Unit in brief

Learners will develop knowledge, understanding and practical skills in video production for esports.

Unit introduction

Esports relies heavily on the production and distribution of video content to engage audiences. Videos of esports and games help to promote products, people, events and developments. In this unit, you will gain an understanding of the codes and conventions of videos used for different purposes in esports and games, along with practical production methods and techniques. You will develop your own idea, source and prepare content and use practical video pre-production, production and post-production processes.

The knowledge, understanding and skills you develop will be a great advantage if you wish to pursue a career in esports and related areas such as journalism, producing, promoting or shoutcasting. This unit will also support progression to related higher education courses.

Learning aims In this unit you will:

A Explore video products in esports/games.

B Undertake video pre-production for an esports/game brief.

C Produce an esports/game video for a brief.

Listening: Listen and respond to speakers ideas and perspectives, and how they construct and express meanings

Speaking:Speak to communicate clearly and purposefully; structure and sustain talk, adapting it to different situations and audiences; use Standard English and a variety of techniques as appropriate

Clarifying Learning Objectives - check to ensure that learners have understood the learning objectives.

LOA - Explore video products in esports/games

LOB - Undertake video pre-production for an esports/game brief

LOC - Produce an esports/game video for a brief.

Analysis of information: Interpreting Results, Drawing conclusions from data, Comparing data

Learning Aim - A Explore video products in esports/games

Investigating esports and games video

Purpose:

Intention

, e.g. to educate, inform, entertain or promote

Audiences and their needs

Client needs

The creation of any video, be it for video games, film, TV or social media must be considered. The importance of understanding your client and their needs ultimately leads to the success of the project. However, whilst your client is important as they essentially are paying, the needs of the target audiences should be significant in the approach to the project. The client will have ideas for the video product, they will have specific details that cannot be left out of the production and most importantly they will have some deadlines for the production and final product to follow. It is therefore essential, that you in any production, create within your documentation an area for identifying your client's needs. This essentially allows for you, and your client to agree on the key components of the project, milestones and non-flexible requirements. 

Legal and ethical constraints:

libel, defamation and privacy

The legal term Libel relates to the publication of an untrue or false statement or set of statements that are potentially damaging to the reputation of an individual or company. This can defame the person that the statement is about by damaging a good reputation that they may have built up.

Potential examples of  liable and defermation within esports : Ggrecon.com - SINATRAA

Create an infographic that explains (with examples) Defermation and Liable. You should look to use examples that have occuered in the esports sector.

Representation

Representation or "legal representation" in esports is currently an area where players tend to represent themselves it is suggested (Traverselegal.com) as there is no current formal body of regulation within esports it makes it hard for legal representations to be given as the tournaments and competitions are most commonly regulated and operated by different organisations and publishers therefore not allowing for consistency to be applied to rules and regulations.

Things to consider when it gaming and esports is your job.

When your playing in freeplay your not representing any team, organisation or squads so "rage" is not a big issue and the things that you say or do may not have any impact on others. However when you are representing your would be expected to follow your sponsor, team/squad codes of conduct as your held in a higher regard by those that may make financial contributions towards your teams. You must also consider your target audiences and the following that you have as this could be impacted.

As teams and squads grow, so do the potential prize and competition pots. So in some instances squads may need to appoint a team manager or principle to represent them and negotiate any contracts of competition or payments. This is extended to the potential sponcership deals with organisers as team players can act as influencers. 

Copyright.

The copyright law in the United Kingdom has been around since 1710 and was the first law of its type in the world. However, the concept of copyright and its provision dates back to the 1556 Charter of Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers where the Licence of Press Act of 1662 gave publishers printing rights exclusively, however it didn't give any rights to the authors.

In our modern times, we use the current Copyright, Design and Patents Act of 1988. This act helped protect intellectual property or IP from being stolen. This act set out rights to cover elements like logos, photos, music and an extensive library of intellectual property. 

Further detail can be found using the following links to sources.

UK Government Copyright Law

BBC Copyright Explained

Anonymous Assessment - Learners assess an anonymous piece of work containing deliberate mistakes against given success criteria.

LOA - Explore video products in esports/games

Characteristics of video

Genres

The term genres refer to the categorization of content that falls within specific parameters. A genre classification consists of four elements or parts the character, story, plot, and setting. An equation for remembering the genre is: Story (Action) + Plot + Character + Setting = Genre. Within film and video we find an extensive list of categories some of which are;

• Action 
• Animation
• Comedy
• Crime
• Drama
• Fantasy
• Historical
• Horror
• Romance
• Science Fiction
• Thriller

Some examples of the films/videos and clips that fall within these genres are;

Action 

Animation

Comedy

Crime

Fantasy

Historical

Horror

Codes and Conventions

There are three types of media codes, symbolic codes, technical codes and written codes. Conventions are expected ways in which codes are organised in a product.

