5 billion+ videos have been shared on YouTube to date. The number of users creating video content crossed 50 million in 2019. There are 1 billion+ YouTube views per day. These mind-boggling numbers show how inverted the video creation pyramid has become. Content production in the 20th century was the realm of a select few. The process of video production required multiple professionals with specific areas of expertise, including a videographer, an editor, a cinematographer, and many more.
The 21st-century video production process could not be any more different. Video creation is now democratized, thanks to platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Furthermore, aspects of the video production process that required human expertise have now been replaced by technology in the form of several excellent video editing tools available online such as InVideo.
Modern-day video creation can be carried out with small teams, or even at an individual level. But, some of the old truisms in terms of the viewer experience are still relevant as they were decades ago. While the experience is much enhanced due to impressive technology and human endeavor in the industry, the old-fashioned steps of pre-production, production, and post-production still are valid.
The post-production of a video is similar to the after-sales service of a product or service. You may choose to ignore it at your peril. If you want to develop a long-term relationship with your audience and keep them coming back for more, then taking care of post-production process steps is crucial.
Of course, the flip side of the argument is that you procrastinate and leave too many things for post-production. Such a scenario can again create a poor viewing experience leading to decreased long-term followers of your content. This short article is intended to help you understand some of the things that cannot be changed or made better in post-production so that you can get it right before itself.
1. A Bad Narrative
If you created a bad narrative for your video to start with, then there is no chance it can be fixed or made better in post-production. Of course, there are small incremental editing improvements you can make to improve the overall feel of the video, but a poorly crafted narrative will inevitably result in a weak viewing experience. Therefore, crafting a compelling narrative beforehand with a clear objective of what you want your audience to feel at the end of the video is something that should be done before you start creating the video.
Of course, iterations could be done during production, but post-production is not a phase where you should be changing the narrative. For example, if you were creating a promo video to post on YouTube using an app promo video maker, you might feel that the tech tool might allow you to make some quick changes in post-production. But even those changes will be incremental. Fundamentally, if your narrative is poor, it won’t improve in the post-production process.
2. Loud Background Noise
Nowadays, there are several online tools available to manage sound. The best youtube videos have some of the most brilliant sound available. Some of the background music is so good that you want to use a converter tool such as the mp3 youtube converter by InVideo to listen to the music as pure audio if it is legally available.
On the other side of the table, though, are videos with poor audio experiences. Loud ambient noise, jarring sounds during the video can be especially irritating for viewers. If you have sounds of car horns, airplanes taking off, or someone shouting in the background, these are sounds you cannot undo post-production even with the best tools available.
It is easy to add special effects such as reverberation or echo in the post-production process, but it is very challenging to remove them. If you shoot a video in a cavernous place with echoes left, right, and center, then do not expect to fix it in post-production. You will need to fix it before via your planning of the location or fix it during the production process.
3. Camera Blunders
If you shoot your video with overexposure, or you get the camera angles all wrong, or you forget to back up the data on the media card - these are all blunders that cannot be fixed post-production. If you have a camera that is shaking while you shoot the video, then it is better to switch on the camera stabilizing software during the production process rather than post-production. Ultimately, post-production is meant for polishing and tweaking rather than making wholesale changes.
4. Video Quality
You can decrease the quality of your video during the post-production process if you want. However, there is no chance of increasing the quality of the video without causing pixelation.
Even if you end up with a high-quality video but some of the camera blunders mentioned in #3 are made, you end with a poor quality result that cannot be undone or made better post-production.
5. A Bad Performance
If your video involves a human being part of the video or doing a voiceover, then ensuring that the individual speaks in an engaging, thoughtful, and pleasant manner is vital. No matter what polishing you do post-production, you cannot fundamentally turn lead into gold if the person who is part of the video or doing the voiceover ends up producing content that is monotonous and boring.
Performance and engagement are things that need to be sorted before production. You should have a structured process of what narrative you seek for the video and the person whose communication qualities would suit that video both at the verbal and non-verbal levels.
The quantity of videos being produced in the world is growing at a rapid rate. But increased quantity leads to increased competition. Being able to offer a high-quality experience to viewers is fundamental in a social media-driven world. The hope is that being aware of things that cannot be changed or made better in post-production will help you, to whatever degree, in creating high-quality videos.
