Project Evolution - Navigable Videos

Video Navigation is Now Easier!

It's been a long time since I've written a blog post, I know. The last few months I've been so busy with video creation, mostly commercial videos, that my blog has been neglected. Hopefully you didn't get hit by any tumbleweeds in here.

Sometimes the best ideas materialize when you aren't trying. Yesterday I had an epiphany about how I could improve the custom documentaries, but struggled with how to communicate this discovery. I decided against creating a video to explain the concept (my video idea backlog is ridiculously long already), and figured this was a great opportunity to communicate the concept here in the blog. In summary, I found a way to make the documentary videos (averaging 3 hours in length), more accessible and navigable, and thus more valuable. 

The Problem

Suppose we created a beautiful Reflection video for your father, a 3-hour documentary about his life, including his ancestry, childhood, career, family, etc. The video is professionally edited, musically scored and replete with photos to compliment the stories. The video file is delivered to you on the custom flash drive shown below. You open the folder and click on the solitary video file to begin watching.

Your custom documentary flash drive. All videos are delivered in this format.

You're interested in watching the chapter where your father shares the story about meeting your mother, or about his military service or college years. You would open the video file, and because this is not a DVD with chapters, you would have to scroll the timeline cursor to the section you want to watch, looking for visual cues to find the correct place. I already create title screens for each chapter, but you would still have to manually scan through the video timeline to find them. It's inconvenient and burdensome. While I'm proud of the videos I create, this has been the only negative I've encountered with using flash drives (instead of DVDs) to deliver the videos. It's a hassle to find the specific section of a 3+ hour video you want to watch.

The Solution

Going forward, I am going to provide you with the option of watching the entire long-form video, or individual chapters. This way you can easily find the subject matter you're interested in, and will spend much less time scrolling through the video timeline. The idea is to make the video more user-friendly, accessible and navigable.

Here's how I'll do it. One file will be the completed long-form video, in all of its 3+ hour glory. I will separately edit and render each chapter into a distinct video file with a descriptive file name. If you're only interested in watching the musical introduction, or if you want to see the Reflections chapter (always my favorite), then you can go right to it. 

Below is a mockup of what the interior of the flash drive will look like upon delivery to you. I hope this improves the user experience and brings you closer with your loved ones.

This is an example of how the video files will look inside the flash drive.

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