Image taken from https://media.codes/

symbolic codes, 

technical codes 

written codes

Using the link below and other sources create a set of notes to discuss the different codes and conventions found within videos. Inside these notes you should look to provide examples and samples that can enable you to make discussions around their usage 
https://media.codes

Visual Language (e.g. colour, signs and symbols, framing, style)

Visual language in films relates to how imagery conveys things like story ideas or meanings. Perspective, color, and shape can all be used to support a story by guiding the audience to see and feel certain things.

Further Details to Visual language can be found Open Lab BMCC

Find a frame from one of your three favorite films. Review and analyse how shapes are used. Identify what are the characteristics that help establish the mood and story. 

Content (e.g. narrative, information, dialogue, segments)

The content within a video needs to follow some form of process, this gives the video some meaning and direction and can allow viewers to be invested in watching the production.

Narrative

The narrative of a video production tells the story of a subject, trying to entertian the audience, this narrative could be used as a story. Typically a narrative will have a beginning, middle, and end. The narrative of the production can build up to a dramatic conclusion or point within the production.

Dialogue

Dialogue in a video is important as this sets out the overall message that you wish to deliver to your audiences. There are a number of videos/films/shorts and adverts that use dialogue to present the message of the product, brand or service without directly stating what they are selling, promoting or informing. 

Classic examples of effective use of dialogue in this context can be seen below.

Segment

Segments in video normally divides the story into a series of sequences that together, make up the progression of the plot of the story which drives the visual elements forward. Generally, a movie is made up of many sequences that are composed as a group to provide the finished narrative - Taken from https://beverlyboy.com/filmmaking/what-is-a-segment-in-film/

Such an example of where segments have been applied within an organisation can be seen here

https://www.decisionanalyst.com

Audio and Visual elements (e.g. images, visual effects (VFX), animation, motion graphics, music, dialogue, sound effects.)

Images

Images can play a key function in video productions providing an audience with illustrative information that could lead to decisions being made. 

Visual Effects

The use of a visual effect can sharpen a video by making it more informative than the use of a still image and discussing its representation. classic examples of where this has been used is in news broadcasting of general and local elections. 

Animation

Music 

The use of music in a video can be very powerful, it has the ability to intensify the scenes and mood of a video. 

Take a clip of a scene from a film that you have watched recently, where you are able mute the audio from the clip, and assess how the clip works without its audio.

Music can have a reverse impact too, look at the video below where silly music has removed the drama of the clip.

Sound Effects

Sound effects within video production can have a number of meanings. Any sound recorded that is electronically or digitally produced can be classed as a sound effect. There are four main categories of sound effects, these are;

Principle effects are at times referred to as "Hard Effects" these can be the sound of a car passing, a rocket taking off, or the firing of a gun. These sounds can be captured outside of the studio in the field by a recording team.

Background effects are also referred to as ambient sounds. These types of sounds can be essential to creating a sense of realism in a production. This could be the noise of a busy shopping center, the hustle and bustle of a train station to the sound of the wind in the trees.

Foley sound effects are sounds that are recorded to mirror the actions to those that are being recorded in productions, allowing for a more intensified, over-exaggeration of the original. For example the opening of a creaky door.

Designed sound effects are those that do not occur in the real world, these could be the sound of a transformer, transforming into a car.

A good example of this type of recording can be seen in the below video.

SoundWorks Collection: The Sound of WALL•E from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Formats

The format of a video can come in ranges depending on its purpose and its target audience. There are a number of formats that a video can be presented in these are;

multi-camera live event

Documentary

A documentary format is intended to educate by immersing you in the setting that is being discussed or presented. These formats normally have a start, a middle, and an end. A good example of this can be seen in the BBC Frozen Planet 2 documentary.

In this production the start might have specific species in focus that they begin with, discussing how climate change had created troubles and issues that the animal may now face.

The middle of the production might look at how the animal has adapted to the changes that it now faces, but also how this has impacted the number of these animals in existence.

Finally, the production might end with what we can do to slow or stop this decline and impact, and, what this could mean to us.

Advert

Adverts are intended to be short, sharp, punchy, and memorable. They normally run on average for 30 seconds and can appear before films, in the middle of a TV program, and interspersed in YouTube video content amongst a number of other live and streamed video platforms.

