How do you create content, that works cross-platform such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and many more vertical platforms? That was the question we wished to answer, as Media City Odense gathered more than 100 attendees from all across the media industry. Individuals with a line of work in communications, marketing, content creation, and videoproduction alike gathered for a whole day, where the focus was solely on vertical video format.

The day offered concrete tools, international perspectives, as well as practical, felt experiences from some companies, who work with vertical videos on the daily. What brought all of the keynotes together, was their shared focus on how exactly the media industry can regulate itself to fit these new platforms, change patterns of behavior, and an ever-growing need to produce relevant video content- fast and effectively.

From production to publishing

The day came to a roaring start by BLackMagic Design, who started the day by introducing attendees to DaVinci Resolve. Here, they showed how the platformkan be used to optimize the production of vertical video format. The main focus of the pitch was on integrated workflows within DaVinci Resolve, which helps create an environment where everything needed is compiled into one story program. From editing, sound, effekt, color grading, and more, BlackMagic Design told us all about it.

In the latter half of the day, we were introduced to Adobe, who demonstrated how Adobe Premiere (Formerly known as Adobe Premiere Pro) can be used to customize, cut, and produce videos in vertical format. This in turn helped give attendees tools, they could take home and implement in their work in production.

What makes content go viral?

One of the most popular keynotes of the day came from Frederik Plejdrup, who brought our attendees behind the scenes, of how him and his team have created content that has a combined reach of over 1 billion views. Here, Frederik shared concrete methods to understand the behaviors of your audience, creat strong hooks and create content, that has the potential to dominate social media.

The overall message of the keynote was, that success on vertical platforms rarely ever happens through shere luck, but through understanding the logistics of the given platform, and your audiences behaviors.

AI becomes a naturalized part of video production

Artifical intelligence and automation was also a central, reoccurring theme of the day. CoJourno Vertical gave a presentation, on how AI can support the production of vertical video production, whilst AWS Elemental demonstrated the possibilities of incorporating AI into the live production of vertical content.

Both keynotes alluded to the fact, that automation is becoming a more central element in modern video production, and helps give organizations the opportunity to produce more content in less time, without compromising on quality.

When TV stations think digital

Nanna Odmand Nielsen gave us a peek into TV 2 Østjylland's transformation from a traditional tv-station, to a digital media outlet, where vertical videos play an big role in their strategy.

Attendees gained insight into the changes taking place within both their organizations and writers’ rooms, as well as the natural shifts that occur when creating content specifically for platforms where capturing viewers’ attention within seconds is essential.

International perspectives on the future of media

All the way from France, Mathieu Dehlinger came to speak on, how M6 Info are working on re-imagining journalism for use on social media, and how to create news that works through the vertical format.

Victor Potrel from TheSoul Publishing took the format, and scaled it to a globe perspective. Here he showed us, how vertical videoformat has become a dominating content standard across countries and platoforms alike. The keynote gave us perspective into the tendencies, that have already started shaping our ideas on the future of media.

Journalism meets creator-culture

Last but not least, the day finished with a keynote from Oliver Springborg from Nordisk Film TV, who shared with us their experience on how journalism fares on social media. With examples from their own channels and establish brands, Oliver gave us concrete insight into everything, from hooks and storytelling, to understanding ones target audience, and fitting content into the box of the specific platform.

The 'take home' from all of this, was that journalism and creator-culture are not as different as once perceived, and can actually become a useful tool to strengthen the content and its message, to make it work better on the platforms, where viewers reside.