Gadgetory

- [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.