Classic adverts promote goods, products, and services to a wide audience, whether they are interested or not. However, this doesn't mean that they do not create a following. Examples of adverts where they themselves have enabled a side business would be "Compare the Market" or Compare the Meerkat when they launched their marketing campaign in the January of 2009 it created a large amount of interest from potential clients to the comparison website but also to the animals themselves. The company went on to release mechanised featuring their mascot to entice other clients.

Title Sequence

The use of a title sequence in a video product is to inform the audiences of the name of the work/production that is being presented, typically these will include information/banners or short clips of those that were involved in the creation of the final production. These can quite often be seen in the opening sequences of a movie or film where the production teams and companies that worked together have their company branding shown. These are now incorporated into the theme of the film to keep the audience entertained and enticed.

Short

The short format of a product tends to be on average between 30 seconds to 3 minutes long. This format has exploded over the past number of years with social media jumping into the market of "Shorts" this is fast becoming a popular format for younger audiences and as such a number of influencers have moved to this format of video to support their other traditional formats. Companies have also utilized this format to promote products and services that are due to be released soon by creating "teaser" platforms like Instagram, Youtube and TikTok are soaking these up and the users to these platforms are swelling as a result. Other uses of short videos have been for instructional direction on products, acting like a traditional paper-based how-to.

Ident

Idents have been used widely for a number of years from the classic BBC globe to E4's quirky stings.

Corporate

Corporate videos are all about selling a company's vision, beliefs, products, and services. Inside of these videos a company can tell the story of their creation to their desires and what makes them the leader in their areas. The videos may have interviews with key people inside of the organisation and in places their current customers.

Now it's time to consider what has been covered over this and the previous weeks and link this to esports!  Video productions can educate, inform, entertain, and promote. In your notes, presentations, and Canva productions you will now be equipped with the core detail that will support your 1st assessment.

Anonymous Assessment - Learners assess an anonymous piece of work containing deliberate mistakes against given success criteria.

LOA - Explore video products in esports/games

Learning aim B: Undertake video pre-production for an esports/game brief

B1 Proposal and planning

Market research

Client Brief,

Understanding your client brief is important to the successful sign-off of the produced video product. It is important to identify the needs and requirements of the video to be created. However, there needs to be a dialogue between the client and the professional as to what is appropriate, and, achievable. Clients tend to have limited knowledge of the development process of most things as they are the ones approaching you the professional to create a product. This is true across most if not all service sectors, as if they could do it then they would, and possibly with an inferior product. 

After this dialogue has begun is vital to provide a written brief/proposal of your understanding of the core requirements that the client has and reach an agreement to what will be created and also required from both sides.

Audience,

The audience of the product must always be considered during pre-production and post-production. If the created product is not able to reach these individuals then it could be classed as a failure and a waste of money and time.

It is a good idea to conduct research into the behaviors of the intended target audiences, this can be done using things like surveys, polls, forums, and focus groups. This will provide an invaluable level of detail and direction to the producers of the video product going forwards. 

Competitor analysis,

Research into the area of focus can provide detail of potential competitors within the sector where the video product will be going. This research of potential competitors will provide questions to the development of the video, such questions could be;

What impact did the competitor's video have in the area that it was aiming at?

Are there any areas that they missed that could be jumped on in our production?

What is their message?

Did it cover equality and diversity?

Consider looking back at your submissions for the first assessment of 3 videos in Esports. Could any of these influence your decisions of how you'd create your own video? You will be planning and creating your own video to promote esports, are there elements that you might incorporate in your video that appears in other, however, reflecting on these potential competitor videos what would you do to make yours different, pop and stand out?

Similar and existing video products,

When creating ideas for the market you may find from your research that there may be other video products out there that have already been created in the same style and direction as your intentions. However, this should not stop or change the creation of a proposed video, it should be an opportunity to build on their style and possibly allow for some playful competition between brands and competitors. As you can see from the clip below this has happened in some productions.

Creative opportunities.

When planning or designing a video product, opportunities to present the content in alternative ways may present themselves. There may be more unconventional methods to produce more impactful videos. If we look at informative health videos some don't know much about the area of focus they present an alternative narrative that shock, raises awareness, or exemplifies the health issue.

