Videography Resource

Laura Randall's "Top 25" Awesome Products and Services

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:16:00 +0000

When my kids were younger and they would tell me they had a bad day, I would ask them why. Then I would say, “Now that you’ve told me 2 bad things that happened to you today, I want you to tell me 4 good things that happened.” So in that spirit....I have had my fill of horrible BluDomain service over the past few weeks and I’ve complained enough about it to the point of feeling exhausted. Basically I think I will have to deal with the fact that they ripped me off $200. So, to counterbalance their horrible service, I thought I would create a post to share some of the GREAT services and products that I have worked with over the past year or so!

Laura's "Top 25" Awesome Products and Services

1. Epson DiscProducer PP-100 - Expensive but oh-so-worth-it if you are doing lots of DVD duplications. Easy to use software, VERY well-built product, haven't had a single ink cartridge clog up and every single disc prints beautifully. Actually come to think of it, we haven't even had one failed DVD. And I think we've printed and duplicated at least 5,000 DVDs. Changed the ink cartridges just once and that was last week.

2. Canon Pixma iP6700D printer - great little workhorse. It prints my Jewelboxing cases beautifully. Ink is not cheap and it will stop printing if one of the cartridges needs to be replaced. If someone knows of an ink caddy that actually works for this printer, let me know! In order to print DVDs you will need to buy a tray on ebay and get the hack (they can’t sell it off the shelf this way in the U.S. because of Epson). But it does print gorgeous DVDs as well once you are all set up with it.

3. Jewelboxing - I know some people have had printing issues, but I honestly LOVE my Jewelboxing cases. I did have to play with the templates a bit when I first got them, but they were more than happy to send me replacement inserts on the ones I ruined. Dawson at Coudal (the parent company) has always provided me with fast, courteous customer service. At the wedding show brides kept picking up the cases saying how nice they were. They can scratch easily so handle with care.

4. TapeResources.com - I have had nothing but excellent, prompt customer service from this company. They are fast to ship product out and have excellent prices on the Sony tapes I order.

5. Spectra Film - I started dabbling a bit into 8mm film this year. Kristin" from Bliss and Andrew Jackson from Portal Films were SUPER helpful in helping me navigate some film questions. So they also get a mention! :) Anyway, the owner of Spectra went out of his way to call when he realized I didn't get a package discount for ordering film and developing services. He wanted to make sure I knew he was crediting my card for that amount. I probably wouldn't have even caught it if he hadn't called! Again, great customer service going above and beyond.

6. Adobe - OK, granted I'm on the beta team so I have a bit of an 'in', but I'm very happy they implemented some of the things I had specifically been suggesting for Premiere CS4. Most notably being able to select a group of clips and apply speed changes, then tell it to either extend in/out points or keep them as is. Also being able to select a group of clip and change the audio gain (and have more control over WHAT is changed), and remove filters. Another feature I love is being able to customize every single panel. It's now even faster to rough cut footage. Love it. Also the Adobe Media Encoder allows you to batch encode files in all kinds of formats. The only thing is it's still slow and I still have to downconvert HD to SD via After Effects. There are things that need to be worked on though. One step forward, two steps back...but we are heading in the right direction and overall I LOVE where CS4 is going.

7. Matrox - I love my RTx2 cards. I'm so happy there are drivers for CS4 and that the beta team REALLY does listen when there is an issue. There are still some things that need to be fixed (export quality....again I'm going to AE) but at least they are listening and working on it. Lord knows I'm glad I don't have that job! :)

8. Sony GV-HD700 - Scott Shama from Ambient Studios turned me on to this portable HD deck. The price is right, it runs a long time on a large Sony battery, it has an LCD screen to see your footage, saves my camera's heads (and rewinds/fast forwards faster)....I LOVE it! This little guy has spent lots of time capturing in my office as well as in my minivan during SDEs. Thanks for bringing this to that first shoot Scott!

9. GetDataBack - a $79 program which when combined with the $99 program called RAID Reconstructor saved me a lot of heartache and about $6,000 when we had a 1TB RAID 0 crash. It took about 3 days to recover everything, but we didn't lose a single byte of data in the long run. Whew! Now if I could just get my recently crash other 1TB drive to mount I could recover that.

10. Budget Truck Rental - We rented a truck through this company this year for the crazy Seattle Wedding Show. Well, it snowed a few inches the night of move out so we wound up haivng to return it late. They totally understood and did not charge us extra.

11. Speaking of travel -
Hertz: sign up for a business account and you can get better discounts and earn free rental days. I also get free upgrades on occasion.
Starwood Hotels: Sheraton, Westin, etc. good points program that can also go towards airline miles. Great beds!
Hyatt Hotels: The Grand Hyatt Hotels have impeccable service, gorgeous hotels and amazing food.
Airlines: for me, it's a toss up between Alaska and Continental. BUT if you are flying to Hawaii, then Hawaiian Airlines is a MUST!!

12. AAA Plus - having a 20 year old male driver and unpredictable weather, this membership more than pays for itself every year. Plus they have pretty good discounts on hotels and sometimes airfare too.

13. Costco Merchant Services - If you have a Costco near you, JOIN!! Their credit card merchant services cannot be beat. 1.67% on swiped transactions or 1.99% on phone/internet orders. NO annual fees. Buy your own machine though...don’t lease one.

14. QuickBooks Pro 2009 - Not a huge upgrade, but you can now download transactions into to your bank account like you can with Quicken. Sweet! I was using 2006 and my accountant says it’s good to at least upgrade once every three years.

15. PDFCreator - I just sent this info to someone else. This is a free PDF “printer” and works flawlessly! I use it on a daily basis to email pdf files of invoices, quotes, contracts, etc to clients so I know they won’t be altered.

16. Neat Receipts - This is a little scanner and software utility that will clear out that shoe box of receipts and is IRS approved. You scan your receipts and it makes a jpg but also attaches data which it reads from your receipt with OCR software. There are a few clunky things about the software, but overall I’m SOOO happy someone suggested this to me! Not only does it help you stay organized, gets rid of boxes of receipts, give you peace of mind, but if you use it on a consistent basis you can scan those pesky receipts that fade quickly! It’s supposed to work with QuickBooks but I’ve heard it doesn’t work that well so I’ve been scared to try it. It’s still HIGHLY recommended!

