Plastic Surgery Forum - Hype: The Problem of Calling Still Pictures "Videos"

[DrBermant]

This should not be construed as medical advice. I am a retired Board Certified Plastic Surgeon.

Another marketing company was trying to force themselves on me:

Every plastic surgeon should have a video to show off the before & after! we can help! call us!

but their link was to a UTube video of morphed before and after still pictures. In other words, there was no "Before and After Video" but instead a video of Before and After Still Pictures. So what is the big deal? Honesty in advertising is critical. A video is a powerful tool to show how the body moves, expressions, how flesh bounces, stiffness from swelling, and other factors of motion. Still pictures still have great value, but calling Before and After Still Pictures, Before and After Videos, is just deceptive. Here is a page on point:

Failed Revision Gynecomastia Surgery with Extended Crater Defect Complication. Look at the section showing before and after still pictures. The roll overs are like a morph, you can move back and forth seeing what the tissue looks like before and after. You cannot see how the tissue moves. My standard pictures show some of the problem when I ask the patient to flex or move arms up overhead. You can see there is a problem for this individual. But when looking at the movies, the degree of the problem takes on a new whole meaning. The degree of the deformity is so much worse when you can see how it moves.

I love morphs and taught how to make them more than 2 decades ago in courses at the ASPS meetings shortly after seeing Michael Jackson video. They are a powerful tool showing stills and differences in the stills. But I never called them before and after videos. I prefer my roll over web images empowering the viewer to go back and forth the before, after and in between views to critically analyze what was done. But alone, they only tell part of the story. Here is another morphing slide show showing Before After Photo Gallery of Bruising and Healing After Tummy Tuck. Each image can be selected to the link of more detail about each patient, both photos and videos. But now compare that to this Video Belly Dancer Recovery After Tummy Tuck to see how motion plays a more critical role in understanding the nature of the surgery and recovery.

Calling still images that morph movies is just hype.
If a surgical sculpture looks good, it should also look good living life, not just in a still photograph. Calling a morph of before and after photos "before and after videos" is just deceptive and incomplete. The movement may be awesome or terrible, but the viewer is deprived of critical details that true video provides. Also bad are videos of people standing still with no movement, no expression. That is why I have spent so much time evolving my series of Standard Before and After Videos for Gynecomastia. There are many other examples on my sites.

This is the problem with some marketing hype advertisers calling things what they are not. If you search the web for a video and only find a movie of a collection of still pictures, do not think that you are seeing the critical detail possible in what a true before and after video can show.

Come join in the discussion, share your experiences.

Hope this helps,

Michael Bermant, MD
Retired Plastic Surgeon
Learn More About Plastic Surgery

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[DrBermant]

This should not be construed as medical advice. I am a retired Board Certified Plastic Surgeon.

Another marketing company was trying to force themselves on me:

Every plastic surgeon should have a video to show off the before & after! we can help! call us!

but their link was to a UTube video of morphed before and after still pictures. In other words, there was no "Before and After Video" but instead a video of Before and After Still Pictures. So what is the big deal? Honesty in advertising is critical. A video is a powerful tool to show how the body moves, expressions, how flesh bounces, stiffness from swelling, and other factors of motion. Still pictures still have great value, but calling Before and After Still Pictures, Before and After Videos, is just deceptive. Here is a page on point:

Failed Revision Gynecomastia Surgery with Extended Crater Defect Complication. Look at the section showing before and after still pictures. The roll overs are like a morph, you can move back and forth seeing what the tissue looks like before and after. You cannot see how the tissue moves. My standard pictures show some of the problem when I ask the patient to flex or move arms up overhead. You can see there is a problem for this individual. But when looking at the movies, the degree of the problem takes on a new whole meaning. The degree of the deformity is so much worse when you can see how it moves.

I love morphs and taught how to make them more than 2 decades ago in courses at the ASPS meetings shortly after seeing Michael Jackson video. They are a powerful tool showing stills and differences in the stills. But I never called them before and after videos. I prefer my roll over web images empowering the viewer to go back and forth the before, after and in between views to critically analyze what was done. But alone, they only tell part of the story. Here is another morphing slide show showing Before After Photo Gallery of Bruising and Healing After Tummy Tuck. Each image can be selected to the link of more detail about each patient, both photos and videos. But now compare that to this Video Belly Dancer Recovery After Tummy Tuck to see how motion plays a more critical role in understanding the nature of the surgery and recovery.

Calling still images that morph movies is just hype.
If a surgical sculpture looks good, it should also look good living life, not just in a still photograph. Calling a morph of before and after photos "before and after videos" is just deceptive and incomplete. The movement may be awesome or terrible, but the viewer is deprived of critical details that true video provides. Also bad are videos of people standing still with no movement, no expression. That is why I have spent so much time evolving my series of Standard Before and After Videos for Gynecomastia. There are many other examples on my sites.

This is the problem with some marketing hype advertisers calling things what they are not. If you search the web for a video and only find a movie of a collection of still pictures, do not think that you are seeing the critical detail possible in what a true before and after video can show.

I am still bothered over the audacity of a marketing company trying to promote themselves making

a video to show off the before & after! we can help!

and then linking to a Video of Still Pictures.

In my opinion there is a world of difference between Before and After Videos and a Video of Before and After Still Pictures. To prey on the public not aware of the difference, in my opinion is distasteful. When I have spent years teaching of the value of before and after Videos, I was not referring to hiding how tissues move by using only still photos for the video. Still images have their value. A Before and After Video claim should include videos of before and video of the after. The still picture version video limits what is seen. Blinders may be good to keep a horse focused on a task or limit what is seen for problem or result. A used car salesman may not want the customer to walk around to the back of the vehicle with a damaged trunk or turn on the engine that rattles or does not work. I prefer a more detailed look and more critical assessment and would prefer going to someone showing me something that looked good both in the still images and in motion.

My reason to move from pictures to combined Standard Pictures and Video together was learning about the power of analyzing the problem and just how good a result I was achieving. Those offering still image videos are doing a disservice to the public if the results in motion do not match the still pictures. The problem was seeing unhappy patients coming to me with problems like that, telling me that their doctor would not take views of muscles flexing or arms moving.

Video technology is getting easier than when I started learning with 35mm film technology. Learn how to make Standard Videos to analyze a tissue movement problems and the success of treatment. Claiming how great something is with a video of the problem standing still with no muscle use is also just as limiting in understanding problem solution. A skin rejuvenation before and after video of the individual staring at the camera no eye, brow, mouth, jaw, or neck movement is like looking at a stature, a mask, not a living person. It is like a video of a dead person in the morgue vs a vivacious youthful living person with dynamic problems being analyzed and then addressed or not. Blinders again! See this Botox Plastic Surgery Forum - Why do promoters avoid before after videos?.

Morphs, inanimate videos, buyer beware. What does the living person look like. What does it look like face to face or using as smartphone video discussion. Unless your goal is to hide something like a poker player facial expression or Greek Tragic Drama Mask. 



That frozen mask of the still image, is it hiding a happy, tragic, or neutral result? Why take the chance. Ideally it would be awesome to be able to see and talk directly with prior patients. That is not realistic. Most move on with their lives and do not want to be reminded of the deformity or problems. But videos of how the problem moved before, during recovery, and after surgery, well that is a much more critical analysis.

Come join in the discussion, share your experiences.

Hope this helps,

Michael Bermant, MD
Retired Plastic Surgeon
Learn More About Plastic Surgery