Communicate Your Vision

'For Lovers Only:' Michael and Mark Polish's No-Budget Digital Dream Project, Jon Silberg

2011-10-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

Great article in Millimeter about using an HDSLR to make a successful feature.

'For Lovers Only:' Michael and Mark Polish's No-Budget Digital Dream Project, Jon Silberg

How Do Networks Evaluate Pitches? Coverage Case Study: “O.C. Gaffer” 2/3 | Documentary Television

2011-10-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

More great info for those of you wanting to create the next big hit series!

How Do Networks Evaluate Pitches? Coverage Case Study: “O.C. Gaffer” 2/3 | Documentary Television

How Do Networks Evaluate Pitches? Coverage Case Study: A&E’s Stephen Harris and “O.C. Gaffer” (1/3) | Documentary Television

2011-10-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

Interested in pitching the next great reality show to the networks? This is great info you'll need.

How Do Networks Evaluate Pitches? Coverage Case Study: A&E’s Stephen Harris and “O.C. Gaffer” (1/3) | Documentary Television

HDSLR and You

2010-11-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

If you’re been poking around the trade mags lately, or reading anything online about film and video production, then you’ve probably heard about the use of still cameras (DSLRs) for film and video production. This revolution, or more precisely evolution in technology has begun the creative professional some great new options for the creation and acquisition of footage and images. As with all new tools, however, it takes time to sort out what applications best fit the technology, and what types of projects can best benefit from the unique strengths and weaknesses of the tool.

While some of the gear-heads out there might prefer an in-depth discussion of the technical aspects of this new technology, I’m going to opt for a simple explanation, followed by a more in depth discussion of features, benefits and applications of the technology.

The simple description of Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras is that they are digital versions of their analog, film-based ancestors. Knowing that however fails to explain why they have become popular for shooting moving images. The introduction of High Definition DSLRs with integrated HD video capture was the jumping off point for the use of DSLRs for anything other than high-quality still image capture. These hybrid cameras look exactly like their still image cousins, but have the ability to capture amazingly high-quality HD video footage, while retaining all of the benefits of still image capture.

So what does this all mean to you and your project? That’s the question I will spend the rest of this post answering.

First off, these cameras have some great benefits. First off, they allow the Director of Photography an amazing array of great lenses. In fact, in my opinion, this might be the single greatest part of this technology. In fact, if your project requires the ability to have maximum control over depth of field and/or a high-degree of clarity, using an HD DSLR allows you to choose the exact lens for the job. Traditional video camera typically offer a much smaller range of available lenses unless you use a lens adapter system.

In addition to the huge number of lenses available for these cameras, they also offer really great dynamic range and full-sized sensors. This means that, although video capture was not their primary designed use, they provide an amazingly high image quality and clarity. In fact, most HD DSLRs have a larger sensor than my dedicated HD video camera.

If you’ve been following video technology for a while, then you know every advance comes at a price, and HD DSLRs are no exception. The first, and largest drawback, is is the sound recording capability of these cameras. As you might expect, engineers who excel at making great still images are not necessarily great at working with sound recording (or might not even really understand what is needed.) What that means is that many, if not all of these cameras are missing some essential tools for proper sound capture--things like professional audio inputs, mic/line level control, input level control, choice of sample rate and number of channels, etc. What these drawbacks mean is that if you are recording critical sound using one of these cameras, you are going to want an external device to do it. While there are many options in this regard, it does mean that you will have to re-sync your sound in post--something many of us have not had to do in a very long time.

The benefits and drawbacks make the HD DSLR a great choice for projects like music videos, scientific videos, and even some types of interview-driven videos (if you have a secondary means of audio recording.) The high quality, combined with the relatively low cost of the cameras has also made the HD DSLR an independent filmmaker’s favorite tool. We have also used our HD DSLR to do time-lapse capture, as a second camera on single person stand-ups, and to create simple stop motion effects.

The bottom line is that the HD DSLR is an awesome new tool in our box--one that we really enjoy bringing to our projects and yours.

Viva Technology!