17. iPhone - what else can I say? I love my iPhone. I didn’t love getting wrong information before leaving the country and having a $2000 phone bill, but an email to the CEO and a call back from their very nice Executive Escalation Team fixed that. In the end I can say I got great customer service after going higher up in the food chain. The usual people who answer your call are just not able to help with some things. Anyway, I show video on my iPhone to people often, watch rented movies on the airplane, listen to music, ALWAYS get my email (big problem I had before with my Treo), and there are a ton of fun apps.

18. Internet Hosting - by our very own Jerome Cloninger at JC/DV Productions. Maybe it’s because I know him, or maybe it’s just because he’s such a great guy, but honestly some of the BEST customer service EVER!!! He totally had to handhold me through a few things and even went above and beyond by helping me on some unrelated internet stuff. He is very responsive, smart, patient, and knows what he is doing. The hosting is FAST and very reasonably priced.

19. WordPress - I had a Blogger blog and was a bit worried about switching to WordPress, but I’m so happy I did. I was able to customize my blog and it wasn’t quite as painful as I thought it would be. I found a utility to transfer all my posts which worked perfectly. Using Jerome’s hosting and encoding to H.264 now and my videos on the blog are gorgeous and FAST!! People at a recent wedding show were commenting on how much they loved the blog....both brides and vendors.

20. My buddy Troy - an After Effects guru who helped me polish more than one turd video into gold! He is fast, REALLY knows his stuff, and can do just about anything. If you need AE person, contact me! I don’t want to give out his info here because he’s already very busy!

21. YouSendIt.com - Very easy to use and inexpensive utility for sending and receiving large files. Works well and you don’t have to mess with ftp addresses and passwords, etc.

22. MyEmma.com - awesome html email newsletter service. Great for people like me who don’t have time to mess with html and all that. It keeps track of stats for you and is so easy even a Kindergartener could use it. It is not the cheapest service available, but they have EXCELLENT customer service and is so easy to use and keep track of your stats.

23. EventDV Magazine - Where else can you get so much great info on a consistent basis in a magazine format that is dedicated to wedding and event videographers and it’s FREE? I certainly hope every single person on this forum is a subscriber!

24. Mini-dv labels - I found some mini-dv labels from TapeOnline.com http://tinyurl.com/8p7lzy and use their template in Illustrator to pre-print labels on all our tapes. Our phone number is on the tapes too just in case one gets left behind or misplaced. It keeps things organized, neat and professional looking.

25. Kata Bags - LOVE these bags, especially for traveling. They are sturdy, temperature protected, have lots of little pockets and it’s amazing how much stuff you can get in these bags! I use the bags that utilize their trolley system so we don’t have to carry anything (makes my back happy). For as much as we use the bags and they have been on many domestic and international trips, they look just as good as the day we bought them. I have one MC-61 and one CC-197 which is a newer model.

And one more for good luck! (saving the best for last!)

26. Dell T5400 system - This system is unbelievably FAST!!! It’s a dual quad core (that’s right, 8 cores baby!!) and is basically a server in a desktop footprint. It’s actually one of my smaller towers, although it’s HEAVY. It is super quiet to the point where sometimes I forget to turn it off because I don’t hear it! I have a Dell 24” super sharp monitor with it and we’ve even used it at a wedding show to display HD footage. We have a Matrox RTx2LE card in there and I honestly get so spoiled using this system that I don’t want to use any of my other computers. I haven’t needed one second of tech support. I honestly cannot tell you how much I love this system. It is well-built, extremely fast and very reliable. I wish I could afford three more!

Follow up to Epson DiscProducer Review

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:35:00 +0000

I just wanted to follow up on our review of the Epson Disc Producer from May 2008. It has been 5 months since we first set eyes on this baby, and we still LOVE it!! It is very consistent and we haven't had a single problem with ink...not even a clogged head even if it sits without being used for two weeks.

We have not needed any kind of support but Bill, whose company bought the DiscProducer after seeing Chris' review and asking us a few questions, pointed out that you'll need to go to http://discproducer.epson.com/Disc_Producer/TechResources to get drivers and tech support. I hope that helps if you need this information!

UPDATE: January 2009 - We just finished printing 2,000 DVDs for the Seattle Wedding Show and this duplicator/printer just continues to amaze me. We are just now finally changing the ink cartridges for the first time. I believe that is about 5,000 DVDs printed. To be fair, these last 2,000 have a pretty mellow design...not full saturated color on the entire disc, but STILL!!

Epson DVD Printer/Duplicator

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:33:00 +0000

This article first appeared on EMediaLive.com. To view the article with photos on their site, please click here.
Review: Epson PP-100 Discproducer
By Chris Randall - Posted May 28, 2008

As our business has grown, the need for larger duplication orders from our corporate clients has increased. I wasn’t happy with the performance and print quality we were getting from our older disc-printing solution and was looking for a higher-end solution. That is why I was happy to receive the Epson PP-100 Discproducer for review.

The PP-100 is a super-cool printer that doubles as a duplicator, an all in one system that is worth the investment (street price $2,995). You can easily duplicate and print up to 100 discs unattended on glossy or matte media. Six-color printing technology allows you to print exceptional-quality labels that rival discs put out by the Hollywood studios. More surprising still, the unit comes with two DVD burners for speedy production. Whether you need to produce one disc or 1,000, you will find the PP-100 is a professionally built, very solid, and reliable duplicator/printer.

Setup
Setting up the printer is a simple process that requires installing the included Total Disc Maker software, connecting the USB cable, and powering on the unit. Because the PP-100 weighs 52 pounds, you’ll need to make sure that you place it on a sturdy surface that can handle the weight.

The included disc stackers can hold up to 100 DVDs or CDs for hands-free operation. Another cool feature allows you to output short-run duplication jobs to the tray below without the need to open the unit while it is printing.

The Discproducer comes with six ink cartridges that easily push into place. The set of cartridges comes loaded with plenty of ink and is rated to print up to 1,000 discs. Cartridges run $45 each, bringing the total cost of replacing the cartridges to $270. This works out to be 27 cents per disc, which is less than the 45 cents per-disc cost associated with thermal printers. In comparison, the Epson R300 per disc cost runs around 15 to 20 cents, making the Epson PP-100 only slightly higher in cost for ink. I’m happy to report that the disc-feed tray for the printer works flawlessly. This is a professional, well-built product that should prove to be very reliable down the road.

