2013 has been a good year so far for us at LooseKeys and it just got even better, we won three Silver Communicator Awards. 

The first one was for “The Smarter Wallet from Lemon” for online video animation. Mike and I had a blast working with Lemon on these videos and it’s awesome to see one of them winning another award. Next up was the “Viadeo Company Pages” video in “Branded Content - Business to Business” category. That video was really LooseKeys first exploration into live action video, so it’s awesome that it won a Telly and now a Communicator Award. Finally, our Boxee TV video won in the “Branded Content - Business to Consumer” category. 

All three of these videos span multiple styles, which really shows off what this talented team can produce!

More and more the LooseKeys team is being asked to execute live action shoots. Which I’m all for, it allows us to flex our creative wings and show that we can not only craft a great message and video with animation but with live action too. The videos we get asked to do typically focus on an application that lives on a smart phone, computer or tablet. Which usually isn’t an issue but since we’re shooting a screen, we often run into issues with the screen.

One issue that has been a problem for awhile was the refresh rate of computer monitors but that’s a pretty easy fix, all you do is set the refresh rate of the monitor and the frame-rate of your camera to the same setting, that should get rid of the flicker. Easy enough right, but tablets and smart phones don’t have this setting.

In our past shoots, to avoid any issues with the screen or not showing the correct screen, we’ve tracked and replaced most of the screens in post production. We don’t fill them with green or put a fake screen on it, we shoot it on black. This allows us to grab some of the reflections and that helps sell the shot more. This is often the most flexible solution and will give the best possible result but it does add more time to your post production schedule. It’s a lot easier to handle it this way instead of having to hear the clients tell you that you used the wrong screen and you have to re-shoot. A lot of commercials are done this way and you’ll see in the fine print something like “Screen Images Simulated”. The only issue is you don’t always get the right human interaction with the device. 

In the last video I was working on, we ran into the issue of moire on the screen. The iPhone 4’s Retina Display has been easy to shoot, the pixels are generally too small to cause moire. So I didn’t run into this issue until our last day of shooting for CamScanner. We used the Galaxy Tab 2 and ran into a lot of moire issues which took some time to solve. Our easy fix was just trying to turn the screen slightly until it was gone. It was a lot of trial and error. There are some other tricks like slightly taking the screen out of focus but that wasn’t an option for this since the screen and the device were the focus. 

I’m sure there are some other tricks you might have and please let me know. I’m typically not behind the camera, I work with Sergio Salgado a lot and trust that he’s going to figure out a solution for many of the issue that we run into like this but it’s always nice to offer up suggestions. So please let me now if you have a trick that works every time for you.  

Deciding the best medium for your video is an important step and should be something you decide on first since it’s going to drive how you write the script.

For me the choice is usually to go animation, I’m going to push for that most of the time when I take on a new project. That’s what I’m most familiar with and comfortable doing. But I don’t want to say I never do live action explainer videos. They do have their place and do add something to a video that animation cannot.

Doing a live action video adds a lot of personality to the video and the real human element might be something your service could benefit from. However, live action adds a whole set of other issues like casting, finding location and the ability to make last minute changes. That ability to make last minute changes is what makes animation so perfect for small business videos, especially startups. When you have a service that is always changing and evolving, sometimes being able to swap out a screenshot or voiceover line is necessary. With live action a change like that could mean a lot of extra money that you probably can’t afford. Booking talent and crew for a day or more of reshoots, because there’s been an update to your product or service, can be costly. If you’re smart, when you’re making your animation you won’t include realistic screenshots for that very reason. You don’t need to be spending the money to make changes when you know it’s going to change again in a few weeks or month.

By going the animated explainer video route, you’re able to control a lot more of the style and tone of the video. Plus, you’re not limited to just human characters in your video either. You’re able to accomplish things that are much more difficult to achieve with live action. The tools to get started are less expensive then all the cameras, lights and microphones you would need for live action. All you need is a decent computer and software. By going with an animated video, you’ll likely save money because you won’t be paying actors; only the voiceover actors. You are only limited by your creativity and technical knowledge. You control everything that is shown on the screen and at the same time you have freedom to create worlds that help to highlight the business or product you want to promote.