Thoughts On Motion Portfolios
We recently went through the process of re-designing our website with one of the primary new objectives being adding motion content. So I did extensive research on the websites of directors, cinematographers, and leading production companies to see how they presented videos. I was surprised at how little effort most are making in this area.
I suspect the thinking of the directors and cinematographers is that nobody hires them for a serious commercial gig by discovering their website. It’s very much a matter of relationships and playing the inside game.
But I also think the world is changing fast with the barriers to entry lowering in the motion world, and with talented people increasingly able to compete on creativity rather than on access to expensive cameras and lights. The importance of a strong web presence is rising and becoming fundamental for directors and cinematographers.
So I set out to find the best-in-class practices and leading suppliers of related tools. I found some methods of integrating and presenting video to be more engaging than others.
Video Hosting
It’s surprising how many of the motion-focused professionals host the videos on their own server and then stream it in a proprietary viewer, usually at a small size. The first problem here is that none of the self-hosted players have the functionality of the big video streaming sites. The second is that there is little-to-no capability in these viewers to share, embed, tweet, or otherwise distribute the videos beyond the hosted website. Massive mistake.
So step 1 is to host and stream your videos from Vimeo or YouTube. It seems to me that Vimeo is becoming the preferred choice for professionals with its clean, reliable streaming and it’s true HD playback. It has the most feature-rich viewer for social sharing capabilities – particularly for embedding flexibility for users and embedding control by the posters.
Also, the ability to upload your own thumbnails is huge, the importance of the thumbnail as a factor in getting people to hit “play” cannot be overstated. Vimeo has the vibe of a professional‘s platform – here a content creator is in good company surrounded by a higher quality standard. It’s a good idea to upload one’s work YouTube as well to take advantage of its in-house community, but for sharing, embedding, and sending links around, I think Vimeo has the advantage.
Website Integration
With a Vimeo and/or YouTube setup, you’re in the game. But I think it’s also essential to have a home base where you control the experience, define the look more completely, and have a place with your own domain name that serves as a hub for all of your digital outposts. This is particularly true for those of us dealing in multiple mediums including still images and motion. And it is in this home environment that you have the most control and power over how your videos are presented.
After researching the space, I went with LiveBooks who has gone to elaborate lengths to integrate the Vimeo player into their standard website package as well as offering customization to those like me on the obsess-over-every-little-detail side of things. Whether using the standard package or a custom design, they provide flexibility over the presentation of the graphic thumbnails in a variety of sizes and layouts – all of which have subtle and quick animation that provides a sense of the page “unfolding”, and therefore more interactive and engaging.
Clicking on any of these video thumbnails activates a smooth and fast animation that opens a larger viewing window and “dims the lights” to focus attention on the screening. The large viewer opening up makes the site feel alive. This was the one option for a video integration I found that enabled all the social elements of Vimeo combined with the web design integration of privately hosted video in a proprietary player – best of both worlds. It is also the biggest and fastest HD playback I have seen.
Video Presentation
Regardless of how and who is used to host and integrate video, I found choices and trade-offs in the video presentation options. The classic presentation is a grid of thumbnails. This is a practical solution, and the most common by far. It lays everything out evenly for the viewer to decide. But with a large selection this presentation can be overwhelming and has little ability to guide the viewer to the most important pieces. I personally find that it makes all the videos feel generic and unloved. I put a lot of care into the pieces I make, and I want to present them as something special, at least to their creator.
At the other extreme is the route I went, in part because at this point I’m only showing a limited amount of motion work. This alternative is to use a big thumbnail – essentially a still image on display itself – and line them up sequentially so the viewer can scroll through one or two at a time. It enables a more high-impact statement for each, and a more curated guide through the lineup. I felt this served my needs better because it enabled me to prioritize and emphasize more important selections. Though with too big of a lineup, the ones that come later would be largely overlooked.
The third option is the Hulu layout – with a big viewing window and a side-to-side slider on the top, and the grid of thumbnails below. It’s the combination of the two presentation options described above, though with the curated high-impact approach more prominent. I think this is a great method for a large inventory. You get some guidance, but a good portion is accessible without a lot of clicking and scrolling.
Home Page Design
The final consideration is how to use your home page. A website purely for presenting a still portfolio can take advantage of the simplicity and power of a single large image. But if you’re doing a range of content, then I think it’s important to communicate this on the first page since many visitors never get beyond that.
With my business evolving beyond a photography studio to a production company creating a range of content, I moved the home page layout more toward of a magazine style. Not all the way, but more in that direction. It maintains the impact of a slide show of big images, though by going vertical instead of horizontal with those stills I made room to present a feature video and the most recent blog headlines – addressing a wider range of potential content interests for a broader audience and more diverse art buying community.
Just some thoughts and examples on how to communicate who we are and what we do on our flagship marketing vehicle.