Focus Groups, Questionnaires and Personal views

so what is a focus group? what is its purpose? A focus group is basically a group of people who come together to discuss and provide feedback on a particular topic or product. Think of it like a casual chat session with friends, but instead of just chatting about random things, you're giving your thoughts and opinions on something specific. Companies and organisations use focus groups to get a better understanding of what their target audience thinks about their products, services, or ideas. The goal is to gather information and insights that can be used to improve and make informed decisions. So, it's like being part of a team that helps shape the future of a product or brand.

Using questionnaires will enable you to gather and capture in-the-moment opinions/views to then use them to provide Qualitative (in-depth views) and Quantitative (statistical, 4 out 10 people liked the ....) data. This can support the move in a specific direction as the data is showing trend and customer focus

Consider the video above, at what point did the advert discuss or identify its product/service or message? Discuss and reflect on how this video hooked the audience into the production. Consider what you would adjust/change or amend to the clip. What feelings did this video evoke? What message do you think it gave?

Carry out research using the internet on the use and availability of a proposal document for video production. In your research reflect and assess the common points that appear in the documentation. Take the common bits that you find across the documents you find and build and construct your own proposal document. You may find that there are some headings that may not be relevant however there may be some that do not appear on others that could provide further detail and support in your template.

Useful links to consider : Pre-Production software - www.celtx.com  ---  Free Pre-Production documents  - www.FilmSourcing.com 

Making your proposal clear is important to enabling others to understand your ideas, direction and requirements. Provide detail in your pre-production documents that follow the below.

Proposal

A proposal can be a document that identifies requirements and offers creative direction and ideas to the client's brief. This proposal can be made up of a number of sub-documents that provide pinpoint detail to location, camera angles, and colour grading and styles. 

Proposal with subject content idea,

Format,

The use of the correct format can key another key factor to drive engagement in video production. At this point of the proposal, you should look to identify the format that your production will take. The formats that we have available are; Documentary, Shorts, Teasers, Idents and Corporate

Genre,

The classification of the product should be identified to the client, this will be one of an extensive array of genres to include, Action , Historical, or Drama to name a few. You may find that your production spans a few genres but this should be clearly identified here.

Style,

Audience,

The audiences that productions can be pitched to vary significantly based on the content and the games that are being used. Consider small indie productions that have small active gamers within their community and the promotion of a new piece of DLC (Downloadable Content), the developer would need to review the player's demographics, such as, 

• Age,
• Gender,
• Location,
• Preferred Socials,

From this the development of video materials to promote, the updates can be done and most importantly disseminated.

Market research is a valuable tool in these stages of a proposal as it can be used to back up discussions of content and direction. It is useful to enable clarity to the actual people that your product will be for.

Purpose,

The ability to understand the purpose of the proposed video product is an important metric that will allow for the measure of its success. Identifying the purpose will also enable the client to agree on what direction the production will go.  Is the video to inform, document, educate or entertain? Highlighting this back to the client will formalise the intent and agree its output. 

Budget.

The first thing that clients will need to know about any potential video production is how much it is likely to cost. Detail about the duration of the project and any equipment that may be required to plan, shoot, edit and produce a video, should be displayed clearly to the client. 

Elements that should appear in the budget would be things like the storyboarding hours to any actor or talent payments down to the costs of licensing editing software and stock assets. 

The presentation of such information can be done using a simple spreadsheet or if available a professional accounting tool. Either of these tools is sufficient to outline and display the projected costs and fees to the client so that they are able to make an informed decision or challenge back on elements within the proposal.

Below is an example of a budget spreadsheet; 

Image sourced from Linkedin article by Nina Froriep

Some Great resources can be found for pre-production and planning at https://www.filmsourcing.com/blog/production-documents

Anonymous Assessment - Learners assess an anonymous piece of work containing deliberate mistakes against given success criteria.

Learning aim B: Undertake video pre-production for an esports/game brief

Sourcing and creating assets

The gathering of resources for video production is one that should not be underestimated. These resources may not exist in the way that you would like to have them, this may require you to create them yourselves using some of the techniques discussed earlier in this unit, such as Foley.  However, this is not to say that there is not a significant library of assets out there already as there are. The use of these libraries can bring other issues and restrictions on use and application to any production.  

