- [Narrator] For the last seven years,
The Verge has been creating video reviews for everything
from phones to laptops to electric cars, and
to say the least, we've come a long way since then.
- [Nilay Patel] This is Nilay Patel at The Verge.
- Water resistant.
- And as we got better, the amount of you guys out there
watching grew and grew and grew.
But, how do we do it?
Before you roll the cameras,
you have to have something important to say.
Here at The Verge we care about technology
and the future and how that technology
is gonna change our future and low-key the way we interact
with the whole entire world and to do that
we have this incredible editorial staff
that dives in on every product we're given
and then reviews it but hold on, I'm gonna call Dan
because he would say this much better than me.
- [Dan] Hey Becca, first thing's first, we need
to get a product in our hands before we can review it.
So a lot of times we get demo devices from companies
who loan them to us for a short period of time
and then we send them back when we're done
or other times we actually go out and buy the products.
But most importantly with this, no company ever pays us
for coverage and they won't ever in the future either.
Now, once we actually have the product in, our approach
is really a mix of three different things.
It means a lot under our experience,
there's a huge dose of skepticism, and then on top of that
is a big curiosity about it.
You know, sometimes it's really easy to get overwhelmed
with the marketing messages from all these companies
that are pitching us but our job is to cut through that BS,
find a story, and then tell everyone about it.
- So, after editorial has it in their hands,
and they've kinda figured out the story that they want
to tell, we head into a creative meeting,
where we take the meaning of this product
and translate it into a visual narrative
for all of you to see.
Now, there is one constant thing in our whole process,
and that's the gear we use.
We also have a team on the west coast so hey Vjeran,
how's everything going out there?
- Hey, it's going pretty well.
So you wanna talk about gear?
Well for the most part it's going to be C100 mark two's,
C300 mark two, C200 or Sony A7S mark two.
Canon is great for in house studio production,
and Sony is just perfect on a gimbal.
And I know you might be wondering why we're not shooting 4K.
Well, editing and shooting 4K raw footage
on a 24 hour turn around is just not fun.
- Now, each product we review calls
for a different environment.
Let me go get Alix she could probably speak to this.
Alix in the house!
- There's a ton of things to take into factor with location.
First, the device.
That'll inform whether you wanna shoot indoors or outdoors
in a homey place or an office, but there's some things
that we always look for and that's a place
with natural light, a place that has a lot of surfaces
and nooks to put the devices in
and something with a lot of depth.
We love depth.
Sometimes we'll look for days for a perfect location
and other times we'll just shoot here in the studio.
And what's most important for a location
is a good spot to do stand up
and that's when the host is talking directly to the camera.
We're looking for something that's easy on the eyes,
has a lot of depth but is not too distracting.
And here, being quiet is very important.
- These stand-ups make up the bones of the video,
it's the thesis, it's the why does this matter,
it's the oh my gosh the future is low-key scary. (laughs)
But the next priority for us is
how we visually show you these things.
The Verge has had a distinct style from the day we started
and we're continuing that and furthering that
and only making it stronger and one of our favorite ways
to do that is our hero shot.
And often times it's the first thing you see in our videos,
but in reality it's typically the last thing we film.
Let me get Will.
- The hero shots to our reviews are meant to be evocative,
and really be bespoke.
We're trying to find new ways to reveal the phones
or the product and we're always trying to incorporate
some sort of visual element that ties back to a feature
of the phone but usually in an abstract way.
(upbeat rock music)
- Regardless of what that shot ends up looking like
it has to support the narrative of the whole piece
and it absolutely has to be in our style.
This will continue into the edit
and, yes, we have desks that go up and down.
Okay, we see you, we hear you,
we know you want us to review everything under the sun
and we so wish we could but the pace at which tech
is evolving is insane,
but we try to pick the most impactful for you.
Like, what's gonna change the world that you live in
and what are you gonna be using every day
that didn't exist two weeks ago?
And, what's just plain out there?
- The future of boxers, smart underwear, Spartan.
They can protect my most important gadget
from all that harmful radiation.
- Oh my gosh.
Either way and above all else,
we get to go to work every day
and we get to make stuff
and we get to tell stories about the future.
It's freaking cool and mind-blowing
and I simply don't understand that this is my job
but it is and I also get to work
with the coolest people in the whole entire world like,
these people are sick.
Like not sick, but like, sick.
(upbeat music)
Thank you so much for keeping it locked to The Verge,
we're stoked to bring you everything that's to come
and we hope that you'll stay tuned.
Be well, guys, I'll see you in the future.