The Graffiti Door Video
- How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I authored this video with the front facing camera of my iPhone 7. At first I used the Instagram app itself to record the video, but I found it difficult to take multiple films and save them within the app. I found often the video was shaky or I’d accidentally move the camera away from the door handle. This was because I had to film with one hand, as I had to take multiple shots. I think it would be beneficial for the app to afford the ability to create a drafts folder. Eventually I recorded the video with my phone camera, which was frustrating as the phone camera does not afford square video recording. I decided not to edit the video, I just took a few takes until I was content with the final product. I did apply a filter, ‘Aden’, which is the same filter I used on the photograph. As Instagram presents itself in a grid format, I thought consistency across the content would be effective.
My takeaway from this first experience with utilising Instagram to record a video for publishing and distributing was that there are more constraints than affordances when it comes to videos on Instagram. Initially, Instagram was a solely image based platform but expanded to afford the authoring, publishing and distributing of videos. It seems that although it has introduced video related affordances, Instagram’s software still needs to be developed to ease the process of producing videos through the app.
- How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For publishing, I maintained similar features to that of the previous photograph. As aforementioned, I took a few shots until I was content with the final entire video. From there I chose to include the same geofilter, which was ‘China Town, Melbourne’. Additionally, I chose to include the audio as it indicated that the door was locked, additionally I decided to maintain the configure that makes the video play automatically. For the caption, I chose to describe the video and make reference to the previous post. Additionally, I referred to upcoming posts by stating ‘stay tuned for more #door related content’ and a few relevant emojis because everyone likes emojis. Additionally, I chose a cover image that I thought was well framed and fit the profile’s grid. I would like to add here that for some reason once published the quality of the video significantly decreased.
- How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
I used distribution methods similar to the post preceding this video. In the publishing process I chose to include a number fairly generic but relevant hashtags that are likely to increase the reach of the video. I did add a few extra such as #melbourne and #laneways. Additionally, I chose to post cross platform on Twitter and Tumblr like my previous post. Something I found interesting was that using the cross posting mechanism afforded by Instagram means the photo does not come up on Twitter, rather it creates a tweet with the same caption and a link to the post whereas the post on Tumblr was basically a replica of the original Instagram post.
It is interesting to note that although I utilised practically the same exact methods of distribution between the photograph and the video, the photo got significantly more likes than the video. Indeed, like I mentioned, I added more hashtags than the original post, hashtags that I thought would generate more traffic. To me this feeds back to the aforementioned affordances and constraints related to video production on the app. It seems to me like videos have not quite caught up to the standards of photographs on Instagram. There are barely any Instagram accounts dedicated solely to videos, it simply is not a major aspect of Instagram yet.