Motion Array Adds Review and Portfolio to its Array of Features

Motion Array Adds Review and Portfolio to its Array of Features

Create, Review, and Publish Video with the New Motion Array.

[Sponsored Post]

First, as the Premiere Pro User Blog and Fansite, everything we publish is heavily filtered by our mission to remain laser-focused on Premiere Pro. This review of Motion Array’s relaunch and new services admittedly strays outside of that, but for good reason. We heartily believe the new Motion Array can change the way video creators, and particularly Premiere Pro users, create, review, and share videos.

Motion Array Relaunch

For more than a year, Motion Array co-founders Tyler Williams and Eri Levin have been working on the difficult task of making video review and publishing easy for video creators. The result: two new Review and Portfolio services are now available to Motion Array members at no additional cost to members.

MOTION ARRAY: We're calling this a "relaunch" because we’ve added the two all-new services and have completely revamped the marketplace.

This relaunch is a demonstration of Motion Array’s fierce commitment to their members, giving them everything they need to create and share their best work. Use Motion Array’s white label Review pages to get timecode-specific feedback from clients. Publish final videos directly to one of Motion Array’s customizable Portfolio pages, without having to re-upload. Use your own domain to make your review pages and portfolio familiar to clients and followers. Combined with the continuing expansion of their Marketplace, Motion Array’s Review and Portfolio create an all-in-one solution for creating, reviewing, and publishing videos.

 

Motion Array Membership Benefits

As a membership, Motion Array stands apart from their competitors. (And the number of competitors has significantly increased with their foray into video review and website hosting.) For a reasonable monthly or annual subscription, members get to keep everything they download from the Marketplace. They also get unlimited review projects and get to connect a custom domain at no extra cost!

Review and Portfolio are tightly integrated into Motion Array’s existing services. Paying members can download templates and assets, edit them in Premiere Pro and After Effects, upload them for review, and publish them to a personal website. The financial benefits start piling up when totaling the costs of paying for each of these services independently. For example:

Look at that list. Motion Array is all of that in one!

Another great thing about Motion Array is all the files in the Marketplace can be used in an infinite number of projects. As long as your membership is active, you have access to all your downloads. Like it says on the website: “Download once, keep forever. Use and reuse on endless projects without any additional costs, even if you downgrade your account.”

 

Motion Array Review

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It seems like the post-production industry went from zero online video review services to dozens in the span of about 3 years. And now, Motion Array has thrown its hat into this crowded and competitive market. Motion Array’s Review is comparatively lacking when it comes to number of features… and then it hits you: it’s kind of refreshing, actually. Some video review services can feel overwhelming. Motion Array gives you the essentials: timecode specific comments with on-screen markers.

Motion Array's Review system makes collaboration easy. Streamline your video approval process, and get realtime, frame-accurate feedback from your clients.

Getting Started with Review

Navigate to My Account > Review to manage your videos under My Review Projects. (TIP: Videos play directly in the My Review Projects window.) Click the Upload button in the top right to create a new video project. Note that the Upload button is accessible under Portfolio and Uploads as well—they're all the same.

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Enter a Project Name and Description, then drag your video file to the drop zone to upload. Under Project Settings, choose Review (you can also upload the video directly to your Portfolio Gallery) and Review Settings will appear. You can password protect your review page and make videos downloadable to your collaborators.

Edit existing review projects by clicking the gear icon underneath the video thumbnails. Select Project Settings to change project name, description, and Review Settings. Choose Edit Placeholder to upload a custom thumbnail or choose from a list of automatically generated thumbnails. Select Manage Versions to upload a new video file for review.

Under My Review Settings, you can brand your review page with a custom Default Review Logo. You can also choose your own favicon too. The URL for your review pages is determined by your Portfolio domain, which can either be a free post.pro domain, provided by Motion Array, or your own domain. The great thing about hosting reviews on your own domain is your clients won’t be distracted by an unfamiliar URL. Lastly, enter your email address in order to be notified when your clients make comments on your video.

Sharing the Review Projects

To open a review page, click the My Reviews button under the video thumbnail. Review pages are 100% “white label”, meaning there’s no Motion Array branding. Are you noticing a trend here? Motion Array is all about keeping the focus their members and their work.

Share your review project by clicking the Share button at the top right of the review page. Add new collaborators or select existing ones to notify them your video is ready for their review. You have the option to add a personal message.

Collaborators will receive an email from “Video Review” with the subject line, “Someone commented on the project review “Name.”” The recipient will see a generic greeting, your personal message, and the review page link. (Again, featuring your own domain if you set it up that way). Alternatively, you can also copy the public link and share it with collaborators via email or another messenger. Remember: you can password protect public links.

One nice thing about Review by Motion Array is you won’t get bogged down with managing links. And there’s no confusion with terms like “team members”, “reviewers”, and “collaborators”. They’re all the same! Share your review link with anyone who needs to review your video. You can have as many collaborators as you want!