Using Stock Footage/Photography to Spice Up Your Video

2010-07-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start this post by apologizing to all of the great DPs who work with us. I am NOT trying to put you out of business. In fact, at the end of the post, I will tell how YOU can get in on the stock footage market and make some extra money on those handful of days per year you're not out shooting for us.

OK. On to the subject at hand. Why should you consider using stock footage and photography in your videos? There are a lot of answers to this question, but my favorite is, "Because it allows you to greatly expand your creative vision without greatly expanding your budget!"

How can this be?! The answer is simple. There are more stock footage and photography resources, more stock footage and photography producers, and more stock footage shots than there have ever been before. And that number is growing by leaps and bounds every minute of every day thanks to the explosion of great online stock footage services available.

To use these services takes a little understanding of how they work. First off, there are sites that prefer to work on a licensing basis, where footage is licensed for a specific project at a specific price. These sites often have the most visually stunning and spectacular shots, but, this quality comes at a price. Getty Images is an example of a site that uses this pricing and licensing model.

The other, more cost effective model is the buy-out or subscription model. iStockphoto, Pond 5 and Revostock are sites that work on these models. The libraries are typically a little more limited on these sites, however the value you get for the dollar paid, plus the more user-friendly licensing models more than make up for any deficiencies. Many of these sites also offer music, graphics, flash, animations and sound fx using the same models.

I'll give you an example of how stock footage can be used to creatively deliver greater impact. In one of our current projects, a client is having us produce a video about managing change for a leadership conference. The initial concept was to have some of the key players do interviews where they frankly discuss the changes they've faced and how they've managed change. We felt this was a great way to get people to connect with each other around a very sensitive topic, yet, being visual communicators, we wanted a means of conveying change visually. It was at this point that we realized that there is a whole world of great footage out there that conveys change (time lapse, natural shots, etc.) and that this footage could be used to open and close the video and be used as background for graphics that would illustrate key messages. Voila--the addition of stock footage takes a good video and makes it great!

So, the next time you've got a creative concept that begs for stylized footage that it would be too time consuming or costly to shoot yourself, consider adding some stock footage or photography. You'll be glad you did.

OK-DPs, this is just for you. You can make the best of the stock footage phenomenon by becoming a contributor. I recommend starting with iStockphoto, Pond5, and Revostock and expanding out from there.

The More Things Change...

2010-05-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

As we enter our 20th year of business I took a few minutes this month to think about the dramatic changes that have transformed our business in the last two decades. As I was doing that, I realized that the obvious, dramatic, and transformative change is interesting to consider, but the constants (which are less obvious) are equally and often more compelling to consider. It is these constants that I will focus on in this post.

When I started thinking about the things that have changed very little in the last twenty years, the first thing that struck me is that good people always find work (or is it, work always finds good people?!) What I mean by that is that even though an explosion in cheap, relatively high quality video gear has brought a huge influx of people into the business, I see the same talented people, year after year, working on project after project. That's not to say that there isn't great new talent out there--there is--it's just that establishing yourself as a talented professional in this business is still a huge and difficult task, requiring dedication, long hours, and a LOT of humility and most people don't have what it takes to make it for the long haul.

The other constant I've noticed is that the basic skill set that is required to produce high quality videos has changed very little in the last 20 years. Sure, some jobs dealing with specific aspects of the technology have changed, but the basic skills like producing, directing, writing, lighting, shooting, acting, and sound acquisition have changed very little. I have to laugh every time I hear about how some new technology (camera, edit software, etc.) is going to revolutionize film and video work and get budgets down so low that anyone can now make Hollywood Movies.

The truth of the matter is simple--great films and videos are made by talented people. Cameras and software are just tools and great tools in untalented hands still produce poor results. As for budgets getting lower, it is true that the tools are somewhat less expensive, but the single greatest cost for most projects is not the tools, it's the people who operate them. I mean, the tools for building construction have also come down dramatically in price, yet it is still more expensive to construct a building today than it was 20 years ago--the same is true in this business.

So what is the takeaway from this? If you want to make a great video, hire great people and let them bring the right tools for your job.

