Tag Archives: video footage

More on Fair Use and YouTube

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Continuing with the topic of fair use, I would like to point you to a video by Margaret Stewart, YouTube’s head of “user experience” who spoke to a TED audience.  She provides a (very general) look behind the curtain of how YouTube identifies matches between original material and videos that duplicate (or contain portions of) copyrighted originals.  What happens next depends on what restrictions the content owner has set for their work.

What’s impressive is the massive amount of information that YouTube handles daily.  It’s not just a few videos of people’s weddings or pets being uploaded, it’s the equivalent of 100 years of video being added each day….and being compared to millions of reference files.  It’s understandably an automated process, which leads to some mismatches and user complaints (you’ll get a feel for this by reading the comments to this video).

YouTube clearly strives to protect content owners, but also recognizes the value of content creators allowing the use of their work by others…in mashups, etc.  Stewart provides an example of how a content owner allowed the reuse of their work by a fan and later by a couple in their wedding video.  The wedding video went viral, getting over 40 million hits, which prompted renewed downloads of the original work from iTunes.  The lesson being that by allowing others to use their work, the original content owners benefited from the added exposure.

Anyway, here’s the TED talk:

Who’s That In the Mirror?

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Here’s a great example of a creative video shot by Mark Rober who wanted to get some footage of monkeys and orangutans at his local zoo but saw that they ignored humans banging on the exhibit glass.  So he held up his phone to the glass and lured the primates over to look at themselves on the phone’s camera.  Not entirely happy with these results, Rober fabricated a mirror-cam so that his subjects would be centered in his shots as they investigated their reflections.  Great idea and one that worked well to get some amazing footage of primates exhibiting self-awareness.  One of the orangutans even brought over its baby, which proceeded to investigate its reflection.

Anyway, those of you who study animals might find this approach useful or inspirational to develop creative methods to film animals.  And the rest of you can just enjoy the interesting video:

Fair Use

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If you plan to use someone else’s work (photographs, video, or music) in your video, based on the assumption that it falls under the “fair use” umbrella, you might want to take a look at the video below by the Stanford Center for the Internet and Society.

It’s quite long (34:51 min) and not designed to entertain, but is one of the best general explanations of “fair use” as it applies to video.  CIS was asked by YouTube to answer a number of common questions about “fair use”, using specific examples to illustrate.  The information in the video is not legal advice, however, and the speakers caution that they are only providing “general guidance”.  Their recommendation is to get legal advice if you are not sure.

Below, I’ve summarized the definition of “fair use” as well as the four criteria that determine “fair use”.

What is “fair use”?  The term refers to a set of exceptions whereby someone can use copyrighted material without permission.  There are a lot of misconceptions about what one can use without permission, especially if it’s found on the internet.

What are the four criteria?

1.  What are you doing with the copyrighted material?  Is your use transformative?

2. What is the nature of the copyrighted material?  Fictional and non-fictional material are gauged slightly differently.

3.  Is the amount of the copyrighted material used in your creation reasonable?  That is, do you use only what is necessary to make your point and no more?

4. Will your use impact the market for the original copyrighted material?

Want to know how these criteria apply to common scenarios involving video?  Watch the video:

Flipping Cats

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Cats almost always land on their feet.  The question is why?  If you’ve been following along, you’ll recognize this as a great dramatic question, which is answered in a nice video posted on the YouTube Channel “Smarter Every Day”.  Take a look:

The approach used in this video is one that would work well for any science video aimed at explaining a concept or to demonstrate a method.  Let’s break it down:

1. An interesting observation is described (cats always land on their feet) and the narrator asks an obvious question about it (why?).

2. A demonstration is given, filmed from various angles (and shown at different speeds).

3. A split screen is used to allow the narrator to explain what’s happening in the slow motion film of the cat falling.  In other words, something interesting to watch while listening to some less interesting facts.

4. The narrator’s delivery is not preachy; he encourages curiosity about the topic without being pedantic.

5.  Information is gradually revealed….using very different visual examples (old NASA footage, slow-motion photography overlain with text explanations).

6. Video ends with fun footage (of the cat chasing a ball) and a clever way to get people to subscribe to the channel.

How to Make a Science Video Without Film Footage

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What if you would like to make a video about a topic but you don’t have a lot of footage?  Or perhaps you would like to describe a new technique, but have only still shots of your equipment and procedures.  Maybe you would like to describe a science concept, but have only audio of someone explaining their work?  Can you still make a video?  Of course.  In fact, there is an editing technique called “montage”, in which the videographer creates a narrative using a sequence of still images to tell a story.  This approach can be very effective, as this video illustrates:

You’ll note that in this video, “Congo River: Artery of the Forest”, the creators not only used montage, but also some other ideas I’ve discussed in previous posts.  Like many scientists, they had taken lots of pictures of various scenes and people, known a B-roll, which were the basis for this video.  As I described earlier, it’s important to shoot lots of still images and video footage in addition to your primary footage (e.g., interviews with key subjects), which can be used for opening and closing credit sequences, for transitions between video segments, and especially to break up long interviews (“talking heads”).

In addition to B-roll, the video also asks (and answers) a dramatic question:  “Will the scientists get their samples despite all the logistical challenges?” In a previous post, I explained the purpose of the dramatic question and why we should try to identify and incorporate the dramatic question into science videos.  The basic idea is to grab the viewer’s attention and keep them watching to see how things turn out.

Finally, it’s possible to mesh film clips with still images very effectively to create a more interesting video than one that is composed entirely of video clips.  In fact, by using a Ken Burns effect on still images, you can create the impression of movement, which blends well with film clips; the viewer often does not notice that the video contains a montage of still images. Here is one of my videos in which I used a combination of footage and still images (as well as animations) to explain sea-level rise and impacts on coastal wetlands (see minute 6:50 to 7:22 for one sequence):

In addition, you can also incorporate sound effects and voiceover to enhance a montage of still images. The “Congo River: Artery of the Forest” video does this very effectively (sounds of stamping along with passport images, for example).  In my video, I added sounds of water movement and frogs chirping to give life to still images.

So if you have an idea for a video, don’t be deterred by the lack of film clips. If you have still images of your research and a good dramatic question, you still can develop a compelling video.  In upcoming tutorials, I’ll show in greater detail how to incorporate the montage technique into your movie editing repertoire.