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What are Content Services in Film, TV & OTT Entertainment?

Customised post-production solutions that facilitate packaging and delivery of video and film content for broadcast, VOD, mobile and the internet. Typically, content services refer to all post-production work including editing, colour correction, localization, VFX, immersive experiences, and marketing, among others.

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When are Content Services preferred?

After the pre-production and production stages, once the filming is wrapped. They embellish and enhance the visual and audio materials in the footage, according to the targeted viewership, to deliver a high-quality, ready-to-beam product across multiple platforms and in diverse languages.

The entire process including marketing and distribution could take anywhere from several months to a year, depending on the size of the project.

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Content services covered in the article below :

What is editing?

The art of selecting clips from a film or video shoot, and putting them in a specific order to tell the desired story. It is the most crucial step in post-production services.

Editors take raw footage of the visual content and use techniques like cutaways, crosscutting, parallel editing, continuity editing, and match cuts to reconceptualize the scripted version of a story, and make it come alive in line with the director’s vision.

The process includes both picture and sound manipulation. It could also comprise any lower thirds (such as a speaker’s title or the title of an episode), credits, foley sound, sound effects, and soundtrack

 

Why is editing important?

Editing makes a good film exceptional. It determines when the audience receives information. Either by holding a shot longer, or purposely withholding information to give the story a twist ending. It dictates the pacing. Slow, longer shots to build suspense, or cut an entire unnecessary scene to up the overall speed.

It times the cuts skilfully so the scenes flow smoothly. This is especially crucial when the film is shot in multiple locations that need to appear like one. It also amplifies emotions. Transitions and shot selection techniques make the viewers experience a range of emotions as they watch the movie.

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Summary

What is color correction?

A post-production process where every individual clip of a footage is altered to match the color temperature of multiple shots to a consistent technical standard of appearance.

It’s about making the whites appear whiter, blacks more black, and everything in between nice and even, to make an accurate portrayal of how the scenes would look if viewed from the human eye.

The scenes can be further enhanced by manipulating colors to create a new visual tone. Referred as color grading, cinematographers use it to emphasize certain types of moods or achieve a stylized look for the story.
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Why is color correction important?

Establishes the visual aesthetic of a story and fixes any color-related anomalies that might have crept in during shooting.

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Summary

What is VFX?

Visual effects, or VFX, is a term used to describe imagery created, manipulated, or enhanced for any film, or other audio visual content, after its shooting has ended.

It is a post-production process that integrates actual footage with this manipulated imagery to create realistic looking environments. These environments created are either too dangerous to actually shoot, or worlds that just don’t exist.

Studios use computer-generated imagery (CGI), and particular VFX software to make it happen.

Visual effects are different from special effects (SFX) in that they require a computer and are added in after shooting. Special effects, on the other hand, are realized on set.

An example of VFX would be the dragons flying through the sky in Game of Thrones, or a spaceship flying through space in Star Wars. The superhuman gunplay in the Matrix sequels were also a product of VFX.

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When is VFX preferred?

Visual effects are used to make extraordinary additions to any movie or video production in a short time, sans an elaborate setting. They allow the content creators to envision and execute detailed and miraculous effects, worlds, and characters that are impossible to be harnessed by actors on a soundstage.

VFX highlights the minute details of an action, and illustrates how complex and nuanced a scene is. In the dog-eat-dog world of entertainment, this gives content an edge over rivals. Some of the popular VFX techniques are bullet time and doubling.

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Summary

What is an immersive experience?

Experiential content borne out of a compelling story uniquely blended with sound, visuals and technology to create an imaginary world that pulls viewers and engages them with extraordinary interactives.

Immersive experience relies on two types of technology: virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). The former enables the customer to wear a VR headset and plunge into a computer-simulated world far from real life.

Augmented Reality, on the other hand, keeps the user in the real world but enables him to look through transparent smart glasses and experience a unique story, digitally augmented or enhanced in some way. Great immersive experiences make the user discover the story themselves. That’s really the key to creating a compelling immersive experience.

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When is an immersive experience preferred?

When entertainment companies decide to create content that makes the viewer a part of the story, rather than just a spectator.

 

Summary

What is localization of content?

A process of adapting original content to a targeted market in a culturally-sensitive way so that the viewers in the new territory relate to the content as though it was primarily created for them.

Localization services focus on three main areas of content production: language, format and design, and cultural sensitivity.

The most requested languages for local adaptation include Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hindi, German, Canadian French, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Korean and Japanese.

 

When is localization preferred?

When entertainment companies cross geographic boundaries and beam their existing content to diverse world audiences.

Demand for localization services increased manifold after the onset of the pandemic last year when viewers around the world flocked to the 100-plus streaming-service providers, and demand grew for global fare in a local form – complete with nuances.

 

What are the different types of localization services?

Subtitling: Written translation of spoken dialogue in an AV, simultaneously placed on screen with the audio. A textual translation, it keeps voices and sounds of the audio-visual intact. It is popular in the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Greece, Croatia, Portugal and some non-European countries such as South Africa.

Dubbing: Dubbing, unlike subtitling, replaces the original dialogue with a simultaneous spoken translation. Voice actors are used as dubbers to replace the original actors’ voices. Post-production editors then try to synchronize the voice-over with the lip movements of the screen actor. Often, they have to change the translation or the word order in the target language for a better fit.

Dubbing is the norm in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Turkey, as well as India and Japan

Transcreation: In certain markets, localization of content does not end with straightforward translation. The script has to be modified in keeping with the cultural sensitivities of the target audience. Transcreation is a creative process of adapting video content from one language or region to another, while maintaining the original theme, intent, tone and style, to evoke emotional connect with target audiences in their preferred language.

Summary

What is Content Marketing?

The San Diego University defines content marketing as a process of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and build customer loyalty among a clearly defined audience with the goal of generating profitable actions.

Infographics, webpages, podcasts, videos, books, thought leadership articles, webinars, white papers and blogs are some tools of content marketing.

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When is content marketing preferred?

When there is a need to raise awareness about solutions and educate consumers about a product they may have never considered before.

Content marketing also provides additional benefits in that it supports diverse digital marketing channels. It provides additional content for social media marketing and contributes to SEO efforts by generating natural inbound links and building up good written and visual content on the product’s website that gets found in search engines.

Publishing noteworthy content is not enough. To succeed, content marketing needs a consistent publishing cadence, along with the ability to repurpose existing material across multiple platforms.

A multifaceted amplification strategy must also be in place.

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Summary