Going Tapeless to Save Time and Money

2009-11-02T13:55:00.000-08:00

After 18 years of being in this business, I am hardly the one to breathlessly promote every new video technology that comes down the road. In fact, if you ask my friends, they'll tell you that I'm more than a little cynical about the "next big thing that's going to revolutionize the production process!" I've simply seen too many of these come and go to get overly excited at any single product release.

Occasionally, however, a technology comes along that truly IS revolutionary (or at least evolutionary,) and then, after all the hype had died down, I'll usually be the last one to tout the merits of the technology. Today's post is a prime example of my policy of being last to the table. (For those of you hoping to hear me tout Avid's Camcutter technology or JVC's D9 format, you'll just have to keep waiting... ) This post will focus on tapeless production technologies and a specific application where we saved time and money for a client.

What Are Tapeless Production Technolgies?
I'm glad you asked. When I talk about tapeless, I really mean "media-less"--that is, recording systems where video is being recorded on re-usable media as files, and where the recorded files can be directly transferred to a computer and hard drive without the use of additional hardware (like VTRs, media readers, etc.) Some of the most common professional examples are Panasonic's P2 card technology and Sony's SxS technolo gy (which are solid state "flash" memory based) and portable hard drive recorders like the Focus Enh ancements Firestore. There are also consumer level camcorders that record to flash memory, but for this post, I'll focus on the professional solutions.

How do tapeless production technolgies save time and money?
As with any new technology that drastically changes the way things are done, it takes some careful consideration (and mistake making) to figure out the best way to apply it. Now that we've been using these technologies for about three years, we've come up with some pretty good techniques for their application.

The most obvious cost savings is attained by virtue of the fact that you are not buying and using tape stock. For some projects, this can be a significant savings. Another way tapeless technologies can save time and money is that they allow some of the logging and marking of footage to be done during production. For example, each question and answer of an interview can be recorded into a separate file, so that when brought into the edit system, the interview is already partially logged. This saves tons of time (and money) in the capture, logging and editing process. Additional time and money can be saved at the end of the project during archiving since you will now be archiving digital assets instead of video tapes.

If you look at a specific example of an actual production, the savings and advantages become more obvious.

A Tapeless Work-Flow Case Study:
Recently, one of our clients brought us in to make a kick off video for an upcoming meeting. As we got into discussion of the project, it became clear that there would actually be four days of meetings and that they would want a video to kick off each day's theme plus two additional videos for one of the breakout sessions. An additional challenge also came up in that meeting: We would need to interview more than 50 team members over a period of 20 days in no fewer than 10 cities across North America. Then the final challenge was issued: At the end of shooting, we would have less than a week to edit and deliver all of the videos.

Our first thought was, "NO WAY, this can't be done!" Then, we sat down and started figuring out how it could be done and came up with a plan. (It is simply not in our nature to say no... ) Eventually, we decided that we could do the project if we had a way to shoot the footage, while simultaneously pre-logging it. We would also need a way of sorting and editing the footage at the end of each day, while we traveled. Five years ago, this would have been impossible, but today, using tapeless production technologies, we were able to do exactly that.

The first tool we knew we would need was a camera that could record to solid state media. We decided to shoot with our Panasonic HVX200 in beautiful HD right onto P2 cards. Separate files were created for each answer (whenever possible) and the footage was transferred into Final Cut Studio on a MacBook Pro on location, as we shot. At the end of the day, we would trim up the answers in FCS so that when we returned, the editor could literally get right to the business of editing. We also pre-composed all motion graphics and titles in Adobe After Effects CS4 so that these could be dropped into the edit at the end of production. In the end, we completed the videos right on time--to rave reviews from our client.

The result of our solid planning and this new technology was that we saved time and money at every stage of the production process AND we were able to take on a project and create stunning results in a way that would not have been possible only a few years ago.

While these technologies are not necessarily for every project you will encounter, I believe they will be an increasingly important part of the professional production toolbox moving forward.

5 Tips for Powerful Videos

2009-05-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

In today's "everyone owns a camcorder" world, making a video or finding someone to do that for you is easier than it has ever been. Chances are good that at some point, you, or someone in your immediate family, has made a video and shared it around. But does that experience translate to being able to make videos for your organization, company, or group? The answer depends on what kind of video you need to make and what your other job responsibilities are. Certainly, having some experience shooting or editing video won't hurt and will give you a better understanding of the process.

