What to Do When Most People Watch Your Videos with No Sound

Happy Wednesday, everyone! I have a friend from college, the lovely Holly Westerfield, who has made a cottage industry of celebrating Wednesdays, which are so often dismissed and derided as Hump Day or some other such slander. She bakes cookies, pies, cakes, muffins, cupcakes... really anything that is baked and delicious... and shares them with the world to celebrate Happy Wednesdays, and I know that as a fellow lover of the March 4th holiday (the only day whose name is also a command!), I am quite sure she is thrilled today's Wednesday lands on the Star Wars holiday May the 4th (be with you). All this to say, while I haven't baked anything for you, I am happy to share a half-baked blog post with you. (ZING! Though that joke took a bit too much set up, didn't it? Sigh.)

Mobile video viewing presents a lot of challenges for videographers. Not only do most people not bother to turn their phones 90 degrees to match the aspect ratio (often because they have their screen orientation locked), they also often have the sound disabled. What's a videographer to do? Check out this example from Boston University:

Joe Chan, a videographer at Boston University, recently shared this with the excellent University Video Producers Facebook group, which you should join immediately.

Wanted to share an experiment we're doing where we're looking to make specific content for FB and Youtube - we found 80% of our audience was watching without sound, so we did a re-cut to share a single beat of the story that you could understand without sound (similar to Now This or other FB content you've seen around). Hope you enjoy!

Super smart, right? Not only does this video work even without the sound, but it also has an aspect ratio that works better for people who are watching it with their phones in the "upright" position. And it's shocking that such a large percentage of people were watching videos without sound... if there were ever any question as to whether or not mobile has completely taken over social media browsing, there's your answer.

Definitely something to consider for your video projects going forward. I have always known that platforms like Snapchat and Instagram require their own unique video edits, but it definitely makes sense that mobile-optimized videos for Facebook also require their own special edit too. Now if only we had endless time and staff to make bespoke edits for every social platform!  :)