The Slate, issue 1: 🎬 We just killed the most tedious job in video
The monthly email that does for your inbox what Vidloft does for your footage: sorts the good stuff to the top.
Sent by Daniel Roberts
Before we roll
Welcome to issue one of The Slate. Think of it as the director's commentary for Vidloft: what we shipped, why we built it, and seven tricks worth stealing.
A quick confession. We ship something almost every week, and most of it is invisible unless someone points at it. So once a month, I'm going to point. Enthusiastically.
This month is about the part of video nobody puts in the budget. The sorting. The renaming. The "wait, which file is the CFO?" Starting today, Vidloft does that part automatically.
Everything below is live for every team right now. If something doesn't work the way you'd expect, hit reply. It comes straight to me.
--daniel
Founder and CEO, Vidloft
Seven things that actually work.
We read thousands of threads where marketers trade notes on what they've actually tested. These earned a full write-up.
- 01Your coworkers could be sinking your best videoYouTube launches
- 02Kill your logo intro. Seriously.The first 10 seconds
- 03The prettier thumbnail got 0% clicks overnightThumbnails
- 04Your Shorts are a 2% funnel. Here's the fix.Shorts
- 05He 10x'd his clicks. Then his views vanished.Titles and thumbnails
- 06Never post these 14 videos on the same dayUpload timing
- 07Instagram is making your Reels blurry on purposeInstagram
Meanwhile, inside Vidloft
What's new in the app
4 launches. All live. Nothing to turn on.
File sorting is dead.
You're welcome.
Every shoot ends the same way. The crew wraps, everybody high-fives, and somebody gets handed a drive full of files named C0042.MP4, A003_C002.MOV and ZOOM0022.WAV. Congratulations. You're now a librarian.
You, opening the shoot drive:
Not anymore. Drop the whole shoot into one place and Smart Upload automatically works out what every file is, then sorts it into talks, B-roll, audio, photos and documents. Think of a very fast intern who never asks where the shared drive is.
So what? Your editor starts on the story, not the setup, and you stop answering "which file is this?" emails. Looking for something specific? Search, filter or sort by capture date or camera.
Footage that knows who's talking.
The first video platform that organizes your footage the way you shot it.
Pop quiz. You filmed three interviews on three cameras and a separate audio recorder. Which of these few dozen files is the CFO's close-up?
If you said "I'll just open all of them," congratulations, that's what everyone does. It's also why this part of video takes forever.
Now you just drop it all in. Vidloft automatically works out which footage belongs to which interview and opens each one as a stack, named for who's speaking, with every camera angle in one player. Jump from the wide shot to the close-up mid-sentence. No file hunting.
So what? Instead of a folder full of mystery files, you get a short list of interviews. Click one and watch it the way it happened, start to finish. Vidloft built that structure for you, automatically.
No other video platform can do that. Yes, we looked. Which means your team has it, and your peers at other companies don't. Feel free to rub it in next time you see them.
Your old footage just got a second career.
Most asset libraries are where footage goes to die. Ours works the other way.
You know the typical asset library. A quiet retirement home for B-roll. Lovely views. No visitors.
Ours puts footage back to work. When you set up a new project, pull in any clip from your library, including footage from past shoots, with nothing to download. That gorgeous drone shot from last spring? Back in the rotation.
The upgrade also previews RAW and Photoshop files, gives the viewer more room to breathe, and lets you share a Collection with anyone by link.
Two more chores, gone.
Approvals
Approve once. Get everything.
Approve a cut and the captions, masters and licenses your editor attached come along for the ride, ready to download. Goodbye, "can you resend the caption file?"
Playback
Sharper on every screen.
We rebuilt the player for sharper playback, and review links now play on iPad. Tried one on the couch before? Try again.
That's a wrap
Got a shoot coming up? Drop the whole thing in and watch it sort itself. Then hit reply and tell me how it went.
Tell me what you want in issue two, or what's still driving you nuts about video at your company. It comes straight to me, and yes, I read every one.
P.S. Know someone still renaming C0042.MP4 by hand? Forward this. It's the nicest thing you'll do for them all week.
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