The use of assets that have been created can fall within a number of bindings on their use. These can be;

Creative Commons

License	Symbols	Type of use	You can
Attribution (BY)		Commercial and non-commercial	·       Copy ·       Adapt or modify ·       Redistribute (publish, display, publicly perform or communicate the work) ·       License to others.
Attribution-Noncommercial (BY-NC)		Non-commercial only	·       Copy ·       Adapt or modify ·       Redistribute (publish, display, publicly perform or communicate the work) ·       License to others.
Attribution-Share Alike (BY-SA)		Commercial and non-commercial	·       Copy ·       Adapt or modify ·       Redistribute (publish, display, publicly perform or communicate the work) ·       License to others on the same terms as the original work.
Attribution-No Derivative Works (BY-ND)		Commercial and non-commercial	·       Copy ·       Redistribute (publish, display, publicly perform or communicate the work) verbatim copies ·       License to others
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike (BY-NC-SA)		Non-commercial only	·       Copy ·       Adapt or modify ·       Redistribute (publish, display, publicly perform or communicate the work) ·       License to others on the same terms as the original work.
Attribution-Noncommercial- No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)		Non-commercial only	·       Copy ·       Redistribute (publish, display, publicly perform or communicate the work) verbatim copies ·       License to others

 Table sourced from https://smartcopying.edu.au/what-is-creative-commons/

Copyright or Copyright Free

Royalty-Free

Royalty-free assets in themselves are not necessarily free, in most instances, the person wishing to use the asset will need to pay for a license or usage allowing them to use them without acknowledgment or citation. A fantastic web article can be found using the below link that discusses further the area or royalty free assets along with listings of the companies that offer them. 

Review the following site, reflect and review the differences and similarities of the companies identified  Royalty Free Article

Anonymous Assessment - Learners assess an anonymous piece of work containing deliberate mistakes against given success criteria.

B2  Pre-production 

SOURCING AND CREATING ASSETS

Audio, e.g. music, narration, sound effects

Audio within video production is an element that can often be overlooked and underestimated in its impact and necessity. Audio assets can provide drama, detail, and emotion to a sequence if applied well. The clips can be created separately from a video clip as discussed earlier in this unit area. The use of Foley sounds can provide intimate detail to a production, for example, the recording of an esports player in a championship may have lots of background noise, however, the separation of the sound and the overlaying of another sound of a specific recording of keyboard keys being struck could enhance the clip. 

Audio assets can be found on a number of websites offering them for free under the creative commons license, to paid royalty-free/copyright-free purchases. 

Below is a list of some of the websites that offer sounds;
https://soundbible.com
https://www.bensound.com
artlist.io/
https://www.youtube.com/c/audiolibrary-channel/featured A youtube channel offering sounds

A popular youtube channel about content creation discusses some of their favorite sounds sites.

Video, e.g. effects, filler, archive footage

The creation of video clip segments to create a video product is common practice in video development. This often occurs in films where locations are used to capture segments and sequences of a film, classic examples of this can be found in the Lord of the Rings where the recording of a number of sections of the film was done in New Zealand. 

In some places video productions work with archived footage, this is content that may have been created in old features for a specific purpose, for example, old British Pathé newsreels of world war 2 being used in educational productions or even within a computer game as a cut scene between two levels. 

Effects can be downloaded from online sources and applied to footage that gives the impression that the clips are older than their creation dates. Some video editing software has effects filters and plugins as part of their environments, these can be useful to blend clips together. 

Video clips can also be used from repositories on the internet where individuals and companies create simple segments and sequences for people to use in their work.

Below are some examples of video repos online

Graphics and images, e.g. logos, titles, photos

The use of graphics in video productions can add value to the information being presented. However, careful consideration should be applied when selecting these. 

Let us take the following brands below;

 Image taken from: https://logos-world.net/mcdonalds-logo/

Image taken from: https://fr.openfoodfacts.org

The graphics and typography used in these brands are deliberate, they have been selected to present the brand in a way that suggests fun, warmth, opulence, and indulgence. Now let's think about the audiences that they are pointing to, this could be children and parents for the McDonalds brand, then, the mints, well its appearance suggests that they are for those that like posh chocolate and they could be expensive so possibly more of an adult target audiences. 

HOWEVER!!

If we were to swap these graphics, typography and colours over the suggestion would be that McDonalds could be a fancy burger outlet and as a result, the products it sells may carry a premium price. Whereas the chocolate may now appeal to younger audiences and it could be set at a reasonable price point.

As you can see the importance to the selection of graphical assets and elements within the production can present the final production as something geared towards a different target audience than what was originally intended.

There are a number of sources that provide Graphical resources external to the production environment some of these are listed below;

Graphics
 -- FreeIMG -- Vecteezy -- Pexels -- Pixabay --

Typography and Fonts
-- DaFont -- Font Awesome --

Graphical Templates
 -- MixKit -- Tutplus --

How is it done using Adobe Premier Pro?

