Collaborative Video
More complicated than it looks, but does it have to be?
We tell stories to share our experiences, make others laugh or cry, to keep the past alive…Regardless of why you tell a story, it is always for someone else’s benefit. It’s about bringing others in and sharing something. Everyone can think up a time when they put on a skit with friends in the back yard as kids or tried to make a movie in high school with the family camcorder. It’s natural to want to tell stories. People have been sharing stories with one another since there were only cave walls to draw and pyramids to paint. We’ve come a long way and as the film industry has grown in popularity, so has our fascination with video as a medium to tell those stories.
The problem for the everyday person, like you and me, making a video story can be difficult. Let’s forget about the fancy equipment, talented filmmakers and editors, or the budget for such things; film making, even on the simplest of levels, isn’t easy.
Let’s say you planned to use your smartphone to shoot a short video with a group of five. Maybe you want to make a birthday memory video for a family member or capture an amazing trip with friends, there is a lot of thinking that goes into a project like this.
Who will film?
How do you gather the footage?
Who and what will string the videos together?
This is collaborative video at it’s toughest. It’s easy to imagine the time and effort that must go into a project like this. Is it still worth it? Of course, it is!
Let’s break it down:
Who will film?
The rock climbing trip was awesome but you couldn’t keep your phone on the whole time. You know your buddy caught a great video of you on that challenging climb, your sister took some video at dinner, and you’re not sure who caught it but there was that hysterical moment in the car that you know is on someone's phone.
The truth is, when making collaborative video, there is more than one camera catching spectacular moments. This is one of the best things about collaborative video. Different angles and different perspectives all add to a dynamic and engaging story, so ultimately this is an asset to be utilized and taken advantage of. Great, you’ve covered who will film — everyone. The only problem is how do you retrieve all the best footage so it’s all in one place.
How do you gather the footage?
You ask everyone to email you the files but some of them are too long. So you suggest everyone use a file-sharing platform but two people don’t use the one you like. You would make a shared album in your smartphone but not everyone has the same kind of phone.
This one is complicated. Not only do you have to find a storage option that suits everyone you have to wait for everyone to then actually send the files. This part of the process is like herding cats. When a group comes back from a weekend trip, everyone is looking towards the work week ahead, unpacking, and getting back to real life. Video clips and photos can often get forgotten until the first, second, or third reminder gets the owner of the media to hit the share button. So weeks, days, months later you finally have all the footage in one place. Now what?
Who and what will string the videos together?
You want to string them together to make one cohesive video. Add some background music, maybe some transitions between clips or text to mark the date or location and who was there.
High-powered editing software, the best of the best, is expensive and not to mention complicated to use if you have no experience. Simpler and free versions or tools are still time-consuming. This project could take months combined with the rest of your life, like a full-time job or a family.
At Mobs, we know this pain very well. Our founders came up with the idea for our AI-powered video-editing tool that exists within a platform made for a simple and efficient collaborative video experience while at a concert. They are big music fans and noticed how much video and pictures people were capturing with their smartphones at social events like this. We broke down the collaborative video process for five friends, imagine a whole a concert of people! This is how brands get in on the Mobs action as well. By creating a Mob Chat Group for a whole event of people, marketers can reach an entire audience and take advantage of the UGC for their marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, everyday people can use our messaging app features to bring friends together and create amazing, quality produced video through the app. All people, media, and editing in one place. This is collaborative video at it’s best.
