Venture Motion LendTech Decision Engine Video
The brief: Create a short educational and informative video for the finance automation landing page, highlighting the benefits of automating the underwriting process for businesses in the lending industry, by integrating Venture Motion's LendTech Decision Engine.
At Venture Motion, one of the main requirements I have as a content producer is to create videos. I have undertaken multiple projects that demonstrate my creativity, but more importantly my versatility in different styles. Here are two examples including a breakdown of each project.
​
1 | The project began with liaising with the marketing team to establish the tone, angle and the visual style of the video. I also worked closely with our in-house copywriter to develop a script that could be translated effectively into an animated diagrammatic and typography styled video.
​
​
​
2 | I began my preliminary research by gathering examples of videos that were visually similar to the aesthetic I had envisioned. These examples were sourced from YouTube, LinkedIn and corporate business websites. I was then able to present the examples back to the team and breakdown the different visual features from each example, explaining how I could emulate and apply this to the video.
​
​
3 | After finalising the script with our copywriter, I was then able to develop a storyboard. Since the style of the video required no filming, the storyboard consisted of breaking down the animated sequences. This allowed me to assess which assets needed to be created or alternatively, sourced from stock assets.
​
Copyright: Following copyright laws are important as a content producer. To avoid copyright infringement, I always source stock assets from the public domain or resources that allow the use of assets via a commercial license. The main asset I sourced for this video were the animated business icons and the audio soundtrack. My decision to source assets from stock depends largely on time constraints, and in this particular case I had 3 days to create the video.
​
​
​
4 | Before I even start my project, I always ensure the file locations are organised. File organisation is crucial to ensuring a smooth workflow, especially in video creation. My process starts with creating a file for each major component that make up the video, organising them numerically, followed by the component name eg, 1.Project, 2.Videos 3.Audio etc. This allows me to sort the files by name and ensure a structured workflow.
​
5 | Once I had the components, I then began the process of editing the video in Adobe Premiere Pro. As part of the process, I always ensure I provide regular updates to the team and my superior. This allows for any constructive feedback which in turn will avoid any creative setbacks or major last minute changes.
​
Tool highlight: The main feature that I utilised the most in Adobe Premiere Pro, on this project, were the keyframes. The keyframes tool allows me to set beginning and end points on an assets. In this case I set keyframes to animate the movements of some assets. Other key framing effects I utilised included scaling and rotating the asset.
Outcome: I presented the final video to the team and after assessing the video, the team and I were very satisfied with the results. The video executed the informative and educational tone effectively and in terms of the visuals, I ensured I stayed true to the company brand guidelines in terms of colour schemes and the appropriate use of the brand logo.
Videography & Editing
Analytics review
The video cannot be specifically attributed to that figure, so I also reviewed the video analytics. In that one week time frame, the video saw 8 views and 47 impressions. Over the next few months, I will continue to monitor the video analytics and use that data to improve our strategy.
As part of the development work on the finance automation landing page, the video contributed towards bolstering the optimisation and visuals. Using Google Analytics, I reviewed the webpage analytics as well as the analytics for the video using Vimeo's video report. After one week of the video being embedded on the Finance Automation landing page, the page saw a 300% increase in visitors compared to the previous week.
Final Outcome
Digital Ventures | Are emojis acceptable in
the workplace?
The brief: As part of improving the business's online presence and brand awareness, we will launch an episode based series of videos under the brand Digital Ventures. The first episode will deliver an educational and informative discussion on the topic of using emojis in the workplace. Conduct research around the topic of emojis, delving into the history and statistics. Film and edit the first episode and create an organic social media campaign to increase awareness of Venture Motion and ultimately start the process of improving our online presence.
1 | Upon receiving the brief and brainstorming the concept with the team around the tone, angle and visuals, I set about conducting research into multiple aspects of the video. I really wanted to nail the tone, so I started collecting references for inspiration.
The tone I intended to convey was that of a relaxed conversational discussion. The main source of inspiration came from an online series called The Daily Bolt by Electric House - https://bit.ly/3gxZec1. The tone in their videos indicate a relaxed workplace environment, namely due to the laidback demeanor of the colleagues being interviewed in their videos. So with that in mind, I decided against the idea of reading from a script for the discussion segment.
2 | I then began collating quantitive and qualitative data for the explanation/introduction segment of the video. The majority of the information gathered was qualitative data and as such I ensured I included all the source references, which I featured with each statistic. The decision to reference the source was to ensure the video held an authoritative impression on the audience.
​
​
3 | I also began creating a strategy for our existing social media platforms, focusing on the optimisation on YouTube. Read the full social media strategy/campaign breakdown and analytics results here.
​
Filming: As part of the preparation for filming the discussion segment, I set about scouting an area within our workplace building to set up the filming equipment. The filming equipment consisted of a mirrorless camera (Panasonic G8) and a Rode microphone on an extension cable. I filmed the entire sequence using Panasonics CineD profile as this particular camera does not support a LOG profile.
​
​
LOG Profile: A lOG profile (Logarithmic profile) is a picture profile on cameras that capture a higher dynamic range in comparison to other picture profiles. This flatter picture profile, retains more information in the shadows and highlights, giving the user more control in post production, especially when it comes to colour grading and applying a LUT (Look Up Table).
​
​
The CineD picture profile I used essentially offers the nearest flattest picture profile to LOG, allowing me to set the contrast, sharpness, noise reduction and saturation down to the lowest setting. Another important setting to mention is filming at 24 frames per second, an industry standard, offering the most natural motion to the human eye. I only ever film in a higher frame rate if I require slow motion, filming at 60fps or 120fps and then slowing down the footage in post production.
​
​
4 | Once I have all the component ready, I then begin the editing process. Again, to re-iterate, I always ensure my files are organised in their proper respective file locations. Another habit I practice, is ensuring I backup up the media footage. I have the original files on my external hard drive disk as well as the backup files on the business Google drive. This ensures that content is retrievable in any unfortunate event, I speak from personal experience.
​
​
Tool highlight: The main feature that I utilised for this project was Lumetri Colour in Adobe Premiere Pro. This feature encapsulates all the required settings to allow me to perform colour corrections and colour grading. For colour correcting, I started by creating a new adjustment layer and placing it above the video in the timeline sequence. Using the effects search tab, I located the Lumetri Colour effect and dragged the feature onto the adjustment layer before adjusting the settings.
​
​
An important valuable feature to mention is using the Lumetri Scopes feature. This feature enables me to colour correct without relying on the colour output from the monitor, as this could skew the results. The two main copes I utilise are the Vectorscopes and the RGB Parade.
​
​
Outcome: After reviewing the outcome with the team, we all agreed that the video met the brief well, and proved to be a strong first episode to kickstart Digital Ventures. The tone of the video was a true reflection of the teams work relationship as well as being informative, educational and entertaining. Finally, the overall aesthetic choices I had made, remained true to the Venture Motion brand.
Analytics review
On YouTube, in the first six days of the video going live, the amount of views surpassed the previous video campaign titled, The SEO Kingdom, by 27.27%.
Comparing the objective of this campaign, which was to increase brand awareness and online presence, to the most relevant metric which was the amount of views, I have been able to show an improvement in comparison to previous campaigns, and going forward, I will be able to use the data to improve and refine our social media strategy.
The LinkedIn post of the full native video received 40 views in total, 11.86% engagement and 5.08% click through. Comparing the performance of a previous feature length video campaign posted on the same account titled, Screen Specs, our first episode of Digital Ventures saw an 800% increase in views.
However the engagement rate saw a decrease in 9.85% so this metric will be a focus for the next video campaign to improve upon.
Final Outcome