Quality television and video production takes advantage of every method of visual communication possible. Pictures, moving or still, are the main source.

Words written on the screen run a close second.
Graphics, as they’re called in this instance, are an old trick. Early Hollywood directors relied on the cliché shot of the sign; modern internet video producers rely on their computers to add words and logos of all types to their video productions.

USE GRAPHICS WHEN:

• Add words to the screen to complement your narration, or even replace it.
• Emphasize special points to your viewer.
• List product specs
• Show that sporty car you're selling on eBay and super "Low Mileage" over a close-up of the odometer, (being careful not to obscure the actual odometer reading, of course.)
• Names can be added to identify someone visually so if you want, your narration can skip that detail.

Fred E. Bumdoodle, PhD
Small Town Mayor, (Republican)

Putting someone’s name up on the screen is called a super, short for superimposed.

Usually a name super is put in the lower-third of the screen. In fact that placement is so common that supers are also called lower-thirds.

TIPS FOR QUALITY GRAPHICS:

Make sure any graphics you use are readable. Fancy fonts tend to not work well with video because they're hard to read, especially on a small screen.

Choose a font that's a little bit "plump," skinny lines get lost.

Try not to cover up important parts of your shot with your graphics. I get so blasted irritated watching the news when their huge lower-thirds cover the best part of the shot!
Lower thirds are also good for identifying the date or location. Adding eight seconds of “Boston Massachusetts, 1777”, tells your audience a whole lot very quickly.

NEVER cover someone's face with any sort of graphics unless you're intentionally trying to be rude.

Better graphics generators also provide backgrounds, symbols, shapes, banners, textual crawls and scrolls. Add them for visual variety.

Consider a background under your letters to make them more readable. As you watch professional TV, notice how fancy the backgrounds for graphics get!

If you use a background, make sure it doesn't make the letters unreadable. Fuzzy, out of focus backgrounds work best. Solid colors bars look nice for lower-third supers.

One of my tricks was to freeze a shot, take it out of focus with a filter, and then freeze my rolling video, dissolve into the out of focus version, then dissolve in graphics.
Drop shadows on your letters also add to their readability.

BRAND YOUR WEBSITE WITH GRAPHICS

Consider this, a graphic of your logo is invaluable for branding your product or web site. The best graphic themes are consistent for maximum customer's recognition. Stick with one look for greatest viewer brand recognition.

What works for the cable TV channels will work for you. Because there're so many channels today, they've developed the technique of using a graphic "bug," or little identifying logo supered in the lower right hand corner of the screen. No doubt you see this all the time, if not, take special notice next time you're watching the tube.
The bug is left on 24/7. So no matter when a viewer punches his remote, this bug will immediately identify what channel he's flipped to.

• TIP! Use your logo as an ever-present bug! Shrink it down to about 1/20th of the screen and if you can, raise the transparency, also called lowering the opacity. (only fancier video editing software can do this.)

EMULATE MY COMIC HERO

Use graphics boldly and go for the ironic effect. Put words up that completely contradict what's being said. Steven Colbert does that on The Word segment of his show and it’s a total hoot!

That guy is an absolute comic genius in my opinion and deserves the medal of freedom for his White House correspondent's kiss-up-to-the-power-circus, I mean the White House correspondent's dinner routine.

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