I’m sure that after you read the title of this blog entry, you are asking yourself, “What the heck is The Digital Media Dude smoking, and why is he not sharing?”

Well, first of all, I don’t smoke anything, but if I did, I’m a selfish person and I would not share it with it you.   

Anyway…getting back to my story.

What do I mean by Object Oriented video production?  First, I have to explain a little bit to you about programming.

Many years ago…though not that long ago since I’m still only 20 years old….times 2…I used to exclusively architect and program web applications and web sites (still do, but not full time, now I mix it up with video, podcasting and photography).

In web development (and really, any other kind of programming since the 90’s) you break your software into “objects”.  That is, you look for “common code” that is used in many other places and you remove that code and create “objects” that then you call through out your application.  This is called object oriented programming (OPP).

So for example, let’s say you have code that does the following:

1) Allow user to enter some data in form 1.
2) Verify data is entered in correct format
3) Allow user to enter some data in form 2.
4) Verify data is entered in correct format.

As you can see from the above example, I have 2 places where I would potentially repeat the same code over and over (#2 and #4).  Instead, I can create an object called “VerifyData” and then just call that object over and over and it would do all the verification for me.  I can then update that object, and everywhere where I’m “calling” that abject, it will get the new code.

So my code would now look like this:
1) Create Object: VerifyData
2) Allow user to enter some data in form 1.
3) VerifyData()
4) Allow user to enter some data in form 2.
5) VerifyData()
6) Allow user to enter some data in form 3.
7) VerifyData()

As you can see from the above code, I added a new form and all I had to do is call the VerifyData() object to check the data.

Ok…now you know a bit about programming.   But you are still wondering, how in the heck this applies to my day to day video production?   I’m glad you asked and stuck along the first part of this story.  

Now I’ll give you the punch line and this punch line, as you will see, will save you lots of time in both production and post.

THE PROJECT
A week ago, the Vice President of Operations in the company where I work came to me with a project to shoot 15 videos for our Trade Partners (the vendors that help us build our homes).  The video is going to be a message about our (the trade partners and our company) relationship and the state of the industry (the home building industry).

The final delivery is in DVD format, one video for each division (we have 15 divisions).   The DVD would contain 2 videos for each division broken down as follow.

1) Overview video with our CEO (same for all divisions)
2) Division specific breakdown (different for each division)

So as you can see, we could just shoot the Overview video once and use it for each DVD.  Then we need to shoot 15 smaller videos that are specific to each division.

Ok, so far nothing out of the ordinary.   Now let me talk to you about the 15 division specific videos.

PRE-PRODUCTION
I received the script for each of them in Word format from the VP of Operations so that I could put them in our teleprompter for them to read while video taping.  However, I always like to review scripts, so I started reading all of them (yeah…it got kind of boring after the second script) and started to notice something (this is where I put on my programmer’s hat). 

Though each script was “division specific” with numbers and figures differently for each division, they also had paragraphs (lots of them) that were either exactly the same, or with some words changes, almost the same for all 15 divisions.

So I said to myself: “Hey, if this was a software program I was developing, I would take out the common paragraphs, create objects out of them, and then call those wherever I needed them.”

After reading each of the scripts (all 15 of them), I took out the “common paragraphs” in all of them and created a “generic” script.  The breakdown for this “Generic Script” was something like this:

======================
GENERIC SCRIPT BEGIN
======================
Generic 1
Thank you for joining us in this trade partner video…..

Generic 2
So as you can see by the figures, the industry trend is….

Generic 3
I hope everyone enjoyed this video and…
======================
GENERIC SCRIPT END
======================

All in all, I found 5 paragraphs that were “generic” (or similar) in all documents.  A couple of the paragraphs, we had to reword or rearranged to make them similar (with the VP’s approval, of course).

Then I took each division script and “called” each generic number where I needed it as follows:

=======================
DIVISION 1 SCRIPT BEGIN
=======================
Generic 1

And so, for the California division, I would like to tell you that….

Generic 2

So even though the industry is pointing down, the California division is doing…

Generic 3
=======================
DIVISION 1 SCRIPT END
=======================

So that was the pre-production phase.

PRODUCTION
Now on to the production phase.  When the VP found out I broke it down in this manner, he was extremely happy because I just cut out around 10 minutes of video taping for each video (remember, we were shooting 15 videos that day).  I just save us at a minimum (not counting multiple takes) 150 minutes of video taping time.

The first thing I had the VP do is read the “Generic” script into the camera.   I asked him to actually say “Generic Number” and then the number and then proceed to read that generic paragraph.  Then I asked him to pause and then I would cut and we video taped Generic Number 2 and so on until we were done with all 5 generic parts.

Once those parts where completed, it was time to move into video taping each division video (the different parts of each division).

So we started with the first division video.  When I started shooting, I asked him to actually say “Generic Number 1” and then start reading the part after “Generic Number 1”, then said  “Generic Number 2” and started reading the part that would follow Generic Number 2.

The main reason I asked him to say “Generic Number 1” and so on was so that I knew what part to “insert” when I edited.

The key here is that you can use this technique only if you have material that repeats throughout different videos.   You would probably not be able to use this technique if you are working on a narrative.  It’s mainly for “corporate message” type videos.

The other thing to consider is that you need to match the frame of the last “generic” to make a clean cut, or you need to somehow go to a b-roll so you don’t see the person “jump” when it starts with the next cut.

I used Adobe OnLocation CS3 which allows me to overlay the current feed on top of the previous video I shot.

After we were done with all 15 divisions, the VP was very happy because now he had almost 2 hours to kill.  Of course, I was scared as heck thinking if this technique would work well in the editing room.  So now on to post.

POST-PRODUCTION
Editing using this technique turned out to be much easier then I thought.  I had a lot of “presentation material” the VP was talking about in the video that I could cut to, so I made the actual ‘voice’ cuts very seamless, and wherever I did an actual cut to the person, since I matched the frame using Adobe onLocation CS3, it was near perfect.

Once I edited my first division (I made once sequence for each division), I then just replicated that sequence (I was editing in Adobe Premiere Pro 2), took out the “none-generic” items for the previous division (left the generic ones as they were) and then started inserting in-between the generic takes, the takes that were not generic for the next division.  Of course, I had to re-adjust some of the spacing in-between the generics and none-generics, but that was ok.

My Division 1 sequence timeline looked something like this:
[Gen_1] [Div1-Take1] [Gen_2] [Div1-Take2] [Gen_3] [Div1-Take3][Gen_4]

My Division 2 sequence timeline looked like this:
[Gen_1] [Div2-Take1] [Gen_2] [Div2-Take2] [Gen_3] [Div2-Take3][Gen_4]

And so on for all 15 divisions.

CONCLUSION
So, as you can see, this technique can save you a lot of time in both your production and post production processes.  It does take a bit more organizing during pre-production, but I think the time you save in the end is worth the effort you have to put in the beginning.

Of course, like I said previously, you can not use this technique for your next Hollywood flick (I hope your script doesn’t repeat over and over), but for some Corporate type message videos, it works wonders.

I hope this technique saves you time in your next project.   I’d love to hear your feedback or if you found a better way to “save time” in your production and post-production phases.

Cheers!
- Marcelo Lewin
The Digital Media Dude