Whether you decide to take a do-it-yourself approach or hire a professional, answering these five questions will help you get the most bang for your video buck.

1) Who is my audience? Be specific and thoroughly describe who you want to watch your video.

2) What message(s) do I want my audience to take away from the video. Again, be specific and list everything you want them to know and why.

3) What other media could be used to convey the same message(s)? The key to any successful communication is matching the message to the medium. If something would work better in print, or on the web, figure out how all the media can work together to convey the message(s) most powerfully.

4) What is the definition of success? Ultimately, this is the question your boss is going to ask you (or the most important question you should ask yourself, if YOU are the boss.) Think about the answers to the questions above, then ask, "If the video is successful, what will have happened?" The answer usually involves stating what your audience, or a key portion of it, will have done as a result of watching the video. For example, "10% of the audience of our viral video will have clicked through to our website, and 1% overall, will have purchased our product," or "roll out of our training video will result in a 10% reduction in calls to our customer support call center." Carefully defining success will guide your decisions throughout the production process, so this step is critical!

5) How much should we budget for the video? Now that you have defined your audience, message(s), communications plan, and success the final step is determining your budget. While many people answer this question with the obvious "as little as we possibly can!", the real answer should flow naturally from your success criteria. For example, if your current cost per customer acquired is "x", the maximum budget for your video should be "x" times the number of customers you think you can acquire using your video over a given period of time. Or, if your current cost per support call is "y", an appropriate maximum budget should be "y" times the number of calls you can reduce by employing a training video. While this is not an exact science, it should certainly give you a good starting point.

Once you have answered these five questions, you are now ready to get into the fun part: planning your video. You can learn about this process in an earlier post.

The Professional Difference Part 2: Planning

2009-03-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

In this installment, we’ll look at another differentiator between those who pursue film and video production as a hobby, and those of us who are professionals: planning.

One of the most common questions I get as a professional is, “What will it cost to shoot my video?” As a professional, what I think is, “What will it cost to produce your video?” This is an important distinction because the cost of creating a finished product that is dynamic and engaging is not just the cost of shooting it, but the cost of writing it, planning it, shooting it, editing it, and distributing it.

The planning phase (AKA pre-production) is what we will focus on here, because it is the phase of production where you have the most control over your result, and the greatest means of controlling costs. When I explain this, I am often asked, “Wouldn’t it be faster and less expensive to just go out and shoot the video and skip this phase?” My answer to this question is an unequivocal, “No” for a simple reason: Talking and Writing are much cheaper than shooting and editing. If you have a good plan that considers your budget, time-line, and, most importantly your goals for your video, everything will fit together correctly the first time. Re-shoots are avoided. Things don’t have to be “fixed in post.” Budgets and time-lines are met. Goals are achieved.

Here is a good description of all the things that are commonly done in pre-production of a film. Some or all of these activities may be required for your project.

So the next time you need a video produced, make sure the company or person you work with understands the importance of planning. If they don’t, find someone who does. I know a great little production company in Berkeley, CA that can help… really, I do… :)

Frame by Frame Simple Tip: Using Twitwall to Promote Videos

2009-03-04T15:25:00.000-08:00

Want to rapidly promote your hot new viral video to all your friends and followers quickly and simply? Use Twitter and Twitwall to blast out a new video quickly and easily.

Want to know more? Click here to contact us for all your social media and viral video needs!

The Professional Difference Part 1: Insurance

2008-10-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

On a recent well deserved vacation in the mountains, I had the good fortune to spend some time with an old friend from college. As we caught up on family, life, and the typical “what ever happened to…” discussions, the conversation eventually got around to work. When I explained a little about what I do, my friend asked me a question I have been asked over and over throughout the years. “Why,” he asked, “should someone hire you as opposed to doing it herself or having a friend with a video camera come and do the work?”

