Vanessa Kaneshiro, Time.com

July 22, 2008

This is another in a series of exclusive interviews with magazine executives responsible for leveraging their brands on digital platforms.

Vanessa Kaneshiro
Video Producer and Editor
Time.com

As the video producer and editor for Time.com, Vanessa Kaneshiro is responsible for all the video content on the site. Previously, she worked in video capacities with VH1 and MLB.com, and earlier with MTV's news and documentary unit. She started her career working on documentaries for PBS and various independent production companies.

Q. At the recent "Magazines 24/7: Video" conference, you mentioned that you, as the only video producer at TIME, may work 13-hour days and weekends to report, shoot and edit videos for the site. And last fall, one of TIME's writers praised you for culling the video clips for The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME for his TV Blog . What are the pros—and cons—of being a one-woman band?

A. Thankfully, that has changed recently! TIME just hired Craig Duff as the new Director of Multimedia. My workload has already lightened since he's started and it's great. But there are definitely a lot of pros when you're working alone. I tend to be a perfectionist, so to have control over every detail of a video from start to finish is definitely something that I like a lot.

Every shoot is a challenge and if it works, it's a great sense of accomplishment. The "100 Best TV Shows" package took me a solid month to complete (including weekends) but I have to say I still love looking at that project. The major con is, of course, that if a video doesn't come out as strong as it should, there's only yourself to blame.

Q. At that same MPA event, you indicated that most of your videos are relatively brief. Talk a little about what's entailed, and what you look for, in boiling down the raw footage to get the nuggets you need.

A. Our videos actually tend to hover around four minutes or less. The "10 Questions" videos we do online—an edited version of the interview runs in the magazine—run a little bit longer to really get a feel for the subject's personality.

For a "location" shoot or a video that's going to accompany a print story in the magazine, you really have to plan what the storyline is going to be before you go out. Otherwise, it's really easy to come back with a lot of wasted tape. When you come back, you pick only the best-of-the-best moments from the raw footage and the storyline markers for the intro, facts, and wrap-up (statements from interviewees or the reporter's voiceover).

Every piece of footage or every statement included should be serve only one purpose: to move the story along—and you get one shot only for each. You also have to think about what will keep people watching, and it helps catch users attention by placing your most gorgeous shots, funniest moments or most shocking moments in the first 10 seconds—or less! What's challenging is that you constantly have to put yourself in the place of your viewer and think, "Would they have the same level of interest in this topic as I?"

Q. How long have you been with Time.com? Have you found that some of your duties at your previous companies help you in your post at Time.com?

A. I've been with Time.com for almost a year now. Working in television and film has absolutely prepared me for working in online video. When working on a long-form documentary or a documentary series for TV where budgets can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the production standards and requirements are almost non-negotiable. They have to be near-perfect quality—the best sound, the best videographers, the best color correction and editing, and the list goes on.

When you're working online, however, you have to think about production in a completely different way because everything from the crew, to the budget, to the medium or player size is smaller. We make great-looking videos, but there's more flexibility in production standards.

When you understand all that goes into making a doc or a TV show, you're absolutely prepared to do shoots on your own. When TIME asks me to set up shoots in other states and countries, my time spent in TV managing crews and booking edits, or working with 30 interns and associate producers at a time, has made me really adept at coordinating productions.

Also, after working on multiple simultaneous storylines for a documentary series, you're really qualified to do videos that will have a storyline too—but instead run just three minutes. Both are difficult, but for different reasons. In docs, you have days to think about this scene or that, but you have hundreds of hours of tape to work with and the organization of the team has to be extremely efficient. In short videos, you have maybe an hour of tape but you need to decide very quickly how you're going to present your story, and then jump right into editing if you want to finish it the same day.

Q. Among the recent video interviews you shot was one that your boss, TIME Managing Editor Rick Stengel, did with Maria Shriver . Thus far, what's been the most memorable interview you've been involved in, celebrity or otherwise?

A. That's a hard question to answer! You always have a preconceived idea of what someone is going to be like and sometimes it's spot-on and sometimes you leave with your mind completely and pleasantly changed, and those are the interviews I like the most.

I would have to say Madeline Albright was very inspiring, and Anthony Bourdain, Denis Leary, and Tim Gunn were great fun to produce. Coordinating the Vladimir Putin shoot for the "2007 Person of the Year" was definitely the most challenging thing I've done in my career by far, but when it all worked out, I felt like I just completed a marathon. It was an accomplishment for the whole team at Time.com.

Q. In a June issue, TIME ran a page heralding, "TIME is now on YouTube!" How much does that add to your workload?

A. Our new YouTube page has been great for Time.com and isn't too time-consuming. I do think it's really important to take the video that you create and put it out on as many platforms as possible. You put so much work into every single one—you should show it off!

At VH1, we uploaded our videos on our site, of course, but also to iTunes, Verizon Mobile, YouTube, Google Video and Yahoo! Video. People are very attached to their platforms and daily websites they visit, so the video should live in as many places as possible just for that reason. YouTube has been a lot of fun because the best reward is to connect with people, read comments, and, of course, see your view tally rise.

Q. Do you get involved in other digital platforms beyond the website and YouTube?

A. We're ramping up to start regular delivery on iTunes and other platforms going forward (mobile, etc). It's a team effort with marketing and ad sales, and there are ongoing discussions about what kinds of formats we would have to deliver in the end.

Q. When it comes to video productions, are there things that magazines in general could be doing to improve their online content?

A. From a producer's viewpoint, I'd say magazines really need to focus on production quality. Video can be expensive to produce, but you still want the magazine to look good. I don't think just because it's "web video" it should be badly shot with bad audio and a bad or non-existent storyline. If you want your magazine to have a certain image, you should put the time, planning, budget and staff to create videos that are just as good as your web design, photography and the printed magazine. In the end, you have to decide if you want a lot of bad videos scattered around your site, or less video but better quality.

The other thing that's been fascinating is the discussion about the visual "image" of the magazine—you are essentially bringing your magazine from print to something people can see and hear. So you have to think: Which reporters will best represent you on-camera? Depending on your established reader audience and the content they expect from you, can your videos be funny? Does everything have to be hard news? How will you curate pitches from freelancers to make sure they go through the same standards a written story would? Should you produce single videos to go with printed stories or web series and videos that live on their own? It's a lot to think about, but if you plan ahead of time, you'd be surprised at what you can do.

Q. What's the longest a video should run on the web versus, say, on TV?

A. In terms of length, I would say nothing longer than three or four minutes unless it's a feature story or interview with no b-roll.

Q. What's the latest tally on the unique monthly visitors to TIME.com?

A. About 15 million unique monthly visitors so far this year. The most popular pages are usually: the homepage, "Pictures of the Week,"and "The Page."

Q. What have been the one or two most viewed video features of, say, the last six months?

A. "10 Years of Viagra Jokes" and "10 Questions for Rain." The latter was a great video we did to go along with the annual “TIME 100” issue. “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central played it since the Korean pop star Rain is Colbert’s rival in the TIME 100 online poll. Also, "How to Cook a Bug!"

Q. Looking ahead, are there things you'd like to be developing that you're not already doing?

A. You know, just keeping up with day-to-day production is really challenging. But going forward I would love to add more of a "doc-style" feeling to our short videos, keep production standards really high and work to bump up the creativity in our videography and editing—like working with more graphics and music.