do are really expensive, making it impossible for the average consumer to purchase a 3D TV, and leading many analysts to announce that 3D TV is either dying, or is already dead.

The new growing trends in Oakville in terms of video production are VR (virtual Reality) and 360 Video. Although these two new mediums seem to be a newer version of the old 3D format, there are many important differences between virtual reality video production, 360 video production, and 3D video production:

Virtual reality video production, when done correctly, is truly immersive and allows for rich interactivity within the video, plunging you into the midst of the action as a self-directed participant.

360 video is only interactive in the sense that you can change your viewpoint, and is not as high tech or as immersive as virtual reality.

3D video is not interactive, and isn’t dramatically different from regular video for viewers other than that it appears to be 3D instead of 2D.

Those important distinctions have significant ramifications for how videos are produced and stories are told through these different mediums. Virtual reality is uniquely suited to video games where the viewer is not passive, but fully engaged and participating in the storyline. 360 video production is ideal for allowing someone to explore a space and uncover elements of the plot for themselves, without becoming a character in the story. 3D video is best for your classic Hollywood storytelling format, just with some extra bells and whistles.

Click here to read part 2 of this article where we’ll take a look at some of the similarities between VR, 360 Video, and 3D… and not all of these similarities are good for the growth of these mediums!

VR & 360 Video (Part Two)

In part one, we aimed to explain and highlight the distinctions between Virtual Reality video (VR), 360 video, and of course… the ever failing 3D video. In this week’s article we’ll be touching on the important similarities between these platforms. These particular similarities could be the deciding factors as to whether VR video and 360 video will take off in the consumer market and change the way the world views video or whether these new technologies will crash on take off… just like with their 3D video counterpart.

groovy-concepts-blog-video-production-toronto-article-headsets-featured

Similarities between VR, 360, and 3D video:

First of all, in Oakville, the cost is significantly higher to produce and consume virtual reality video, 360 video, and 3D video compared to regular video productions. Whether it’s the camera rig required to film it, the software needed to stitch the footage together, or the headsets you have to wear, it all adds up to more money for everyone involved in producing and watching these types of video.

There is a lack of quality content for these mediums. Although some Oakville brands have made big strides in recent months with 360 video production, there is a substantial lack of quality content available for each of these formats. Until there is a large, unique, and compelling library available, consumers probably won’t make the switch from standard video; as was the case with 3D TV.

Between the quality of the videos, the viewing mechanism, VR video, 360 video, and 3D video have all been known to cause motion sickness. Until you can be assured of a nausea-free experience, it might be hard to consider adopting any of these technologies as your regular viewing style.

With each of these formats, special accessories or a certain amount of space to move around in are required for optimal experiences. So, if you’re walking down the streets of Oakville, you can’t just participate in a virtual reality experience, and if you forgot your glasses, you won’t be seeing that video in 3D. It’s true that 360 video does a slightly better job with accessibility, especially when viewed on a desktop computer. However, if you’re viewing on a phone, you have to change the orientation of the phone by physically rotating it around you, while the headset experience is lacking in terms of quality. The accessibility of these technologies to potential viewers is a problem that needs to be solved before any of them can become mainstream.

Finally, due to design, the virtual reality and 360 video viewing experience is completely individual. You can’t sit down and watch a virtual reality video with someone; you need your headset and then you experience it completely by yourself. The same is true for 360 video. Even if someone is watching the same video, you might not choose to explore it from the same angles, so you won’t walk away with the same experience as anyone else. This takes away the social aspect of watching a video or a movie, and puts these technologies squarely in the realm of things you might do by yourself when you’re bored rather than a fun activity to experience with friends. By shifting where the viewing experience fits into our lives, the technology moves even more into niche territory.

Given that there are major obstacles to widespread adoption for virtual reality and 360 video production in Oakville and the rest of the world, what are the chances that these technologies will succeed commercially? At least for limited use-cases, there is definitely some hope. Virtual reality is a natural fit for video games, many of which look increasingly cinematic in terms of quality, and it could definitely become the new 3D cinema experience for movie-goers. That might help revive cinema in Oakville, and would allow people who aren’t willing to invest in their own headsets to still experience virtual reality in a controlled environment. 360 video has fewer challenges because it hands control over the perspective to the viewer, but isn’t truly interactive. Given that the barriers to entry are substantially lower than for virtual reality, it’s more likely to become more accessible in the future than virtual reality.

Being corporate video producers here in Oakville, we’re excited to see how these technologies evolve in the next few years!

Online video is the business card of the 21st century

As Canadian businesses shift more of their attention online, it’s more important than ever to understand the key trends being seen across the internet.

10 Online Video Trends Every Marketer Needs to Know

According to ComScore, Canada continues to lead the world in online engagement, with visitors spending an average 45 hours per month online, representing a fertile ground for digital marketers and advertisers.
181 million US internet users watched nearly 40 billion online videos in January 2012
Smartphone penetration has reached 45% in Canada. Mobile content and online videos are finding new followers from the corporate world.According to Forbes Insights: “59% of executives prefer to watch video over reading text. Younger executives in particular appear more inclined not only to view video, but also to share it over the business-oriented “social” web. Their growing influence is likely to make business-related video even more prevalent in the coming years.”
Nearly 85% of the internet audience viewed online video.
90% of shoppers find video useful when purchasing.
People who view an engaging online video are 64% more likely to buy or explore the brand.
Video traffic on mobile devices is now 50% of wireless network traffic.
People using mobile devices – such as iPhone, Android, Blackberry and iPad – view online videos two and a half times longer than desktop users.
In a keynote address at CES in January, YouTube’s VP of Global Content, Robert Kyncl, predicted that video would soon be 90% of internet traffic.
More videos are uploaded in 60 days than the three major US networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) produced in 60 years

If 90% of all internet traffic will be for video – will people really bother with a website without video? Companies that don’t embrace video are at risk of being left behind.