For a long time, I found this question very offensive. I used to say things like, “Well, you can read and write, and I know you like to argue, so why did you hire an attorney to settle that lawsuit you were involved in?” Or, “Hey, you’re pretty handy with tools, why did you hire a contractor to put the second story on your house?” This, however, never got the point across for a simple reason—most people have no idea that there is a difference between pointing the camera at a subject and making a beautiful, and watchable film or video—and furthermore, it is not their fault for not knowing this difference—it is the fault of everyone in our industry who hasn’t done a good job of explaining the value that a media professional provides. It is my hope that posts here will help toward that end.

Since this a huge topic, which will cover a wide range of areas, I decided to start with one of the simplest areas that differentiates the pro from the amateur—insurance. Before you stop reading, let me assure you that the rest of this post will NOT read like a claim form or an advertisement for insurance companies.

The simple fact of the matter is that all business endeavors carry a certain amount of risk with them and the media business is no different. In addition to the common risks of injury (which requires worker’s compensation insurance) or general liability the media business carry risks that are associated with the nature of our business. These include but are not limited to: damage to the negatives or recording media, completion of a project, damage to props and locations, and improper use of someone’s image or recording.

The first thing a professional has over a pro in these areas is that they understand these risks and know how to mitigate them. After all, avoiding a disaster is far better than having an insurance policy to cover it. This being the real world, however, we all know that even the most prepared and risk-averse people sometimes have accidents, and when these accidents happen, insurance is the best way to recover from them.

Rather than going into all of the different types of insurance that our out there for media professionals (and boring you to tears) let me just make a simple observation and recommendation: Media professionals carry insurance, amateurs do not. If you are uncertain about whether the person you are about to hire is a professional or not, ask for proof of their insurance for liability and worker’s comp—at a minimum. If the person you are hiring doesn’t carry this type of insurance, keep in mind that you--or your organization--will likely be responsible if something happens during the production.

This is a good explanation of the different types of insurance Film and Video Professional carry.

Using Video with Social Media-3 Quick Tips

2008-10-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

I know, I know.... you're tired of hearing about social media and how web 2.0 has changed the world... blah, blah, blah!

I totally understand. Everyone I talk to and everywhere I go, it seems, social media is THE topic of conversation. While there is a TON of hype out there about the promise of these new media, I think in this case, you CAN believe the hype (sorry Flava...) There has been an explosion in the number of users the best of these sites are attracting.

If this is true, (and if you've seen you're Facebook and LinkedIn networks grow as much as mine in the last 3 months, I suspect you KNOW it's true,) then there is a tremendous opportunity to use these media to distribute all kinds of content, inlcuding video.

So what should you do if you have video content you want to distribute via social media networks? Here are three quick tips.

1) If you haven't already done it, get accounts set up for your organization at Facebook and MySpace, then go find niche social networks in your organizations area of interest.

2) Encode and upload your videos to all of the major viral video sites (we can help you with this if you want.) Keep them short and focus on humor and how to videos for best results.

3) Embed links to your videos on viral sites on your social network pages so that your network is instantly notified that you have uploaded new content. (You can also upload directly to many of the social network sites, however this will make it more difficult to track the traffic you generate for your videos.)

That's it, simple! Oh yeah, and if you would be so kind as to join our Facebook Group while you're at it, it would be much appreciated!

Pro-sumer HD Video Formats Demystified

2008-03-24T23:52:00.001-07:00

There are many different flavors of HD Video available for today’s video producer, and it seems like more are being created each day. In this post, I’ll look at a few of the common flavors and talk about their strengths and weaknesses. Since I am not even close to being an engineer, I’ll attempt to keep the information top-level and look at them from the standpoint of someone considering shooting and editing in these formats. If you want information suitable for an engineer, check out this site. Also, keep in mind that some of what I say is my subjective opinion. Don’t take mine as the final word—ideally, you should look at both first-generation footage and finished projects from the various formats to form your own subjective opinion.

HDV: This has rapidly become the most popular of pro-sumer formats due to the relatively inexpensive cameras that shoot in the format and the feature that it records on miniDV tape stock. Other than these two features (which are actually pretty huge), HDV really doesn’t have many advantages over other formats. The high compression and use of an MPEG-like codec make it a poor choice for editing and DVD distribution, although many projects that originate on HDV are improved by use of dedicated editing technology. This format is also made more difficult to work with due to competing and incompatible formats released by Sony and JVC.