Using video hardware and software

When creating a video for a production you are able to use a number of different devices to do so. No longer is it the requirement to use high-end, expensive specialist hardware to capture quality video! Nowadays we have this in the palm of our hands.

However, if you did want to use professional hardware you are able to use devices like DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) which are capable of creating videos of 4K 60 or even 4K 120 frame rates (Slowmotion). 

Industry-standard cameras include the RED which can shoot video of 8K and with high framerates, typically these might be used in cinematography and high-end productions.

Archiving and using file name conventions.

The creation of the footage for video production can be intended for singular use and as a result, once processed may not be required, however, no footage should be deleted, this should be archived. As you may have seen in the previous weeks within this unit samples of videos can resurface for educational, informative, or general entertainment purposes in another production, days, weeks, months or even decades later. How this footage is archived is important as the cataloging of the asset is vital to any search for it or materials like it. If we look at the built-in Microsoft Windows file property option when you right-click a file we can see that we have a few options available to us.

Physical file naming can use any number of conventions and this may be enforced by any video editing company or organisation, however, as a rule of thumb, the standard file name that comes with the original file is not one that should remain. 

The addition of detail like the date, the camera it was shot on, the frame rate, and the definition can appear within the name along with a short description of the clip. for example

1-12-22--A6400--120FPS-4K-Ball Bounce.mp4

Whichever convention is used it is important to stick to this for the entire project as consistency will enable productivity and speed to be applied to the process of creation.

Anonymous Assessment - Learners assess an anonymous piece of work containing deliberate mistakes against given success criteria.

B2  Pre-production 

pre-production planning documentation as appropriate to your project such as a

Storyboard

Storyboards are a vital tool to enable the visualisation of the director's vision. The creation of a storyboard not online illustrates the idea but also presents detail like angles and objects within a shot or scene. 

Close your eye and visualise the following with a group of people. You are standing in the middle of a field, and in the distance, there is a mountain, at the foot of the mountain is a tree, and under the tree are some animals. Discuss and compare your experiences with your group, ask questions like, what grass was in your field, what animals did you have, what was on top of the mountain, and, what did your tree look like

The above task emphasises the need for the inclusion of visuals and direction within the planning and creation of a video. It is worth noting that there is no need for artistic drawings to be created however some detail will remove ambiguity.

Below is a worked example of a storyboard used in a production.  

Script

What's in a script? What is a script? Another vital tool in the structure of video production, this item enables talents, actors and directors the ability to have a sequence or structure to what is being said or discussed in a sequence or segment of a video. The scripts can be cues to when to speak down to what to say. When looking at videos on the internet where people are recording themselves to discuss or comment on things the tone and appearance of the person talking can be different when they have a script to follow as opposed to that where they are talking off the cuff. However, this is not to say that this is always the case and natural dialogue can really flow well, for example when sports interviews are being done. 

Image from: https://www.vidioh.co.uk/video-script-writing-guide/

Shot List

Shots lists are useful to anyone planning a video shoot, this will provide them with the detail that they need relating to the following;

• Shot Number - 
• Shot Type - This can be any of the below listed shots as they have the capability of adding drama to the production if used correctly
• Camera Angle - This can provide first person view or over the shoulder perspective. Below is a list of the angles available
• Camera Movement - The camera is able to have additional movement to the talents in the screen, the movements available can be seen below.
• Locations - This can be either external or internal, additional detail could be given to remote locations.
• Description of the shot - This will enable the camera operator to have direction to the intentions of the sequence.
• Framing - This is linked to how the talents or objects will appear in the shots window/frame
• Props - The sequence may require additional resources or props to be use or available in it.

Type of Shots that can be used in video

WS - Wide Shot

VWS - Very Wide Shot

MS - Mid Shot

MCU - Medium Close Up

CU - Close Up

ECU - Extreme Close Up

Resource Lists

The use of a resource list is to support the team that is responsible for gathering the required equipment for the productions. This list will be fairly detailed down to simple things like chargers of camera batteries to the camera and lighting themselves. The team should ensure that these lists are checked multiple times prior to any recording as some of this could be remote and the slightest missing item can really set back a schedule that has been set and costs could increase as a result.

Resources that may be needed are not limited to the simple camera equipment, other elements that would be used are software, and digital assets, such as audio and third party created video.

A list of the commonly included resources would be;

Schedules

Call Sheets

Call sheets are another vital piece of equipment that enables actors or those that will participate in the production to know when and where they are likely to be required. A great link to a Call sheet can be found here.

Set Hero

Risk Assessments.

