Making and Evolving Intermission Content

In the spirit of some "Behind the Scenes" content, I figured I would do a post about the creation of intermission content. It is ultimately less than an hour per day, but the video editing and preparation that goes into making it happen is honestly the vast majority of the time that I spend on the channel. It is tedious and slow, and it takes a lot of trial and error to get it right. But ultimately, it amounts to one of the most important segments of time in our schedule. The movies are what they are and if someone wants to watch then they will, but the intermission content is the time that decides if that viewer is going to stay tuned to the channel or if they are going to tune to something else... Thus, I view the intermission as the most important period of time on our channel because it is pretty much the only thing that I have actual control over how it looks.

The Look

It may seem like a trivial thing, but having a unified aesthetic is important to making something look professional. Same color scheme, same font, same layout, same relative sizes, etc. For the upcoming semester at least, the entire aesthetic is built around a single font element that I used when making my Fall Preview video. That font is "Impact" with a color base of R-230 G-120 B-0, which is that orange that is in the video and in the screenshot. My original basis for it actually came out of my initial attempts to replicate some of the things that Cinemax was doing with their 2010 promotional videos.

It really is that simple though. A single unifying element across the entire presentation is able to make the video look significantly more professional. After that, everything else falls into place. In the case of this particular style, I feel like I don't need much more because it works with just this.

The Layout

The layout is pretty simple really. The left side of the video is going to be advertisements and schedule information. Since every organization on campus already works with posters and image based advertisement, making that option available was key to my goal of establishing advertising on the channel. But, I didn't want to make it too overbearing. If it is just a series of cycling advertisements, people are going to tune to another channel.

So, to resolve this, I will be embedding a video section into every piece of intermission content that will play different videos, whether it is a preview for some special event or just a general trailer for the channel. I will be doing my best to diversify this as much as possible, but making this content is a slow process. The Fall Preview video, for example, took almost a month and a total of like 20-23 hours of editing to get everything the way that I wanted. As a result of the time investment required to make my own content, I will rely somewhat on the Theatrical Trailers for certain movies. The fewer times that I have to repeat showing a particular video, the better. However, that is unavoidable to a certain extent.

Below the video section is a generalized information area where I will have URL information or other information to promote different things. One thing that could be done with it would be promoting a specific event, either for the channel, or for some other student organization. Most of the time I think it will be either the Facebook page or Ignite TV's website, but I am open to doing different things with it.

Finally, at the bottom right corner is the logo bug. Although the software that we use doesn't support embedding Digital On-Screen Graphics at the moment, I can just edit that type of thing into every piece of intermission content. It may change at some point if we change the "brand" of the channel, but for now it makes sense to simply have the two primary partners(RHA and Ignite TV) on the channel in that position.

The Editing Process

I do all of my editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, which any Case student can get from the Software Center. I have used both Premiere Pro and Final Cut, and though I prefer Final Cut for more standard video editing(making short films or narrative content), the fact that Premiere Pro runs on my PC is far more useful to me than having to go in and edit on Ignite TV's iMac. I have also learned to appreciate certain aspects of Premiere Pro's workflow, which makes doing certain things a lot easier. For example, working with text takes longer in Premiere Pro, but if you want to go beyond just the simple default look is actually easier in Premiere... It is also significantly more modular and mass producing content is really just a simple as modifying a few key layers of content.

With the intermission video, I have a few modular layers that I can work with to create content quickly. I have a logo layer that I can set on any video that I am working with. I have an information layer that I can copy and paste onto other videos, and any modification that I make is applied across every video. The different formats for advertisements also have their own layers, and by simply modifying one of them I can create entire libraries of new intermissions, replacing the advertisements with minimal effort. It is these little workflow tweaks that make producing this content manageable... When I get to working with 5-6 different intermissions that will cycle, making each one from scratch would be an almost impossible task. However, building content from a template with modular assets, I can receive new information and have it reflected on the channel very quickly. If remote access is enabled like planned, I can have things running within a few hours. It is a dramatically different scenario compared to last year, where my workflow demanded hours worth of work to get anything changed, and then changing it required working around the hours that the server's location was actually accessible.

Long Term Goals

I will continue evolving the aesthetic of the channel and improving the intermission periods, but it really isn't just as simple as having the "best looking" intermission or just playing trailers like I did last year. The content needs to serve the channel in ways beyond just filling space, and I will continue to develop newer ways of providing information and advertising on the channel in a way that doesn't intrude upon the viewers enjoyment of the channel. It is going to be a lot of work, but I have a plan and a set of reachable goals. I know what I can and cannot realistically do with the content now, but that doesn't mean that I can't be smart about how I approach it.