XDCAM xe: This is the most recent release from Sony and is largely an answer to DVCProHD (see below.) This format uses a compression technology similar to, but better than, HDV. While the verdict is out on whether this compression is “better” than DVCPro HD, the considerably lower data rate allows for longer record times on solid state media, but will probably also require you to convert to a different format for editing. Prosumer cameras using this flavor of HD record on Sony’s proprietary solid state media which sells for a price similar to Panasonic’s P2 cards.

DVCPro HD: This format, available on Panasonic Cameras, is a nice step up from HDV in terms of quality. The much lower compression, wider dynamic range and color space, and use of discreet frames makes DVCProHD (also sometimes called DVCPro100) a much nicer recording format. It is also an excellent choice for post production when disc space is a consideration—in fact many people recommend converting HDV to DVCProHD for editing to preserve the image quality of the HD. The primary drawback of this format is that in pro-sumer cameras like the HVX200, you can only record on Panasonic’s proprietary solid state P2 cards instead of inexpensive and widely available MiniDV tape.

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Editing in HD

2008-01-22T11:32:00.001-08:00

With the 2009 HD conversion deadline rapidly approaching, anyone in the video post production business has been taking all of the necessary steps to become a complete HD facility. What this means is that we are all upgrading all of our equipment to accommodate an HD workflow and building an all new HD editing suites.

What does this mean? Well, essentially, it means getting dedicated HD hardware and software. In our case we opted for a Final Cut Pro Studio solution for our Berkeley, CA HD Facility. This suite is a state of the art suite featuring Final Cut Pro Studio HD, a 3Ghz 8 Core Mac Pro, a huge hard disk array capable of 4 streams of HD video, and an AJA K ona 3 card for HD i/o. There are also many other options out there on both Windows and Mac platforms from vendors like Avid, Adobe, and Autodesk.
OK, I know, that’s a serious stream of jargon, so I’ll break down what makes a dedicated HD editing suite better than what you’ll find in the average 20-something’s apartment. For starters, dedicated edit suites have more than just the software to edit in HD, they include specialized hardware. Without extremely fast hard drives and a dedicated i/o card, it is impossible to unlock the true power of the software. If you’re ever tried to use FCP to edit HD without a fast computer, fast hard drives, and an i/o card, you know what I’m talking about. The video stutters, not all of the frames are visible, and render times are somewhere between “Oh-My-God” and “Forget-It!”

If you want to deliver the best possible image quality in the least amount of time, you’ll want to go to a facility with an integrated HD edit system. Do you have other questions about what it takes to shoot and edit in HD? What are the things that still mystify you about working in HD? Are you confused about all of the new flavors of HD like HDV, DVCPro HD, and XDCAM? Post your questions here and we will do our best to get you the answers you need!

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Get Viral, Man!

2007-12-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

If you've been paying any attention at all to current web trends, then you know that everyone is doing "viral" marketing and if you're not, you're clearly stuck in the last millennium--ya dang luddite! Not to worry. I'm here to tell you that there's still time to catch (and give) this cool little bug. Specifically, I'll focus on a basic definition of what a viral campaign is, what things you can do to have success in this area, and what we can do to help you get started.

First off, there are many definitions of viral marketing, but a good place to start is Wikipedia. While the word virus has had a negative connotation forever, this new sense of the word has changed that--at least if you're in the marketing business. Simply put, a viral campaign is a campaign that passes through a social network in much the same way a virus would in the physical world. Originally, viral campaigns were conducted using email as the method of spreading the message or "virus". In today's Web 2.0 world, things have gotten much simpler; There are a multitude of sites that exist specifically for the purpose of allowing users to share content. This makes the launching of a campaign much easier. Some of the more well-known sites are YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, but there are many, many more, each with their own way of building communities and each with their own content focus.

Creating a powerful virus (having a successful viral campaign) requires a good understanding of how and where to post the content and how to taylor the content to the audience so they will take over and make your message go viral. For complete campaigns in multiple media, it is best to go to professionals who specialize in this area and take advantage of their experience. I recommend Hollenbeck Associates for their breadth of experience and great team, but there are many options out there in this area.