Using the Software
The Total Disc Maker software (below) that ships with the unit is simple and straightforward to use. It is only compatible with Windows-based systems, although Intel Mac users running Windows via Parallels Desktop or Bootcamp should be able to use it. Similar to burning a disc in Nero, you have the option of creating a Data DVD, Data CD, Music CD, Music & Data CD, Video CD, or a Copy of a DVD or CD. The PP-100 will use your existing DVD drive in your computer as your source drive for making straight copies. You can create a label from the professional templates provided or use your own background image. BMP or JPEG images can be imported, but unfortunately the software does not support Photoshop (PSD) files. Text is easy to add and manipulate with basic drawing tools as well as the ability to add thumbnail images to your disc.

Once the disc design is complete, you can then move on to the Publish button. From here, you have the option of writing the data, printing just the label, or both. Because the PP-100 comes with two DVD burners, selecting both drives during burning will really speed up the print job.

Monitoring the Production Job
Another great feature of the printer is the Epson Total Disc Monitoring software (below). The software automatically pops up once you begin publishing a job and gives you vital information about the printer and duplicator status. It lets you know when your discs are getting low as well as monitoring ink levels. It will even estimate the number of discs you can print based on the level of ink remaining in the cartridge.

The software will also tell you the status of the DVD burners, including when the printer is printing discs. You can also see what jobs are pending and keep tabs on the jobs that are completed.

Notable Features
The Discproducer allows you to save each job with its own filename. The next time the software is loaded, you will see previously saved jobs available to open. This is a real timesaver if you have reorders for past duplications.

The robotic arm is equipped with an AcuGrip mechanism that ensures the robotic arm reliably grabs only one disc, and it has a cool LED light that shines down to let you know what it’s doing. It even has the ability to separate discs that are stuck together when picking up the disc from the stack.

Because the Discproducer uses six separate ink cartridges, you need to replace only the ones that are empty.

The average speed for printing a full-color disc without burning is little more than a minute. Speeds for duplication will vary on the type of media used, but I’ve produced 30 discs in less than 45 minutes.

Since the discs are stored inside the unit, they remain free from fingerprints and dust. Single-run discs are quick to remove and only require you to slide out the tray on the bottom to retrieve the disc.

Conclusion
The Discproducer is an innovative, high-quality solution that makes duplication and printing easier than ever. Whether you want to use it for an individual disc or a batch job, its high reliability, superb print quality (below), and cost-effectiveness make it the ideal system for videographers who are looking for an all-in-one solution.

Chris Randall (edit1media at comcast.net) is co-owner of Edit 1 Media, an international award-winning studio specializing in corporate and event video production.

Corporate Videography Article

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:15:00 +0000

Here is an article (front cover, baby!) about Edit 1 Media and some of our other amazing colleauges in EventDV Magazine. You can read the article here or look at it one EventDV's website with all the photos by clicking here.

Going Corporate
By Elizabeth Welsh - Posted May 29, 2008

It’s been said that producers of corporate video, especially large operations, tend to be more secretive about their best practices than wedding and event videographers, who share willingly on forums, at conventions, and in magazines like EventDV. But here we feature four companies, in various stages of either transitioning to B2B-only or dividing their time between wedding and events and corporate, and they all transcend that stereotype. They share their thoughts behind trading bar mitzvahs for boardrooms, advice on the perfect pitch, and even their shopping list for the corporate-producer-to-be.Who better to lead off the discussion than the trio best known for mastering the move to corporate—Lance Gray, Russ Jolly, and Brian Gunn of Dallas-based PixelPops Design? Joining them are industry blogging guru Ron Dawson of Cinematic Studios in Silicon Valley; Edit 1 Media’s SDE laureate Laura Randall from Tacoma, Wash.; and Darrell the double-life-videographer Boeck, principal of Brookfield, Wis.-based Creative Images.

Each has a unique take on taking on corporate. For example, even before PixelPops’ three principals (all of whom had successful studios of their own) solidified their partnership, they had their sights set on the corporate market. Jolly, who met Gray and Gunn through a local video association shortly after he relocated to Dallas, remembers, "The very first conversation that Lance and I had about merging our talents was 100% focused on being a corporate media production company."

Dawson still dabbles in weddings as a boutique operation, on a referral-only basis. But he devotes the majority of his time to producing work for top-rated professional photographers.Randall’s move away from weddings continues to be a slow, cautious process. She doesn’t want to cut all ties, but she sees her future as a corporate video producer and reducing her wedding work to SDE-only packages. And Boeck defies them all by insisting that nurturing both markets is the best way to go.

Crossing the Line
No one defies the cliché of the closed-door corporate video production company like PixelPops, an outfit best known in the wedding and event video world for its DVD menu templates, website design and hosting services, and Gray’s Photoshop tutorials. Gray (left, in the image), Gunn (center), and Jolly (right) aren’t shy about sharing their secrets, including their reason for making corporate their cash cow.

"The absolute reality is that event work cannot touch the amount of compensation that corporate work holds," Gray admits. "We had to look at the fact that in the beginning, we needed to figure out how to pay three partner salaries, plus all expenses—not an easy task. Our first corporate gig as partners was a $15K job. It probably took us 3–4 weeks to complete. These days, we’ve been known to kick through $40K jobs in just one week." Compared to their first year in business, 2008’s Q1 profits are up 150%.

Even better news is that their salaries don’t come at the expense of creative fulfillment. Jolly describes their work as "taking an otherwise dull job and making it spectacular." They even go so far as to say that corporate work offers more opportunity for creative expression than weddings and events. Gray compares the two: "The difference between events and corporate is that corporate is has a lot more variety than an event. That’s simply because you can line up 20 events and they all have basically the same overall story or concept. Not so with corporate. One day, we’re working on 3D graphics for one client trade show booth and the next day we’re creating a video about a Lear jet company."

"How can that not be fulfilling?" Gunn adds.

