How to Create 360 Videos for Social Media: Post Production
When editing a 360 video, it’s important to know off the bat, that it requires a few extra steps compared to linear video.
Ideally, editors should watch every clip in a 360 player (either in the editing software or in a 360 player like the GoPro VR player) to gain a better sense of distance and pacing.
The first 5 seconds of a video are the most important part of the whole video, as it’s the best chance to catch the audience’s attention. If the first shot doesn’t grab the user’s curiosity, they will just continue to scroll down their feed without paying attention to your post. That being said, the first shot, which should be visually rich and interesting, should be immediately followed, or accompanied, by a clear and short message that reveals the topic of the story.
Here are the steps we take to create a 360 social video for Contrast VR.
Create a project file: Keeping your project organized is the key to editing efficiently and quickly. Create bins for the different types of files you are bringing into your project like the example below:
Depending on the size of your project, it can be quite useful to save different versions as Premiere Pro tends to crash, especially if you are dealing with heavy footage and a lot of animations/graphics. You should always create at least two or three versions of your project file along the post production process.
Create a new sequence: The sequence will depend on the resolution of the footage you are editing. When it comes to social videos, the resolution is usually 4096x2048 or 3840x1920. Choose Ambisonic option if you are recorded spatial audio.
Shot selects: Bring all the footage you have into the timeline and create a sequence for the shot selects. This will help you understand the variety of shots you have, as well as give you the chance to pre-select and begin shaping your sequence. Remember to always create new sequences for different edits; this way you can always go back to a previous version without having any headaches.
Storyboard: Usually the producer of the social video reviews all of the footage and puts together a rough storyboard to guide the editor, who will make the decision on which shots will best tell the story.
For our storyboards, we find it useful to create a table divided in three columns: Vision (what you want to see in the shot), audio (voice over, narration, sound effects) and graphics (text on screen/title cards, lower thirds, animations etc). For a video that is 1:30 min to 2 minutes, we usually choose about 8 to 12 shots in total. The voice over selection is also very important, since only the most valuable pieces of information should be extracted and added to the story. Creating a storyboard also helps you visualizing the story arch (beginning, middle and end) and prevents you from adding irrelevant information into your piece.
Title cards: Text in 360 videos should be as concise as possible. We find two lines per title card is the maximum amount of text that can be on screen while allowing people to also enjoy the visuals of the story. They should be positioned in parts of the shot where people might be looking, while making sure to not completely cover the subject.
Timing is very important. Title cards should be long enough for people to be able to read them, but it shouldn’t be as long as the shot is because the viewer might not have time to read and look around the scene at the same time. It is important to give some space between the end of a title card and the transition to a new shot.
Subtitles: Most people watching videos on Facebook do not turn on the volume, so it is very important to burn in subtitles in order for the viewers to understand the story.
Animations/Graphics: Animations and graphics are a useful and creative way to complement information that might be needed to understand the story or make it more interesting. This should be taken more as an element to support data/information — it shouldn’t be over used especially when it comes to journalistic pieces and documentaries.
Offsetting shots: Once your edit is done, it’s time to watch the full video and determine if the orientation of the shots and graphics is correct. It’s helpful to watch the piece flat at first and then preview it in 360 just so you are sure that viewers will find all elements needed to comprehend the story smoothly.
Adding Music: We usually use Audionetwork.com as our music source — which changes if we are dealing with a longer documentary piece. Editors usually receive a song suggestion from the producer (which is described on top of the storyboard) and/or the editor chooses a background song that goes with the tone of the story and helps it flow better.
A lot of people are still not familiar with the 360 format, so you need to make it clear that they should look around by moving their mobile phones or swiping with their fingers. If you keep all the most important objects of your scenes in the center of the panoramic view, users will not make an effort to look around the scene and the utility of 360 video becomes pointless.
While people do have freedom to choose where they look in a 360º scene, it is preferable to re-orient shots in a way that there’s continuity between scenes, as well as helps guide the viewer. For example, let’s imagine Shot A, which is followed by Shot B. In Shot A, if your character is walking from one point to end up at another point in Shot B, we need to make sure there is continuity. Wherever the character is at the end of Shot A, we should make sure the character is at the beginning of Shot B. We can do this by re-orienting Shot B. It can be disorienting to see the same character in very different spots of the 360 video.
Contrast VR quality- checks every single social video that is edited by our team to assure that footage, subtitles, title cards, shots and graphics are well put together. It is extremely important to be detail oriented and very attentive to small mistakes. When you watch 360 degrees clips in a flat format — as we editors usually do along the editing process, it is quite easy to miss a person who doing something inappropriate in the background, for example. It is essential to watch the video in the 360 format several times to make sure you are not missing anything that might have gone wrong. We also need to remember our responsibility in making sure our documentaries are in line with our ethics code.