Risk assessments are in almost everyday tasks within work and play. These assessments are designed to monitor the potential risks associated with participating in any activities we do or may be exposed to. We do these in most of our daily routines without realising it, for example crossing the road. We risk assess the Probability of being hit by a car when crossing, we then make a judgment on the likeliness of it happening at that moment, we then look at its severity if we were to cross at that point and if all of these elements are low enough we make the decision to cross. 

what are the risks?

This assessment must take place in the planning of any work done in-house or on location recording. We are able to use documentation to support us speed this assessment up by using their keys and tools. Below is an example risk assessment; 

Alternative risk assessment approaches

Things to consider when it comes to your risk assessments are your camera operators, during filming some scenes will need the operator to walk backwards, so how can they protect themselves from harm? review this video from behind the scenes of the blockbuster film 1917 to see how it's done.

Recce

The use of a "Recce" can inform a director or producer of a video of the possible locations and positions of a video shoot. This resonance will also provide vital information to potential additional equipment needs, for example, the location of a short is found and it is only this location that can be used otherwise the narrative of the story will be lost, however, there is an issue. The location is poorly lit and the sun if it isn't a completely clear day cast not have enough light to illuminate the scene, the director/producer may request additional 3-point lighting to improve the situation. 

Recces make planning easier than finding out on the day an idea might not work

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Professional practice

Communication, e.g. talent, the production team

The ability to work with others requires all parties in the group to be able to communicate with each other following a number of key principles, these are;

respect for each others views and understanding.

being concise in the discussions that are being had.

organisation and time management

legal and ethical

health and safety.

Health and safety play an ever-increasing influence on what we can do in work/production settings. The legislation has been created in cases on the back of accidents that have occurred as a result of poor or no policy being in place. It is designed in its very nature to protect all individuals, no matter how much others may find it a barrier to creativity and practices they may have been able to do before. 

Within the video production sector there are a number of legislations that are principles to everyday operation, these are;

Health and safety at work Act 1974  >> Link

The health and safety Executive has produced an information document that can be used to support those in the Audio-Visual sector  >> Link

Camera operation:

settings, e.g. white balance, aperture, shutter speed

framing, e.g. close-up, long shot, medium shot, medium-long shot, medium close-up

movement, e.g. pan, track, tilt, zoom, hand-held

stabilisation.

Sound operation:

microphone use

levels and audio management

types of sound, e.g. ambient sound, wild track, interviews, presenter’s descriptions, studio sound, music.

Lighting management:

Colour temperature - The colour temperature can be measured in lighting using the Kelvin scale. This range starts around 2700 (Warm) and moves up to 5300 (Cool) in most cases this range can be found in typical lightbulbs, both LED and filament.  The use of this colour range can create impressions of light at  potentially different times of the day. The balancing of this colouring in video production can impact other colours in the scenes, washing out colours with excessive whites in the cool range to not enough. Within video production the scale for suggested use is 3200K or "Tungsten" to 5600k or "Daylight"

Table sourced from: Color Temperature: What is it and Why is it Important? (cined.com)

• light, e.g.
  • natural,
  • artificial,

Three Point

The use of lighting in video production is standard practice. The process of illumination of a scene allows for a focal point to be illuminated in the sequence being recorded, however, some of this lighting is used to counteract shadows created naturally by some natural or implemented lighting.

The three-point lighting set-up requires 3 separate lighting sources, each of these lights will play individual roles in lighting objects and talents. 

The first light that is used is the "Key Light" the role of this light is to provide most of the light towards the object in focus and is best at an angle of 45- degrees

The "Fill Light" is a softer light than the "Key Light" and is like the key light best at an angle in this case of 30- degrees from the object in focus, however, this light is used to lighten the effect of shade produced by the "Key Light"

The "Back Light" is used to elevate the object in focus away from the background as the use of the "Key" and "Fill" lights can make the subject look flat against the background.

Some great discussion and interactive content can be found on the BBC's Bitesize site. Visit using the link below and discuss where this may have been used in other productions
 
BBC Bytesize

• • gels,

Reflector

Lighting reflectors are often seen used out in the field as these are inexpensive and portable ways to add additional light to a person or object by simply reflecting light from the sun or ambient light using a silver reflective flexible panel

• Effects and animation, e.g. key frame, green screen, 3D assets, visual effects.

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C1  Video  production 

Editing

Video

continuity, e.g. linear/non-linear

Continuity in a video is something that is not new, it actually spans back almost over a century. The process is where a collection of related video shots are combined into a sequence that can capture and grab the target audience's attention whilst keeping the consistency of the story across the time of the clip including its location. 

