Week 11 – Video

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA2vtJ-AuMy/

How did you author the video you recorded for upload to Instagram?

For the final posting, I wanted to continue with the focus on the city landscape and find a strong example of design. I recorded videos of a pedestrian crossing with lights built into the pavement that correspond to the crossing signals changing from red to green. The lights are built into the tactile paving used for vision-impaired pedestrians, and alert other pedestrians of the signal changes who are often looking down at the mobile phones while walking. I think this is a clever design helping a variety of people that use the city and providing a solution to a recent change in behaviour using mobile phones.

I wanted to add a design element to the videos by adding titles that move from the bottom to the top of the film, referencing the lights that emit from the ground up. I wasn’t able to do this with my phone, so I edited several videos in Adobe Premiere. I was able to add title sequences and combine 3 of my videos to show the function of the lights changing as the signal cycle changes. I added music to the video while using Adobe Premiere, which allowed me to time the break in the music with the lights changing colour, something I would not have been able to do if editing on my phone.

How did you publish the video you recorded for upload to Instagram?

I wanted to publish this video using the IGTV channel of my Instagram, so I had to ensure the video was at least 60 seconds. The final cut of the video was 55 seconds, so I reduced the speed of the last title to make the minimal time needed for IGTV. I uploaded the video with the caption lo_kdown, as a combination of lookdown and lockdown.

The default format for IGTV is vertical, which was a consideration when I filmed my videos. Obviously, this format is a relationship between the mobile phone device for recording and viewing IGTV and is encouraged by Instagram. Interestingly this format differs from Instagram’s traditional 1×1 square for photos and typical format for film and video, ‘Stories and IGTV have promoted the vertical format as default. While the commercial success of IGTV in particular, remains to be seen late in 2018, Instagram’s commitment to a vertical visual aesthetic here demonstrates a clear shift from the established norms of presenting video, part of a rupturing of visual paradigms (K. Ryan 2018)’ (Leaver et al., p. 53).

How did you distribute the video you published on Instagram to other social media services?

I distributed the video on Facebook and Twitter using the sharing option when uploading on Instagram. Unfortunately, Facebook does not allow you to view the video within Facebook, the thumbnail image is shown with a link to the post on Instagram. This is possibly to direct users to IGTV and encourage them to use this element of Instagram. Twitter only displays the caption, hashtags and a link to the Instagram post without any video or thumbnail, so there is no way in Twitter to know if the post is a video or photo unless noted in the caption. As opposed to Facebook, Twitter may be intentionally downplaying the IGTV format to avoid promoting it.

I considered sharing this video to YouTube, however, the vertical format it was created in was better suited to IGTV and viewing on a mobile phone. This format is a key differentiator of IGTV to other video streaming platforms using the popularity of mobile phone content, ‘Having popularized vertical video through Stories, Instagram has raised the bar trying to take on content-providing behemoths YouTube and Netflix with IGTV’ (Leaver et al., p. 163).

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