Ron Dawson (left, photo by Jules Bianchi) made the switch from weddings to corporate in April 2007 after his business coach, with whom he was bartering services, gave him some first-class advice. "She loved my work and felt that I was undercutting myself in trying to peddle $5K–$10K wedding videos," he says. "She felt I should be going after much larger fish."

But business was going swimmingly. Producing only 20 weddings a year earned him more than enough to stay afloat. "I knew I wanted so much more for my kids," he says. "To generate the kind of income I wanted to supply my family with, I knew I’d have to either average way more per wedding than I realistically thought was possible, or become a high-volume wedding business."

Becoming a wedding Wal-mart was something Dawson definitely didn’t want. So he switched his focus to commercial work—serving photographer clients, in particular—where the average project would pay more. Now Dawson says he’s living his dream as a filmmaker; he’s absolutely fulfilled, creatively, doing corporate work, in part because of his niche clientele. "Because we primarily serve creative professionals, the work we do for them has to be creative. Also, our specialty is creating web promos that have to go viral. That means we have to make creative and entertaining pieces that people will want to share. I’ve also had the opportunity to do a number of fun concept videos starring high-profile photographers. They’ve been widely viewed in the pro photo community and are a blast to shoot and edit. I’ve scripted and directed them all."

Back in March 2006, 4 years after Edit 1 Media came onto the corporate scene, Laura Randall (left, with her husband and partner Chris) was quoted in an EventDV article as saying, "I know the money is better in corporate video, but I have a passion for interacting with people and documenting emotional times in their lives."

She went on to explain how weddings had accounted for 80% of Edit 1 Media’s projects since she and her husband, Chris, launched the company. A little has changed since then; most notably, their efforts to whittle down of the wedding side of the business. But even though wedding work still accounts for about 75% of the company’s workload and only 25% of its income, Laura doesn’t want to completely divorce the company from weddings because, she says, "they speak to a lot of the values we have as a family."

No overnight shift, the company is in a transitional phase right now. "I haven’t had the time to really sit down and create the plan that I want to," Randall explains. "We still have a backlog of weddings to edit," so for now she’s waiting for the breathing room she needs to lay out her strategy.

"Until I know I’ve got the time to dedicate to take on another couple of large clients," Randall says she is hesitant to pull out all the stops to bring those clients on board.

For better or for worse, Darrell Boeck is keeping his commitment to the world of wedding video, while building relationships with corporate clients, calling it a mistake for wedding videographers to burn the bridges they’ve built and go after corporate as their sole source of income. "As wedding videographers, we worked so hard to get the phone to ring. Why tell that person you no longer offer weddings? Instead, raise your price and let supply and demand determine your pricing," he advises.

Boeck believes that there is business safety in diversifying. "Offering more than just weddings means we do not have to worry about bookings being down, attending bridal fairs, etc." For him, the jump to corporate is a no-brainer: Wedding videographers, he says, "have all the gear we need for corporate work, so why not? Instead of being a ‘wedding video production company,’ we are a ‘video production company.’"

He enjoys—even relies on—the variety of work. "It is quite refreshing to be able to break away from weddings and put together corporate projects. They allow us to use tools that we have, but are not appropriate for weddings, like graphics, creative titles, etc. It is also nice to get back to weddings, since they offer a style not often appropriate for corporate work, such as emotional music, soft images, etc. So, offering both really keeps us fresh."

Making Corporate Business Pop
Ask Brian Gunn how to go about booking your first corporate client and he might throw the question right back at you: "How did you get your customers when you started being a wedding videographer?" He’d remind you, "They didn’t just rain down from heaven." Gunn landed his first pre-PixelPops corporate production gig thanks to a relationship he had with Fossil Watches, a company for whom he’d done duplication work. Soon, he says, their relationship blossomed, and Fossil was hiring him to take on bigger and more elaborate productions. "Finally, they threw a really big one at me—a training video—and I thought, I could really use some help on this." So he called his colleague Lance Gray. Gunn says that the production was unlike any that either had done up to that point, and they had the time of their lives. "It was from the hip, all day, multiple locations, and a blast," he remembers, and their partnership solidified. "From that one shoot we realized there was a dynamic there. That one shoot is what catapulted us into working together." Fossil became one of PixelPops’ biggest clients in their early days.

These days, business comes from a combination of word-of-mouth referrals, advertising, a web presence, cross-selling, and networking. They are very aggressive about seeking out clients and following up on leads, all but sending roses to potential customers. For example, one day Gunn was taking a Greyhound bus tour of historical sites in Dallas. En route to the parking lot at the end of the tour, the guide showed a video. Thinking to himself, "Oh man, we could just blow that video away," when the tour was over, he chased down the tour guide, who just happened to be the CEO of the Dallas Historical Society. He introduced himself and explained his line of work. The rest is history: That move led to the production of a short documentary featuring archival footage from Bonnie and Clyde’s capture—which was the first time the 16mm film had seen the light of day in 60 years; it had been tucked away in an attic belonging to the son of a police officer who filmed the ambush. That short was on a loop for 4 weeks at the Historical Society; it was viewed by an estimated 4.5 million visitors. Just goes to show, as Brian says, "You never know where jobs are going to come from."

It’s a safe bet, however, that many will come walking right in the storefront of Action Video, PixelPops’ consumer-side duplication and transfer business. Playing the pedestrian card, they count on cross-selling their services to folks at the time of purchase—hot business compared to cold calling. You can almost hear Brian’s hands rubbing together as he tells it: "People will come in off the street because of our ad in the Yellow Pages for dubbing and drop off their tape. And when they come back in, that’s when we hit ’em. We’ve got a demo playing in the lobby showing all of our other services, and I swear, 8 times out of 10, when somebody comes back in to pick up their order, the line you hear is, ‘Oh, I didn’t know y’all did production, or websites, or graphic design.’"

And before they know it, they’re asking for something they didn’t come in for. "Lo and behold, the lady picking up the video just happens to be the secretary of the CEO of some big corporation, and she’ll tell us, ‘My boss needs a new marketing video. Is that something y’all could do?’ It’s like what McDonald’s does. You come in for one thing and they ask you, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ It’s that easy. That’s why they do it."

