Step Two Designs

SEPTEMBER 2009

Creating high quality intranet videos at the Forest Products Commission

Written by Michael Harris, published September 18th, 2009

Categorised under: articles, case studies, intranets

Video can be a useful and powerful communication tool for large organisations, and has been used effectively for many years.

Until recently, the benefits of video have been out of reach to smaller organisations due to its cost, the skills and equipment needed to produce videos and corporate films of a suitable quality, and the perceived need to communicate through video.

As discussed in the earlier article Using audio and video on the intranet, there have been great advances in the affordability of consumer video technology. Combined with the quality and ease of use of newer video editing software, past barriers have disappeared.

Given these factors — does this open the door to new opportunities to engage and communicate with employees through the intranet?

In this article Michael Harris, Web Administrator at the Forest Products Commission in Western Australia (WA), explains how his team produces and publishes video for use on the intranet.

These videos meet the highest of professional standards, while being delivered on a tight budget. Michael also shares considerable detail on how the videos were created, and how technical barriers were overcome.

Note: this is a guest editorial, part of an ongoing series to showcase the work done by intranet teams throughout the globe. Step Two Designs was not involved in the project, but is pleased to share details on the outcomes.

Video can be a useful and powerful communication tool

Communicating with employees

What are some of the communications your employees encounter on a daily basis? Possible examples could include:

• email
• print (memorandum, letter, facsimile, newsletter)
• face to face
• online (Intranet news, forums, blogs, social networks — depending on how advanced you are)

Email and print communications are generally impersonal, lack tonal and verbal queues, and skilled employees will generally filter through these to find only the messages most relevant to them.

With newsletters, while visual and well designed, their distribution frequency combined with production costs dictate the immediacy of the communication.

Face to face communications add the personal factor, but this isn’t always possible, particularly in larger organisations.

What video brings to the table

Most of what we take away from interacting and engaging with others doesn’t come from the text or words on their own.

What we see, from the setting, to how participants present themselves, posture, facial expressions and eye contact provide the viewer with critical information about the messenger.

Non-visual queues can also provide an important context to the information being relayed, including tone of voice and mood.

Research conducted by Cisco Systems confirms this, saying that, ‘Face-to-face communication is the most preferable way to conduct meetings and share information.’

It confirms that non-verbal cues can significantly increase the trust between team members, and can help enable trust to be built amongst peers more quickly.

The FPC experience

At the Forest Products Commission (FPC) we’re a frequent user of video for the last 15 months.

With staff spread across 14 sites in WA, our core thinking behind pursuing video as a communication strategy was that not everyone can see what’s happening everywhere else within the organisation, and our management and senior teams can’t visit every site as often as they might want in person.

Video has become quite important, with very positive reactions received from both staff every time one is produced, and the occasional external stakeholder who has the opportunity to view these videos.

Just recently I had some feedback from a Communications Director at another state government enterprise here in WA, and he was blown away by the fact we use video to communicate with our people and just how great and engaging the content was.

Types of videos produced

There are two categories of video we publish via our intranet.

The first type of video is a 3-5 minute news piece that covers a single topic.

The second category is broadcasts or executive messages, for example:

• Important meetings or presentations
• Messages from the executive team and other key personnel on various topics such as strategic direction, projects of importance and more

This second category is usually longer, with videos in the 30 minute to one hour range.

Increasing video output

Since beginning, we’ve done dozens of videos. News videos take on average of two hours to produce, excluding time for travel to the filming location(s) which could be anything from a farm, community event, or sit-down interview at a customer site.

Formats, hosting and specifications

Initially we opted to use WMV (Windows media video) as our format, being an existing Windows SOE environ, with video embedded into the content pages and hosted on existing infrastructure.

We have since migrated to Flash video, due primarily to the user experience being consistent with other web video sites, and more importantly the ability for the user to easily display at full screen.

While there is a payoff with using Flash video in terms of file size for larger length videos, this is outweighed by the usability payoff from the familiar user experience, accessibility and full screen view which isn’t easily achieved with WMV plug-ins without significant development time.

There are a number of freeware applications that convert video to the Flash format such as ffmpegx and FLV metadata injector without having to purchase the full Adobe Flash application. The converted video can then be used inside an open source playback wrapper such as Flowplayer (www.flowplayer.org).

Video size

Video sizes for five minutes of footage are around 6-9MB, and due to each regional office having a main server, which contains a local replica of our intranet, we simply upload the file to the master server and let it replicate out, usually completed after-hours so as not to overload regional office bandwidth availability. The advantage of this replication method is that video is accessed within the local LAN and there’s no increase demand for finite regional office internet bandwidth.

Video production

If you’re using video within your organisation for the first time, you’ll no doubt want to experiment with it to see what users think of the videos and how they might be improved.

Some of the things which will help you communicate a professional image in your video will include:

• Appropriate titles which conform with corporate standards
• ‘Namesupers’ to identify who is appearing in the video at the respective point
• Copyright screen at end (particularly important if your videos will be displayed to an external audience)

Beyond these requirements, our staff are given reasonable leeway with how video content is presented, as long as it communicates the story and allows the viewer to easily absorb its key messages.

Video equipment

Equipment wise, we were previously using a consumer grade video camera. Due to our needs and future requirements, we were able to upgrade our video platform to put in place a full editing and production suite.

If you are looking to put video together on a regular basis, some of the equipment you might need includes:

• Production quality 1080i HD camera
• Sound gear including wireless lapel microphones, shotgun microphone
• Boom poll and windscreen
• portable lighting
• Tripods
• A production computer

All our video is produced on an Apple Mac Pro using Final Cut Studio, which is easy to learn for basic production, and includes all the software to produce everything we need, not just for web video but other DVD and video productions we are delivering.

Video on a small budget

While we’ve chosen to invest in quality equipment, intranet video presentations can easily be achieved with a consumer-grade 1080iHD camera and video production software such as Final Cut Express (the cheaper, but less featured version of Final Cut Pro), Sony Vegas or Avid.

While costs may be a consideration,you’ll need to consider if your selected software will support what you may wish to do with captured video down the track. Some of the free and lower-priced options available may not provide your organisation the flexibility it needs nor will they deliver desired semi-pro/pro results.

Multi-purpose video

The advantage filming all of our work in HD1080i and producing within Final Cut Pro provides is that we are able to easily repurpose the film or footage for virtually any use as part of the production workflow without having to reshoot video or start from scratch.

One day the video might be used for the web, the next it might be displayed on a plasma screen for a minister or other VIP’s, and the next in a corporate show reel to potential clients and customers.

Video production help and support

Local film and television schools are great resources of help and information on video production.

If you’re looking to do video work in house, it’s an advantage to become a member of a local school, as you can access knowledgeable technical advice, competitive and high quality discount training, and equipment hire services.

If you’re going to do something complex, such as filming video from the top of your car for example (yes, we’ve done this frequently!). These schools can also put you in touch with experienced trainers in your video applications of choice.

Tags: case studies, intranets, video