Exploring Collaboration in Video Post Production By introducing a task management concept to a HTML5 based Quality Control tool Dennis Karlman Dennis Karlman Spring 2020 Degree Project in Interaction Technology and Design, 30 credits Supervisor: Jan Erik Mostrom¨ Extern Supervisor: Peter Ahlstrom¨ Examiner: Ola Ringdahl Master’s Programme in Interaction Technology and Design, 30 credits Abstract Collaboration has always played a big part in our technological advance- ments and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The field of video post-production, which Quality Control is a part of, is quite large, involving many people and processes that can be hard to organize. One possible solution to structure the workflow is to introduce an online col- laboration tool in the form of a task management system. This thesis focuses on exploring which functionality and design that should be im- plemented in such a system. By using literature studies together with interviews, iterative prototyp- ing and user testing, it was implied that a task management system could be useful as it would increase workflow and user experience. Some functionalities like sorted lists, automated reporting system, the divid- ing of assets, and gradually saving progress were deemed exciting and potentially useful. A final user interface based on said functionalities was created and user- tested. The flow and design of the interface gained promising results based on both flow testes and qualitative comments. A time-based com- parative test showed that sorted lists and automatic reporting system were 150% more efficient than not having it. The other suggested func- tionalities were also shown to be of interest, but further research needs do be done to be able to draw conclusions. Acknowledgements I want to thank Codemill for letting me do my master thesis work at their company, as well as my external supervisor Peter Ahlstrom¨ and other staff at Codemill that has helped me and guided me through this project. I would also like to thank both by supervisor Jan Erik Mostrom¨ and my examiner Ola Ringdahl for their encouragement and guidance through the entire course. Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The beginning of communication and collaboration 1 1.2 Codemill and Accurate Video 1 1.3 Objective 2 2 Background 3 2.1 Video production- and post-production workflow 3 2.2 Coronavirus Disease 2019 9 3 Theoretical Framework 11 3.1 Collaboration 11 3.2 Task Management 12 3.3 Accurate Video 14 3.4 QC workers persona 17 3.5 User Testing 18 3.6 How to measure User Testing 19 3.7 Remote user testing 20 3.8 Interview techniques 22 3.9 Prototypes 23 3.10 Basic Design Principles 27 4 Methodology 28 4.1 Literature study 28 4.2 Interviews 28 4.3 Codemill 28 4.4 Prototyping 29 4.5 User testing 30 5 Prototypes 33 5.1 Prototype 1 33 5.2 Prototype 2 36 5.3 Prototype 3 39 6 Results 46 6.1 Interviews 46 6.2 Prototype 1 47 6.3 Prototype 2 47 6.4 Prototype 3 - Flow testing 48 6.5 Prototype 3 - Comparative test 48 6.6 Prototype 3 - Exploring functionality 49 7 Discussion 51 7.1 Interviews 51 7.2 User tests and prototype iteration 51 7.3 Results discussion 52 8 Conclusions 54 8.1 Future Work 54 References 56 A The Instructions for the test 61 A.1 Link to the user test instructions 61 A.2 Image of the user test instructions 61 B The QC report 62 B.1 Image of the QC-Report 62 C Prototypes 63 C.1 Link to the prototypes 63 D Flow testing instructions 64 E Comparative test 65 E.1 Version without sorted lists 65 1(65) 1 Introduction 1.1 The beginning of communication and collaboration In the earth’s distant past, more than 200 000 years ago, the dawn of humankind took place somewhere in the south of Africa [1]. It was here our species of the homo genus family, the ”Homo Sapiens”, gazed upon the sun for the first time. One may think that one of our key features as a species, complex language, developed around the same time, but that is most likely not the case. Findings and experiments indicate not only that our ancestors gradually started to develop speech and language for more than two million years ago, but that it also holds a central role in our ability to collaborate. By investigating the impact of social learning on hominin lithic technology, Thomas JH Morgan et al. [2] concluded that these techniques to create stone tools were poorly transmitted through observation alone, and most likely required teaching through complex communication, i.e. language of some kind, to be successfully transmitted between individuals. Not only does this emphasize the importantness of communicating with each other during a work process, but it also suggests that as a species, we are prone to collaborate and that it holds a unique role in our evolution as well as technological advancement. One can argue that without the ability to communicate and collaborate efficiently, we would not have the technological advances we have today. Much time has passed since then, but communication and collaboration have and will re- main essential parts of our technology advancement. One of the fields that have seen a tremendous technological advancement in the last decennials, is the video post-production workflow [3]. Video post-production has specialized software designed for each specific area of the workflow, all the way from editing the captured video, to quality control of the final product. As every step of this workflow involves large numbers of both files and sys- tem collaborators, the structure of the systems tends to be quite complicated. With such complex systems, it is vital to find ways to structure the workflow as well as letting the collaborators of the system communicating effectively with each other, as it often tends to make their performance more efficient. This thesis will focus on the exploration of how to introduce a system that will add both structure and collaborative measurements to software specialized for quality control in video post-production. 1.2 Codemill and Accurate Video Codemill is a digital product development- and IT-consult company, seated in Umea,˚ Swe- den and has been here since 2007. As of May 2020, they have about 60 employees but are continually growing. The company works with many international companies, mostly in the broadcast and media industries. Their primary focus and product is an HTML5 based 2(65) post-production software tool called Accurate Video [4]. Accurate Video is often used as a Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance (QA) tool where users can work together with video content stored in the cloud. Accurate Video let the user work with a zoomable timeline, make audio QC and subtitle verification. The product’s strength, however, lies in its modularity and customizable features. Depending on the users’ needs, Codemill will change the content of the product to fit the requested demands [5]. 1.3 Objective This master thesis will be focused on exploring how a collaborative task management sys- tem for video post-production can be implemented in a QC-environment. The focus will be on researching what functionality should be included to create a satisfying experience for the user. Research Questions The main question for the thesis is presented first, followed by its sub questions. Does the functionality of a sorted list and autogenerated QC-report make it preferable over not having it? (a) What other features could be preferable for a task management system in the context of a video post production QC-environment? (b) How to design a task management system for QC video post-production and align it aesthetically with a product? 3(65) 2 Background 2.1 Video production- and post-production workflow Post-production is what occurs after the process of shooting the video. Depending on the type of content that is produced, the post-production process can differ a bit. There are, for example, differences between post-production for Hollywood movies and documentary filmmakers, but most of the workflow is still similar to each other [3]. The main stages of video production are as follow [6]: • Capture • Prep • Edit • Conform • Visual Effects (VFX) • Color • Sound • Delivery The following sub sections will be focused on each one of these stages. 2.1.1 Capture The first step in making a film is to have the right equipment. The general rule is to aim for the camera that has the highest-quality of codec [6]. Codec is the meshing of two words: coder and decoder (co/dec). Shortly described, it is the technique to transform and compress video and sound and then decompressing them for editing or playback [7]. With higher quality codec, more information will be included in the captured data, which gives greater options regarding editing. 4(65) Figure 1: In the process of capturing [6] After choosing the codec, a decision has to be taken whether to record in log or not. By using a logarithmic profile, the recorded material gives a wide dynamic and tonal range, which allows more options for applying colour and style choices in the editing stage. The downside is that the resulting image appears washed out and requires colour-grading in the editing stage, but it highlights details and retains shadows that otherwise would be lost using a linear profile [8]. 2.1.2 Prep When the shooting of the video is completed, the next step in the workflow is Prep. All the data is now stored on memory cards or Solid-State Drives (SSD’s).