Dawson. Ron Dawson.
Ron Dawson, known in wedding and event circles for his Bridal Boot Camp concept video and his popular blogging and business seminars, makes no bones about why he was hired for his first corporate job: "Because I was an ex-employee of Intuit and people there already knew I was good at video," he says. QuickBooks, a division of Intuit, heard he left to start his own video company, and when they had a need, "they naturally gave me a call." His mission: to create a concept video. He chose a James Bond motif and, not surprisingly, calls the experience "a blast."

But it’s weddings that are getting the boot now, as Dawson banks on his role as a producer of work for high-end photographers. "A really cool spin on our switch is that our niche is specializing in serving the pro photographic community." His decision to continue was an obvious one: In less than a year, he tripled his corporate revenue from the year before thanks to his commercial work.

Ironically, his idea to move to corporate was inspired by something he did in hopes of building up his wedding business. "Last year when I first pitched my services to Wedding & Portrait Photographers International to do a recap of their annual convention, it was to network with wedding photographers to get more wedding business. Once I was at the convention, though, I realized that there was a bigger business marketing to the companies that serviced wedding and portrait photographers. These were major corporations who sponsored top photographers the way major athletes get sponsored. Names like Adobe, Nikon, Kodak, Canon, Epson, and more were paying top dollar to have their brands represented by the top photographers.

"More than 10,000 photographers from around the world were at this trade show," he continues. "I knew that in switching my focus to commercial work, specializing in the pro photographic community would be the way to do it."

Montage Maven
Laura Randall credits her response to an ad on Videographer.com for setting the wheels in motion for Edit 1 Media’s move into the corporate video world. It was a shoot/photo montage for a limousine magazine company’s annual trade show and 20th anniversary in Las Vegas. When she learned that she was the first and one of very few videographers to respond to the request for a bid, she was puzzled. "It drives me nuts when people complain that they don’t get any work and then I hear that we were one of the only people to respond. What’s the point of advertising if you won’t respond?" she wonders."We had hundreds of magazine covers, 900 images total, to put into this montage," she remembers, laughing. "It’s something I wouldn’t even show anybody. It was pretty bad. And they absolutely loved it!" Their next corporate job wasn’t much of a stretch to get from there. It turned out the husband of the owner of the limousine company was also a business owner in need of a video.

Taking a page from the PixelPops playbook, Randall has cross-sold wedding clients as well, simply by making them aware of her other services. Randall does this by enclosing a letter with final DVDs mailed to couples, asking for referrals. This has worked for her. In fact, a former wedding client is now Edit 1 Media’s largest corporate client, bringing the studio $80K to $100K in business each year.

Wedding Hook-Up
Similarly, it was on referral from a wedding client that Darrell Boeck (left) booked his first corporate gig. "One of our brides worked for a company that needed a video," he explains. "Her boss was shopping video production companies and was shocked with the pricing. So, my bride said, ‘Why not call my wedding videographer? They do great work.’ She later told me she was laughed at, but I was brought in for an interview anyway. I explained to this conference room of 12 people—very intimidating—that yes, I am a wedding videographer, but the video they needed involved nothing more complicated than a wedding. I got the job and they were very happy."

A business-owning bride booked Boeck for his second corporate job, hiring him to produce four training videos totaling $20,000. And his corporate video business was born.

Weddings Cramping Your Style?
Of the many details you’ll want to think about before you become a corporate video producer is your brand. Will your website need a makeover? Does your company name reflect someone who is serious and ready for the corporate world? Obviously if you call yourself "Liz’s Wedding Memories," you’ll want to think about a new, or at least, dba name. You may need to create separate wedding and corporate portals from your homepage or contract a web designer to create an entirely separate website and URL.

From the beginning, PixelPops decided to keep it separated, creating three distinct names for each section of its business under one umbrella: Blue Sky Media Group (events), PixelPops (multimedia/production/products), and Action Video Service (duplication/film transfer). "In other words," explains Lance Gray, "we never crossed into the other. Monies flowed from each and all landed in the same account, but each has entity has its own look and feel."

Ron Dawson, too, has always had separate websites for his corporate and wedding work. "The biggest change perhaps has been in our blogs. Our corporate blog is the one I maintain primarily, and our wedding blog has been somewhat neglected. Most of the blogs we maintain are related to our work in the pro photographic community, one of the more popular being our weekly audio podcast F-Stop Beyond."

Commenting on the need to distance your corporate identity from the wedding world, Laura Randall complains that the perception of wedding videographers being amateur compared to corporate producers is "not fair. Those of us who do weddings know how hard they are to do, and to do well." She guesses that her split-personality website may be an obstacle.

"I feel like right now we’re probably not getting as much business as we could because when people come to our website, they have the option to click on corporate, weddings, or training. For some people, when they come to our site they think, ‘Oh they’re not that serious.’ There’s this stigma that wedding videographers are just hobbyists. Until people do see wedding videographers as serious production companies, I feel like we have to figure out how to separate our brands." She’s still figuring out exactly how to go about that, since Edit 1 Media is known in both worlds by the one name.Darrell Boeck agrees that "marketing for corporate is huge. Fortunately, early on in our business, we picked a rather generic name, Creative Images. If we had the word ‘wedding’ in our name, or it pertained to weddings, we would have needed to change it, or operate under two different names. It is wonderful for us to answer the phone under the name Creative Images, and have it apply to both markets."

While the two sides of Boeck’s business share a name, they each have their own website and business card. "We have ciwedding.com and civideo.com. Both sites are identical, except for the home page." Early on, he says, "we only had one website. Since we had all the wedding clients we could handle, it was much more important that we market for corporate work—so the website looked very corporate. This worked quite well and let prospective clients know we were not wedding videographers offering corporate video on the side, but we were a serious corporate video production company that also produced weddings."

Art of the Deal
Quoting your rate to couples may be second nature to you, but acing the pitch to a CEO or board of directors and settling on a quote is a game of its own. "This is where it turns into a poker game," Gunn says. "The one thing you want to find out from your client is their budget. What are they willing to spend? But they say, ‘Here’s what we want to do. How much?’ And you don’t want to under- or overbid it. And you say, ‘We can do it for you, but you’re going to have to tell us what your budget is.’"