Welcome To The Blog

I am not really sure what exactly I will be putting up on this blog, but I feel like I need a place to put down my ideas and thoughts on topics, in addition to allowing myself a place to explain various things about the channel at length. This seems like a better place to give behind the scenes information than Twitter, which was admittedly a stupid place to even think about using as a "Behind the Scenes" outlet...

Anyway, the overall tone of this blog is going to be very relaxed and candid. If something is happening that I don't like, then you will see it here in all it's gory detail. I want a reader to be able to understand why I am doing something even if they do not agree with that action, and I feel that the only way to do that is to explain my exact thoughts with regard to it.

Now, it is about time I got around to introducing myself. I am Alan Dreher, and I am the Administrator for the CWRU Movie Channel. The CWRU Movie Channel is a 24/7 TV channel, available to students at Case Western Reserve University, that plays movies. But that can mean a lot of different things. For example, when I took over the channel in January 2011, it was barely anything. It had movies and it operated 24/7, but that was about it. With 3 hour time slots(regardless of the actual length of the movie) and a repetitive programming schedule, it was about as barebones as it could possibly have been. For as much as it was costing the University and Ignite TV, it was really bad...

That is where I came into the fold. I had grand plans for the channel immediately. I saw an opening in the programming that the University offered us over the cable services, and I envisioned a student-run, student-operated HBO/Cinemax competitor, complete with the production values and presentation that would be expected from those channels. I will admit, this was a bit grandiose. But, by the end of the year, I felt like I had done what needed to be done. The channel was still clearly student run and wasn't even remotely HBO or Cinemax in terms of presentation quality, but the channel was at least interesting to look at and had something relevant on it at all times. Lately, that has turned into crafting videos that preview content coming to the channel. It has been a lot of work, but if the presentation isn't good enough then what is the point in having good movies?

It is an ongoing process, and we will continue improving the channel, but it is going to be slow until I get a larger staff behind me. I want to make and sell advertisements to put on the channel, so that hopefully it can become a self-sustaining platform or, at the very least, a larger channel with a greater number of movies per year.

I also want to cultivate a regular viewership, and to me that means engaging a community and building a group of fans. To do that, I need to serve the community, and I will field any and all community suggestions for movies that you want to see on the channel. The Facebook page will be used as a polling station to directly pick 4 movies that will be on the channel in any given month, and I will do my best to make sure that I can fit as many suggestions as possible into the schedule. Even if it was just one person suggesting a movie, if they want it enough and I can make it work, I want to make that happen.

But cultivating a viewership isn't just about listening to the community. I also need to build a viewing culture on the campus. We are all busy and we all have things that we need to do, but that doesn't mean that we can't make time for things that we enjoy. More often than not, the things we enjoy most are social. Viewing movies and viewing television can, and should, be social acts. My goal with the channel, and some of the social programming related to it, is to build a TV viewing culture on the campus that brings people together. One of the ways that I am looking at doing that is by presenting a Weekly Series. A regularly scheduled show that brings people together as they watch it. We have the ability to license HBO television shows, and I can't think of a better way to build a regular viewership than to offer content that can't be found anywhere else on this campus. Although we haven't decided exactly what we are going to be doing with it, I personally believe that offering Game of Thrones is a fantastic idea. It is a great series and definitely has an appeal across the campus. Taking advantage of that to arrange weekly viewing parties in individual dorms or other common areas, I think that having the show every week would build a TV viewing culture on the campus.

However, service doesn't need to end with the channel itself. Given the amount of money being spent, we need to offer convenience, and locking you at a box and telling you when to watch it doesn't seem like convenience to me. That is why one of the most exciting things about the upcoming semester is that we are going to begin offering On Demand content. Everything on the channel will be available to view anytime you want it simply by accessing a web portal. It will require a wired connection or VPN, but you can get access to it whenever and wherever you want it. I will probably do a one day delay on whatever Weekly Series we end up using just to encourage viewing the channel, but everything else will be available On Demand as soon as the new content starts up. This will amount to 90+ "free" movies, accessible On Demand, every year for Case Western Reserve students. Ultimately, this is a great thing to have, even if it was a nightmare making it actually happen... But that may be a story for another blog post...