Online video is no longer “the future”. Online video is here and it’s the newly accepted norm.

Video to drive foot traffic to your trade show booth

So you’re thinking about marketing your products or services at a trade show, conference or expo. You’ve designed your booth, complete with company banners, flyers, brochures and hand outs.

But how will you drive traffic to your exhibit? Video is ideal for the trade show environment.

Image two adjacent booths: a video playing at the booth on the left, no video at the one on the right. Which direction will heads turn? Research shows that a booth with a video gets more attention.

A video will increase the amount of time a potential client stays at your booth.
A video can remove the discomfort of establishing eye contact and gives your audience a less intimidating environment for them to view your company’s products and services.
A video helps to engage attendees who are passively walking past your booth by allowing you to gradually connect with them.
A video is also an ideal way to illustrate “before and after” results.

Set your booth apart from your competition at your next trade show with a video! Enhance your brand. Promote product visibility. Generate excitement about your products/services.

In Short … Keep it Short!

One of the most frequently asked questions we get from our clients is: How long should my corporate video be?

There is no magic answer. Ten minutes in real life usually flashes by like a nano-second, but ten minutes on video can seem like an eternity, no matter the subject. In our experience a standard length for your average video production should be 2 to 3 minutes. That’s all. Better to have easily digested chunks of information stacked on a web page in multiple 1 to 2 minute video segments, than to have one 10-minute video that is not watched to the end. Few decision makers will have the time to watch an 8 to 10 minute video about your company.

Keys to a successful 3-minute corporate video:

You want your videos to be brief and to the point. Your target audience requires information. Quickly.
Keep your audience’s attention with a stylish, attractive video utilizing high-quality film-making skills. A successful video production does not need to be a big budget event. Music, great sound and lighting, crisp and clean images, fast-paced editing in a whiz-bang fashion that suits the image of your organization or business . . . these are the things that will help keep your viewers interested.
Stay relevant, with a clear message. Stay laser focused. Your video should point out how your products or services will solve their problems and satisfy their needs.

Bottom line: leave your audience wanting more.

Superbowl Commercial Fun Facts

So this is it, the start of the new year. The holidays are wrapped up for another year and we look ahead to our goals for 2017.

Signs of spring are still far off, but the countdown to Super Bowl VI begins and with audience numbers predicted to smash last year’s 115.5 million, we rounded up some facts about one of the most important aspects of the game: the ads.

In 1967, NBC charged $37,500 for a 30-second spot. This year the usual big brands; beer, cars, Coke/Pepsi, and of course the e-trade talking baby, will shell out a record $5 million for each 30-second spot.

Certainly a Super Bowl ad has it’s cachet value, but today’s advertisers are hoping that their commercial goes viral. Conversations, chatter and social sharing can turn an ad into an online phenomenon. Back when the legendary Apple “1984” spot launched at the big game, ads ran once. Today, brands want their ads to live forever and are looking online to connect with their audience. Thanks to the power of social video – online video content – their ads can stand the test of time.

Who can forget 2006’s catch-phrase-making Budweiser “Wassup” spot, or Doritos’ 2011 Pug Attack, and of course, the top shared Super Bowl ad of all time, Volkswagen’s “The Force”?

Why hire a Video Professional?

Though many of us are accustomed to the barrage of media, the impact of video can still be tremendous. We live in a multimedia world with video finding its way into every walk of life. Video screens can be seen on buses, in lobbies and waiting rooms, in department and grocery stores, in restaurants, on our mobile phones and tablets and even while fueling up our car!

Video has become a respected and essential tool for marketing and promoting companies and products. So how do you keep your message from getting cast aside?

Craft a simple message and present it in an engaging, original and professional way.

This raises the bar for the demand for quality.

Taking a crash course in video technology and hoping for the best is likely not the best idea. Although video recording and editing hardware and software are constantly developing and dropping in cost, a professionally produced video is invaluable.

Choosing the right production house can drastically increase the chances that your video project will be responsive, visually stunning, and pay for itself many times over. But finding the right video production company for your business can be challenging for a small business owner.

Here are three considerations when choosing a video production company.

The large companies with multiple studios and sound stages, editing suites and a sizable staff. These are the people Hollywood and television stations will call on when they are looking for a local production. A considerable price tag will accompany their overhead. Often they are unable to service smaller businesses because of the smaller budgets.
The next step is the smaller, full-time production companies. The core of their clientele is the small and medium businesses. They are compelled to keep the budgets as lean as possible while delivering the best possible quality. These production companies may have a small, single studio and editing suite, and rent a sound stage and hire contract crews when the project calls for it. This translates into lower production costs for you.
This last category is the part-time videographer, with a camera and a computer. Their ability to understand corporate, commercial and broadcast needs are limited and could impact the quality of your production.