Early in this negotiation process, Gunn says, clients aren’t especially forthcoming. But he won’t commit to a quote until he hears the full scope of the project. His tactic: "We go in, get the scope, and tell them, ‘For that, you’re looking in the neighborhood of $20K.’ Then they’ll say, ‘Oh, oh, that’s too much! We were thinking more like 15.’ Bingo. Now you know."

For any production, PixelPops can deliver what Russ Jolly calls "the Cadillac version, the Pontiac version, or the Volkswagen version." In other words, as Gunn puts it, "If they’re not willing to pay for it, are they willing to scale it back to get it done?"

When Ron Dawson gives an estimate, he uses a Google Docs (docs.google.com) spreadsheet to determine what the costs will be. "I itemize all preproduction, production, and postproduction costs using varying hourly rates. Depending on the size of the job, for production costs I usually group a shooter, camera, mics, and lights on one line item. This is what I do when it’s usually just a one-man crew, like for a small nonprofit client. For larger jobs, I’ll break out line items for both equipment and labor separately."

When presenting the estimate to the potential client, Dawson says, "I just write up a description of the deliverables without the line items. That gives me more flexibility in post. I will include in the description how many shooting hours, because that’s something the client can see. But for preproduction and post costs, I just go with the description (e.g., 5–6 minute promo video with opening motion graphics). That way, if in my budget I predict 20 hours of editing, but it only takes 15 hours, we still get paid the same because the client agrees to the full fee up front. Of course, that works the other way too. If it takes us 30 hours to edit, we don’t get any more money. The only time we give a potential client a fully itemized budget ahead of time is if they ask for it."

Laura Randall admits that her studio is still trying to figure out all the pricing stuff, in part because there are fewer visible business role models in corporate video than in the wedding video world. With notable exceptions like PixelPops, she finds that corporate producers generally have some sharing issues. "With weddings we’ve had this great community that is so open about sharing pricing and strategies," she says, "and I haven’t really found that in corporate work quite yet. You’re a lot more on your own trying to figure things out." As a result she’s been left to learn through trial and error, something she says she does very well.

Randall relates a story about a project she bid at $32K. After she didn’t get the booking, she assumed it was because her bid was too high. Just to be sure, she called up and asked why, and was surprised with the answer. It had nothing to do with the size of her bid. In fact, the winning bid was $76K, and the company who entered it was chosen because of the caliber of the work they demonstrated.

"Obviously the price was not the final factor. It made me realize there’s a lot more we have to do to get the bigger jobs." She also realized that "sometimes you can price yourself too low," which was a bit of a revelation for her, coming straight out of the wedding world. "There’s no such thing as pricing yourself too low in weddings," she says—at least from the client’s perspective.

Darrell Boeck has approached pricing somewhat differently. In the early days, he was unsure how to price, so he based it on his wedding packages, but doubled it. "For example, if a wedding required 30 hours but a corporate project required only 15 hours, I would charge the same price. So, corporate work was twice as profitable. Today, I pretty much have set rates for corporate projects. I know just what is required for a 4-to-5-minute promo video and can pretty much bid on it without much thought. To someone just starting out in corporate video, my advice is to not just consider the hours involved, but to also consider the overall value of the video. So, if you’re a fast editor, you should not punish yourself with a lower price just because you’re efficient. Instead, look at how much the video will help the client by making them money, or saving them money."

His bids are based on flat rates. "When I’m approached with a possible project, the first thing I do is try to determine the amount of time the project will require. Not just in shooting and editing, but everything else that goes into a project, from choosing the music to finding the voice talent to meetings and even phone calls. A lot of time can be spent on the phone discussing a project and my time is valuable. All that is billable," he explains. "I never did like giving clients an hourly rate, for two reasons: One, hourly rates appear quite expensive to a new client; and two, the client doesn’t know how many hours a project is going to take. That’s up to me to estimate since I am the professional. Instead, I give them a flat rate and stick to it, unless the project changes during production."

Gear! Camera! Action!
As a videographer, you know that "having to constantly buy new technical equipment is an occupation hazard," as Brian Gunn points out. But all these videographers were pleased with the minimal technical investment they found they needed to tackle corporate. As Lance Gray says, "Good rental houses can provide specialty equipment for those times when you need it."

Dawson says he changed nothing on the technical side. "I’m living proof that it’s the talent, not the equipment. I’m still shooting with the same PD150 I bought in the summer of 2002. My ‘deck’ is the same consumer Sony camcorder I used when I started. That’s right. No pro monitor. No HD camera. No $5,000 deck. When I need HD, I hire an HD shooter. Most of the work we do is for the web," he says, "so my computer monitor works great. When we start doing more work that really requires more precise color correction or black levels, I’ll invest in better equipment for that."

But if you’re in the dark about lighting, you’re going to have to learn. Having to get good shots using available light is often the bane of wedding videographers’ existence, but it also means they don’t have to worry about purchasing studio lighting equipment and putting it to effective use. Buying a lighting kit and learning how to use it are necessary prerequisites to working in the corporate video world.

Like many wedding videographers, Laura Randall had never worked with lighting prior to shooting corporate video. Good lighting where it’s necessary, she says, is "the number one thing that separates amateur corporate video from professional-looking video. I realized real quickly that we needed to learn a lot about lighting."

She purchased a DVD—Vortex Media’s How to Set Up, Light, and Shoot, Great-Looking Interviews—and recommends it to others who need lighting instruction for its "awesome advice. It tells you all the stuff to buy, like $1,500 worth of gear."

Another piece of equipment Randall recommends either renting or buying is a teleprompter because they make shooting that much more efficient. In fact, after spending hours drilling a dentist in his lines and shooting him fumbling like a middle school student with a handful of 3"x5" notecards, delivering a performance as colorful as an X-ray, she finally convinced him to use a teleprompter."He had written this book and he couldn’t remember the title because it was like 25 words long." When she reshot the sequence using the teleprompter, she says, "He looked at me and said, ‘Now I know what my book is called!’"

The procedure was over in a matter of minutes, which made the editing so much easier and saved the client a bunch of money. Teleprompters rent from about $250–$500 per day, but Randall says she’s gone the DIY route. "We just ordered specialty glass and made one ourselves," she says.

Randall also recommends learning how to chromakey, if you don’t already know how. She’s getting more and more requests to shoot walk-on videos for websites, projects that require both good lighting and green screen skills.

