2014 Trends: Here’s What We Witnessed
Corporate video production is becoming more integral to organization’s marketing strategies year after year. Last year around this time we outlined in our post, Online Video Trends: Expectations for 2014, what we thought would be the hot trends in 2014. After some time to reflect here is what we believe were the biggest hits and misses in our predictions.
LENGTH
Prediction: Video lengths are becoming shorter, especially with the advent of social media sites like Vine and Instragram’s video feature.
We have personally witnessed this with the large variety of corporate projects we produce on a regular basis. With all videos, but most prominent in promotional projects, we see client’s requesting or asking our opinion on keeping their videos under a certain length. No longer do we have to pitch this idea to our clients, that keeping a video under 2 minutes will increase click-through-rate, but the general public is becoming ever more aware of this trend. You will be hard pressed to find a promotional video produced in 2014 that is longer than the 2 minute mark. Apparently even that is too long, as on Creative Bloq’s posting by Geroge Georgeadis regarding 2014 trends, he expresses how people are 50% more likely to watch a 1 minute video to completion than a 2 minute video – talk about short attention spans!
This trend however may adjust in the new year. Look out for an upcoming blog where we discuss this potential change.
AERIAL FOOTAGE
Prediction: Aerial videography is going to take off. More and more production companies are going to get on-board.
Similarly with the length of a client’s video, we have found our clients have a more comprehensive understanding of, and are even specifically requesting aerial footage. In the case where it is not requested yet we suggest it, our clients seem open and welcome to the idea. Due to the pervasiveness of cost effective drones, production companies big and small are welcoming this new piece of equipment into their roster. Check out the video we produced below when testing out one of these fun little devices.
Aeriel videography really has changed the accessibility to this dynamic style of shot. Full sized helicopters don’t even provide the flexibility of flying through or within a building like a drone can. 2014 was a big year for this trend and I forecast that RC helicopters are only going to get more precise and cost effective as time goes on.
4K
Prediction: We will be seeing a lot more of 4K, especially due to the fact that amateur videographers all around the globe are able to shoot 4K on their Go-pros.
While 4K may be something that most, if not all, filmmakers are excited to get their hands on, the reality is that the sheer size of the format is limiting. Janko Roettgers spells it out for us in an excellent article, 4k Didn’t Happen in 2014. Will Things Look Different in 2015?
“One of the problems with 4K is that it’s more expensive to produce and distribute movies in the format, while studios aren’t really convinced yet that they can make that much more money with the format. Louvion called it a chicken-and-egg problem: 4K TV sets have started to arrive in retail shelves, but without compelling content, there are not a lot of good reasons for consumers to upgrade. And without enough 4K TVs out there, it’s not easy to make money with 4K”.
If blockbuster films aren’t even being produced in 4K yet then it is pretty apparent that corporate videos won’t be joining the bandwagon anytime soon. So although there was a lot of hype and high expectations, unfortunately it looks like we will have to wait a few more years until anything significant and altering will occur.
We found it really fun to look back on what trends we predicted for 2014 and see what panned out and what didn’t. We are excited to look ahead to what 2015 holds in store for corporate video production… stay tuned!