Reviewing and Making Comments

Play the video to begin reviewing. Use the arrow keys to go frame-by-frame; add the Shift modifier key to skip five frames. Click any area of the frame to add a comment. Comments can be edited or deleted after being sent. Reviewers will be prompted to enter a name and email address to send their comments. No signup is required for your collaborators! The email is strictly for notification purposes.

Keep track of completed tasks and let your clients know you’re addressing their feedback by checking off comments. When a new version is ready, upload it as a new version so collaborators and clients can easily look back at previous and verify changes.

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While members can expect to see more collaboration tools added to Review in the future, the real win is its integration with Portfolio. Skip the re-upload and waiting process and instantaneously publish videos on your Portfolio with the click of a button.

 

Motion Array Portfolio

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Portfolio is way more than a cheesy showcase; it’s a full-on website builder specifically intended for video creators. Motion Array’s Portfolio themes offer many modern website features, including mobile friendly versions, contact forms, and sticky navigation menus. As mentioned earlier, the best part about Portfolio is you can connect your own domain.

Quickly and easily create a stunning website to showcase your amazing work. Built by video makers, for video makers.

Getting Started with Portfolio

Navigate to My Account > Portfolio to browse Motion Array’s beautiful website themes under My Portfolio. (TIP: Click Preview to open themes in a separate window to explore their layouts and features.) Themes can be duplicated so you can create several variations of a theme without interrupting your live portfolio. Once you’ve chosen a theme, click Make Active and then Open Editor to begin customizing it to feature your best work.

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In My Portfolio Gallery you can see all the videos you’ve sent over from Review. Under each video thumbnail are shortcuts to the view the video on your published portfolio, as well as the video’s review page. Same as Review, you can also download the video and edit the project’s settings under the gear icon.

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Customize the Title and Description of your portfolio under My Portfolio Settings. This is where you can choose between a free post.pro URL or enter your own custom domain. The contact email will be the address that contact form submissions will be sent to. Make sure you click Save Changes after editing your portfolio settings. At the bottom of the page, you can choose to Visit, Edit, or Unpublish your portfolio.

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Editing Motion Array Portfolio Sections

Motion Array portfolios are built with sections. Editing your portfolio is as simple as toggling sections on/off and rearranging them. Sections are managed under the Settings column on the left hand side. Drag the handles on the left of sections to reorder them.

Click Add New Section and choose section types like Video Gallery, Full Image or Video, or Contact Form. (There are eleven available sections at the time of this writing.)

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Within each section are more than enough customization options to make your theme your own. Hovering over the portfolio layout reveals tools to edit or delete sections. Click the gear icon that appears in the top right to open a section’s settings. You can customize things like Color, Layout, Style, and other contextual properties.

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To edit the main navigation, click the gear icon when hovering over the navigation section and twirl down the Navigation Links setting. Switch on the sections you want to appear in the Navbar.

Under the General Settings members can edit the site width, choose fonts, and upload a favicon. Lastly, at the bottom of the Settings menu, members can choose to preview their site before making it live, save it to continue editing later, or publish changes to the web.

Who is Portfolio For?

Of course, video creators will find Portfolio extremely practical and intuitive. But the real benefit is for video creators who are also using stock assets and templates. If you are using one of the popular website builders just to feature your video work online, you’re probably paying too much. Especially when Motion Array Portfolio also includes access to stock music, footage, motion graphics, and a review service for a similar price.

 

Motion Array Marketplace

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Not every company would be brave enough to release two new services in a single launch. But that’s what Motion Array has done, and without any expense to their Marketplace. With over 4500 new assets a month, the Marketplace has hardly taken backseat to Review and Portfolio. It has new and improved search filters and tags, including a “Kick-ass Items” sorting category. Find the right asset for your project faster with instantaneous search results.

In this tutorial we explore how to use the search features within Motion Array's Marketplace to help you find the products you're looking for faster and easier. Using search tags and filters can save you time, energy, and effort getting to the files you're searching for.

Another expansion to the Marketplace was the recentaddition of Adobe’s Motion Graphics Templates. Motion Array was the first 3rd-party company to begin producing Motion Graphics Templates. This is proof that a Motion Array membership is particularly beneficial to Premiere Pro users.

Motion Array Requests

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Not finding what you want? Motion Array has a unique Requests page where members can submit and vote on files in any Motion Array category. Read Introducing Motion Array Requests to learn more.

Summary

Motion Array offers a competitive end-to-end service for video creators. Offering all their services as a monthly membership makes them truly unique. From a vibrant Marketplace full of professional stock assets and templates, to an integrated video Review and Portfolio service, Motion Array is empowering artists with more tools in one place. Sign up for a free Motion Array account and explore Review and Portfolio now!


What do you think about Motion Array's relaunch and new Review and Portfolio features? Would you give them a try for free? If you're already a Motion Array member, we'd especially like to hear from you! 

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