PixelPops has begun using green screen and compositing in their corporate video work quite a bit as well. In fact, for an upcoming project, they are considering taking what would otherwise be a multiple-day shoot at various locations with 13 different actors and condensing it into a couple of hours using green screen and mapping in the background.

Game Plan
If you’re planning on climbing the ladder to corporate, have a plan, Ron Dawson says, as his final words of wisdom. "Create a business plan for what you plan to offer and what revenue will be."And, he says, it doesn’t hurt to pick the brain of someone who’s already done what you want to do. "In addition to the PixelPops guys, I like to read Kris Simmons’ blog MindYourVideoBusiness.com. He and I have had a very similar route to our businesses."

"Pace yourself," PixelPops’ Gray warns. "Know your limits, but don’t be afraid of the unknown. Also, don’t think you can just walk in and start commanding huge numbers. We’ve all done our share of free or low-paying gigs. But often, that’s what it takes to compile a demo reel."

In this respect, he says, establishing your corporate video business is much like building a reputation in the wedding and event video world. Just like someone doing events, you show the best work you have, and as time goes along, certain clips and jobs get replaced by better work."

To help you get the point where you’re producing better work, Randall says, "Watch other videos. Not from an ‘Oooh, how did they do that cool effect?’ perspective but, rather, ‘How is the message that they’re trying to get across being delivered?’"

In the end, though, the one message they all seem to agree on is just do it. Boeck--who's produced an instructional DVD for event videographers going corporate (left)--believes that those who are considering making the switch are already taking a step in the right direction. "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Just stay within your comfort zone and only accept jobs you know you can handle."

This article appeared in the May 2008 issue of EventDV Magazine. Elizabeth Welsh is a freelance writer and editor based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Adobe & Dell Article on Edit 1 Media

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:06:00 +0000

Just dug this up from the archives! Here is an article that Adobe and Dell did on Edit 1 Media and our Same Day Edit services. Kind of fun to see us on the Adobe website! Enjoy!

Edit 1 Media Showcase

Showstoppers FX Review

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:18:00 +0000

A few years ago I was at a videography seminar where the presenter demonstrated how to create a title where it appeared that the letters were being written on to the screen. The animation was done in After Effects and it was pretty complicated! Many of the attendees were very impressed and it looked pretty cool when it was all finished. But I remember that my brain hurt after watching all the steps, and I knew I’d never actually go through all that for an opening title.

Now there is a much easier solution...the Showstoppers FX Animation Construction Kit Series. While I personally steer away from effects such as this, I know there are many other videographers who will find this tool fabulous. I received the NTSC HD and SD kit which sells for $399.95 on the Showstoppers FX website. It is compatible with Final Cut Pro, Premiere 6.5, Premiere Pro, Premiere Elements, Liquid 6&7, Edius 4.5, and Vegas 6,7 and 8. I reviewed the SD title animations using Premiere Pro CS2 and the HD animations using Premiere Pro CS3. Both worked flawlessly.

In a nutshell, Showstoppers FX is a series of short animations of individual letters of the alphabet being written along with stills of each letter. There are supporting animations with a gold pen and wand that can be used if you want the effect to include such an instrument and ‘fairy sparkles’ or bubbles if you really want to make your title look like something from a Disney movie.

Basically you match up an animation of the letter you want and end it with a still (to keep the letter on screen). Each letter has an alpha channel layer, so you layer the letters and move them as needed to create your word. The instructions are very easy to follow and I actually was able to create a title in HD in about 10 minutes.
I tested this product using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 on a dual core 2.41Ghz system with 3GB RAM and a Matrox RTx2.

The title I created (Chris & Laura) took 11 layers and about 2 minutes to render. If you want to add in the pen or the Disney Princess Fairy Dust (Sparkles), all you have to do is add more layers and copy and paste your motion attributes. On my system with the Matrox RTx2, adding the sparkles and magic wand expanded the timeline to 33 layers and took about 10 minutes to render.

Also included in the kit are some “Bonus Words” that may be commonly used in wedding and even videos such as “Our”, “Wedding”, “Bat Mitzvah”, and “Preparations”. Each bonus word includes the pen, wand, sparkles and bubble animations too. You can also change the color easily by using your NLE’s color correction tool. I’ve included a still frame using the Bonus Word “Wedding” with the sparkles, bubbles and wand all added and made it sort of pink. It was very simple to do.

So while this is a product that I would never use, I do have to give it a good grade because it was easy to use, worked well, and is high quality.

VAAST Track Pak Review

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:17:00 +0000

As we all know there is a wide variety of royalty-free music available. Unfortunately a lot of it either sounds like ‘canned music’ or is very expensive to license or requires special software plugins that can be somewhat cumbersome or complicated to use.

I happen to be currently working on a short promotional video for a repeat corporate client. They didn’t want the expensive licensed music that we sometimes use and I felt like I was running out of options with what was in my royalty-free library for this particular piece. Along came Track Packs by VASST/Sundance Media Group for me to review and it proved to be a very timely review!

Each Track Pak CD has at least 7 full arrangements along with segments of those songs, such as intros, endings and all the stuff that goes in between. Each song is similar enough that they can be pieced together seamlessly and can loop for as long as you need it to. This makes it easy to customize your track to fit your video.
To use the Track Pak, you literally copy each piece from the CD onto your computer then import what you want into your NLE. No plug in required. I currently use Premiere Pro CS3 and each piece of music came into the project just fine and didn’t need any sort of rendering. If you need to customize your piece, you just drop the segments onto the timeline and butt them up against each other. If you have Adobe Audition, there are markers every 2 seconds where you can and cut or copy chunks of music for a REALLY customized piece of music!

There are currently 4 different volumes of Track Paks. Volume One is “Piano & Pads” and Volume Two is Guitar & Pads. These two volumes are full of what I would call heartwarming and sweet music tracks that are good for emotional videos and weddings. All the arrangements are available with either just the one instrument alone or with a string or synth pad.

Volumes 3 is called Static Impulse which is electronic/techno with strong beats and effects. This music is well-suited for high energy videos such as sports and fast-paced promo pieces. Each piece has a slightly different beat so there are tons of options for customizing these pieces. Volume 4, Hall of Shadows is dramatic and mysterious. These tracks are available either with or without a backbeat. This music is suspenseful and a bit on the eerie side.