This fantastic video was taken from https://nofilmschool.com It provides a great walk through the history of Video techniques and editing created by the likes of  Georges Méliès and David Griffith.

montage, e.g. standard cut, jump cut, transitions, cross dissolve, wipe, fade-in/out,  smash cut

As discussed in the videos above early cinematographical edits were created very soon at the beginnings of video production. These edits are still widely used today to the levels where we no longer notice their use. In this section, we will look at a few of those mentioned before and how they are applied and created.

Jump Cuts

Jump cuts are used in almost all videos found on YouTube. However, we take these for granted in our viewing of the videos. Jump Cuts are forgiving to producers of content as they allow for sections where the talent (actor) may have made a mistake in the dialogue that they are doing. For example they mispronounce a word or a loud noise occurs or something happens in the background of the shot. This is not a problem as the section of the clip could be cut and pieced together with the re-recorded new section, or, another camera angle with the newly recorded repeated section that went wrong. Below are some examples where Jump Cuts have been used. 

Below is where Jump cuts have been used intentionally to add more drama to the scenes

Within many Bond films, Jump cuts occur in fight scenes.

Graphics, (credits, titles and overlays)

Graphics within a production can play an important part to inform the audiences of key elements within the production. 

Things like overlays can be used to introduce individuals in interviews, and to identify locations to provide snapshots of other information in a ticker. The below image demonstrates where in some programs overlays are used very heavily. 

The use of credits in productions enables those that worked on the production to be acknowledged and to gain recognition for their contributions to the end product. These credits can also provide recognition to those that possibly had materials used that had not been created specifically for the content in the productions, this acknowledgment may be part of a copyright requirement to identify the original creator of a segment within the production.

effects, e.g. roto-brush, chroma key, compositing

Colour Correction

The use of colour correction in video footage is commonplace. Most video editing packages offer this feature as standard to their users. So why would we use it? The capture of video sequences may not be in the most ideal and planned for situations, elements like weather and lighting may be beyond the producer's control, and using the recorded sequences may appear forced and completely out of the setting of the specific section of the production. This is where colour correction can be used to address this. Below is a list of some of the reasons Adobe suggests colour correction might be needed;

• Modify footage so that clips appear to be shot under the same conditions.
• Adjust colors in a clip so it appears to have been shot at night instead of day.
• Adjust the exposure of an image to recover details from the over-exposed highlights.
• Enhance a colour in a clip to add graphic elements.
• Restrict colors in a clip to a particular range, such as the broadcast-safe range.

The colour correction panel will normally look like the image below. The histogram shows the high and low points of the video sequence and where the peak in colour is, this can be adjusted to enable darker sections to appear lighter in the sequences. 

Within the Premier Pro, platform users are able to use LUTs (Look Up Table) these configurations can be selected and presets for a production at the editing stage to apply a completely different feel to the video. LUT's in combination with video camera colour profiles like S-Log and SCinetone can make a video appear to be very professional using cheaper equipment.

Sound

sequencing,

multitrack,

music,

voices,

bridges,

diegetic/non-diegetic.

File management.

The organisaiation of any project is key to effectiveness, efficency and timely production. As part of any production there can be a significant amount of files, and assets that might be used in the final product. Some of these assets may be subject to copyright and licening so the organisation of files can carry legal significance. 

Whenever creating a new project is is advisable to create a completly new folder specifically for that productuion, this will allow for it to be descreate in its own right. The seperation of projects will also enable a developer to potentialy pick up the single folder and move it without breaking any links to assets that may have been refered to in the production environment.

Further from the creation of a project folder assets should be further organised in to subfolders, this should be audio, image and video assets. Within the Adobe Premier Pro application we can use "Bins" to oraganise files within the production also.  

Optimisation and exporting formats.

Once a product has reached its final ready state it will need to be rendered to ensure that the video flows properly without dropping any frames that could make the final cut look choppy. The process of rendering can take a number of minutes up to days depending on the content inside of the production, and its length in time. Once the render has been completed the format that the production is exported is important to the platform that it will be viewed on.

In a number of instances of social media being used as the platform for the production to be placed, each platform will have its suggested settings and profiles, for example, youtube will suggest 1920-1080, however it is able to go up to and including 4K resolutions. The issue with the large resolutions is the associated large file size which if used on a slow internet connection may take a significant amount of time to upload. Youtube recommend the use of the H264 format for exporting.

Tutorial Zone

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C2  Post-production