Google releases YouTube Director, a suite of tools for Businesses to create advertisements

Google has just released a bunch of tools and services to help businesses make video advertisements quickly and easily. There is an application called YouTube Director that is available only on iOS as of now, coming soon to android. This app lets businesses create a video ad right from an iPhone, without the need for any extra gear or editing software.There is a YouTube Director onsite service, available in select US cities, that sends a professional director and crew to film your ad for free. The onsite solution is available in Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, Atlanta, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The utility is expected to be available in more cities. This service is available only to businesses who spend more than $150 (Roughly Rs 10,069) on advertising on YouTube. If your business is an application, there is a process by which the data entered by the developer in the Play Store backend is churned to create a custom video for the application. This service is available on request.The most accessible tool from all of these is the app. The iPhone app is available in 49 languages, including Hindi.  There are a bunch of templates available for every kind of business, and you can pick one that is suitable to your business, and the aspect of it that you want to showcase. Everything from planning, to shooting, to recording the voice over if necessary, and publishing the video, can be done from within the application itself.The same templates are sorted into two menus. The Featured menu has the most used templates, and the ones appropriate for any kind of business. There is also a menu for choosing the video advertisement according to the business. Each sub menu serves up a list of templates, which are pre-made storyboards. This removes the component of brainstorming or ideation. Users only have to shoot the video, and not bother about what to shoot, or a structure for the entire advertisement. It is functionally equivalent to a script with blanks that can be quickly filled in.Each template shows the expected duration of the final video, as well as the number of shots required to make the video. There are typically between five to fifteen shots in videos, and the duration of each ranges from twenty four to eighty seconds. They are mostly short, quick and easy to make templates.You have to tap on each shot, and can start shooting it right away. Each shot, when clicked, shows a short clip of how the shot can actually be taken. The storyboards include camera angles and framing guidelines as well. There are title overlays available for some shots that can be edited from within the application itself. You work your way through the storyboard, shot by shot. If necessary, a voice over video is added. Then the video can be directly put up on YouTube instantly.