How Our Videos are Made
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,101 words · ~5 min read
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so Lenovo reached out to us about making a sponsored video for their new flex 5
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lineup of powerful 2 ones like this one
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these are great for Creative so we thought well hey why not show our actual
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use case for devices like this here at lonus Media Group so edzel actually just
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recently upgraded from having just a desktop PC and a pad of paper to having
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a Lenovo 2in1 and we figured well since it's Ed's job to be involved with
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everyone else's job why not do a behind
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the scenes of how our videos get made so
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without further Ado then I give you a day in the life of editor extraordinaire
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and professional cat herder edel
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Yago we release a video every single day
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including weekends and that takes a lot of planning and management because each
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video has lots of people doing different jobs over a period of several days it's
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my job to know at what stage of the process each video is at at all times
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and to coordinate everyone so our videos get released on time it's not always
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easy there's construction things breaking people breaking things and top
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secret products that have to be announced at exactly the right time the
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week starts with me telling the writing team how many videos need to be made
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that we hit our Target and not be screwed the next week which can happen
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if someone goes on vacation or if parts we ordered arrive broken hey you guys
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think we can do eight videos positivity then all the projects
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are added to our video tracker spreadsheet which contains all the
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deadlines and progress info for all our projects we use fancy conditional
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formatting to make the colors change automatically then the video status is
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updated and we use the exact same project names here on the server and on
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the calendar so that every part of the project is easy to find no matter where
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you're looking this is where I start cracking the whip I harass the writers
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to update me on their progress so that I can schedule a time for them to sit down
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with lonus for script review the more people we hire the tougher it is to get
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one-on-one time with lonus but at the same time these script reviews even
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though they can take as long as an hour or more have become more important than
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ever to ensure that even though lonus is written less than 25% of our videos this
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year all our content still maintains a consistent style dick jokes and
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all let just shove you in
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here sometimes I get to eat my lunch hey can you me
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something sometimes the first major handoff is
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from the writers to the shooters the people behind the camera I assign one
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shooter to film The a roll that's the footage of the host talking and another
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shooter to film the b roll that's all the other footage you see like shots of
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the product or silly skits or whatever and next time you see a product appear
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in 5 to eight locations consider that it can take up to 45 minutes to wipe the
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fingerprints off the product set up the 2 to six lights being used and Wrangle
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up any actors you may need hello Hollywood I'd like one actor please the
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writers meet with a b-roll shooter to collaborate on the visuals that will
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accompany the host voiceover by the time this meeting is over nearly the entire
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script will have what we call guidance and we call it that because it's a
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suggestion for how it should be done but we don't want to take all the creative
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freedom away from the folks further down the production chain Brandon and Max are
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a regular Shooters but if we're in a hurry sometimes I just grab whoever's
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available since most of our editors are actually pretty handy behind the camera
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too hey I need someone to shoot something real quick I can help Dennis I
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know you're not doing anything let's
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go I'm busy next the shooters have to
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ingest their footage putting it in a specific location on our server where
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the next people in the assembly line the editors will know where to look for it a
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lot more went into hooking up our ingest stations than just hooking up an SD card
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reader we're able to ingest footage at 200 to 300 megabytes per second keep
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your eyes peeled for an upcoming video all about our inest process and server
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infrastructure upgrades once all the shots are on the
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server the editors can get to work put putting it all together they use the
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writer's guidance to arrange all the shots and of course add their own flare
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some of which is subtle and some of which is pretty obvious but it's not
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always smooth sometimes the editors find out that a shot is too short compared to
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the voiceover or maybe the host misspoke or some shots are just flat out missing
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then we'll have to find someone available to shoot a pickup so the
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editor can keep working after Taran pulls an all nighter and uses all 200 of
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his macro Keys finishing up the video it's time for quality control the writer
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sits down with the editor and reviews the video to make sure the information
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is accurate and that no unreleased products or email addresses accidentally
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wind up in the background then another editor usually me or Taran reviews it
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for glitches and then finally assuming we can find him lonus reviews it and
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finally it's time for you guessed it our wonderful thumbnails we try to shoot
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these on the green screen and then use SPL shop to make them more how you say
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clickable before posting them
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online and that's
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it big thanks to Lenovo for sponsoring
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this whoa whoa hold on a minute Ed you didn't mention anything about the sales
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team this video won't even be possible get out sales
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people find out more about the Lenovo Flex 5 using the link in the description
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below smash the like button if you like this video otherwise you know what to do
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and as always be sure to drop by our Forum at merch store you'll find the
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links in the description below