For a simple video campaign, we can write, produce, edit, upload, and syndicate a single video or series of videos for you right here at Frame x Frame Productions. We can even create a dashboard for you to check stats and manage your campaign on as many as 10 online video sites. Our experience as a production company means your video(s) will have production values that will stand out from the "man hit in groin with football" home videos many of these sites feature. Our knowledge of how these sites work will deliver the success you expect your viral video campaign. In fact, just the act of posting videos online will have a positive effect on your rankings in search engines and in the amount of traffic your website receives!

In 2008, we'll be offering some great new packages for viral video campaigns, so if going viral in in your future, there's no time like now to go out and explore the sites, craft your message, and then find a partner that will help you spread your disease!

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When and Why HD?

2007-12-11T15:03:00.000-08:00

By now, you've probably heard that all broadcast TV is going HD in 2009 (this time, they really mean it...really!) However, if you are not producing content for a major network, you've probably found yourself wondering if HD will provide any value for your productions. The answer, as with many things, is "It depends..."

First off, there is no argument that High Definition (HD) video, in all it's various flavors (1080i, 720p) and formats (HDCAM, DVCProHD, HDV) provides superior image quality, detail, and color when compared to Standard Definition (SD) video. For many applications, this simple improvement in quality may be enough to justify the move to HD. After all, who wouldn't want superior image quality, detail and color?!

At Frame x Frame, the key question we ask for determining whether a move to HD is appropriate is, "How and where will the video be shown?" If the answer is "on the 4x3 television in our conference room," SD may perfectly fine for the job. If the answer is "On an 80 foot screen in a convention center," the answer is clearly HD. The trick is figuring out whether HD or SD is appropriate for all of the cases in between the 13" conference room television and the 80' screen in the convention center. It is in this in-between area where I will focus.

To start determining whether HD is appropriate, you should first think about the size and shape of the playback screen where the video will most commonly be played. Will it be on a 50" Plasma at the trade show that is 16x9 aspect ratio or on a computer monitor as part of a Powerpoint presentation. The general rule is that larger screens in a 16x9 shape tend to benefit more from the shape, color quality,and detail level of HD.

Next, think about the subject matter of the video. Will the video be a series of talking heads or detailed shots of circuit boards with narration highlighting the design aspects of the circuit board. Greater levels of small detail tend to benefit from the "D", the "definition" of HD.

Finally, think about the future of the video. Will this video be used for a month or two right now in a single format or will it need to be updated and used for years to come and be shown in many formats. If the video will have a long shelf life, or man different types of uses, it may be bes to shoot and edit in HD so that the footage will have greater flexibility and will be more "future-proof" as video formats change over time.

Keep in mind that this is just a top-level discussion of HD vs SD video. Future posts will focus on some of the specifics of HD video sizes and formats.

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Great Developments

2007-12-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Frame x Frame Productions blog! We have created this to keep our friends and clients current with what we are up to and as a place for us to share tips from our vast production experience. In this post we'll share some of our latest projects with you. Upcoming posts will include answers to some of your FAQs like "How will recording on cards change the work-flow from the old tape-based work-flow?" and "What is the best way to compress video for a web audience?" and "Why should I care that one of my vendors has a blog?" :-) If you subscribe, you will not miss even one unbelievably exciting post, so why not become a regular reader?!

Many things have been going on at Frame x Frame since our move to West Berkeley. First, we have begun pursing our life-long dream of specializing in "Green" environmentally focused video. Toward that end, we have created Mynt Minutes and Green Marble. In 2008 we will be further developing Green Marble from a blog into a fully functioning Green Portal. If your company or organization is pursuing green initiatives and looking for a green media production partner contact us to set up a meeting: mynt@framebyframe.com.

We have also partnered with Relaxation Media to create a series of DVDs featuring relaxing scenes and vistas. The first product, Wide Open Spaces, is in production and will be released in early 2008. You can check out the Relaxation Media Blog or my blog on HD Production to find out more and see samples of the work.

Corporate+Video HD Viral+Video Marketing+Video Training+Video Video+Tips HD+Post HD+Camera Video+Production Video+Production+San+Francisco+Bay+Area Video+Berkeley