I’m not a musician by any stretch of the imagination; although I did play the clarinet in 7th grade (I was pretty bad too). But being a videographer means I obviously have to listen to and use a wide variety of music. To me, the quality of Track Paks seems top notch although there is still a very slight ‘canned’ feel to a few of the pieces. At $89 per CD, or $200 for all four volumes on www.vasst.com, the cost seems very fair for good quality music that is easy to customize and loop.

Matrox RT.X2 Training DVD Review

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 19:23:00 +0000

This article appeared in the June 2007 issue of EventDV Magazine. To view the online article click here.

Continuing Education: Matrox RT.X2 Revealed
By Chris Randall & Laura Randall - Posted Jun 1, 2007

It seems that all nonlinear editing programs come with their own collection of effects to apply to video. One thing that is missing is a good description of how to get the most out of each effect. Most manuals that come with your favorite NLE only offer brief descriptions, and the Help file may not provide any more clues on how to get the most out of the provided effects. To complicate things even further, some third-party companies create their own effects that may differ from the ones that are supplied by the NLE. This is the case with hardware-assisted cards that provide their own real-time filters. You almost need a roadmap to follow how these effects can best be utilized in your day-to-day productions. When Jeff Pulera created the RT.X2 Revealed tutorial DVD ($99 from Safe Harbor Computers), he set out to create just such a roadmap—and quite a bit more.

RT.X2 Revealed is a must-have for anyone who has recently purchased the Matrox RT.X2 card, currently owns one, or is considering purchasing one. The nice thing about choosing a Matrox RT.X2 system, is the ability to edit HDV footage in real-time with various effects applied. Not only does the tutorial DVD go over every single real-time effect that the RT.X2 provides, it also explains how to install the product on your computer. The DVD has clear and concise step-by-step instructions on installing the hardware and software. Included are recommendations on putting together a system yourself. Pulera suggests checking the Matrox website (www.matrox.com/video) to get a list of validated hardware that is compatible for the RT.X2 card. If you are not as adventurous and don’t want to build your own system, Jeff recommends considering purchasing a turnkey system built by Safe Harbor Computers (who produced and distributes this DVD). Safe Harbor has built a solid reputation for creating stable nonlinear workstations with just about every editor in mind.

The DVD is broken down into chapters that allow you to navigate easily from the installation of the RT.X2 card to the final output of your project. Once you have your system up and running, Pulera goes over selecting the proper project settings to enable full use of the RT.X2 card and its effects. This DVD assumes that you are familiar with Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, the software that ships with the RT.X2 card. (For basic instruction on using Premiere Pro 2.0, I recommend reviewing the Total Training DVD that came with your copy of the software.)

After showing you how to create a new project with the proper settings, the next chapter on this DVD goes over capturing video using the Breakout box that comes with your RT.X2 card. The breakout box allows you to capture composite, S-Video, component, and DV via the FireWire port. The RT.X2 comes with a nice, long cable, eliminating the need to get behind your computer to make the various connections to your equipment.

The next 26 chapters are dedicated to going over the real-time effects that come with the RT.X2 card. Each effect is clearly explained with a description of what the effect does. From there, Pulera goes over each parameter of the effect, explaining how each tweak affects the final look of the video. Multiple examples are played back to give the viewer an idea of the full range and capability of each effect. Some of the many effects that are covered are Transitions, Color Correction, Old Movie Effect, Move and Scale, Shine Effect, Chroma Key, Lens Flare, and custom masks.

The final chapter covers the use of Matrox Media Export to output your video to various formats. Matrox chose to utilize the same Media Exporter that comes with Premiere Pro, but be sure to select the Matrox Media Encoder, and not the Adobe Media Encoder. The interface is the same, but by choosing to use the Matrox Media Encoder, your encoding times will be greatly reduced because it will use the Matrox RT.X2 to do the encoding. Pulera has a clear understanding of the ins and outs of the Matrox RT.X2 card, and is often referred as the “Matrox Guru,” offering countless hours of support for users on various online forums. This DVD quickly allows viewers to get up to speed so that they, too, can aspire to “Guru” status.

Chris Randall, a 2006 EventDV 25 honoree, is co-owner of Seattle-area studio Edit 1 Media with his wife, Laura.

Blu-Ray Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 20:29:00 +0000

How to create a Blu-ray disc with Encore CS3
by Chris Randall – Edit1Media

Adobe brings Blu-ray Authoring to the Masses

With the recent price drop and the flurry of new HDV video cameras on the market now, just about anyone can afford to shoot and edit in High Definition. NLEs are being upgraded to handle HDV editing and just about any new system has the power to do so. Unfortunately due to the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the video production world has been waiting for a solution to deliver HD content to their clients. It appears the wait may be over with software giant Adobe selecting Blu-ray as their format choice for delivery of High Definition video.

CS3

July will bring the release of the much anticipated Adobe CS3 Production Studio. The Adobe team has brought many new features including Blu-ray support to Premiere and Encore and much tighter integration between applications. This only speeds up workflow and allows the user to easily accomplish tasks without having to leave the editing software to do them. In its earlier version, Premiere Pro 2.0 improved on its DVD authoring by adding the ability to import DVD menus from the library or from ones that were created in Photoshop. With Premiere CS3, they decided to remove the DVD authoring tool in favor of creating a link directly to Adobe Encore CS3. This allows the user to export their edited timeline right into Encore. You have the ability to export your HDV timeline in the Blu-ray format as a straight play Blu-ray disc or a fully authored Blu-ray disc with Menus. Even better, once your encoded HD file has been brought into Encore, it can easily be down converted to SD for DVD playback or exported in flash for the web. Not only do you get a streamlined way to author your Blu-ray disc, you also get the robust features that Encore provides.

Adobe Encore CS3 currently supports Blu-ray Burners from Samsung, Pioneer, Sony, and Panasonic. I tested the Panasonic SW-5582 Blu-ray Drive. Street Price - $600 which has worked flawlessly from the start. All of the internal Blu-ray Drives connect to your PC in the same way as your current DVD drive. Installing the drive was a rather straightforward process. Simply disconnect and remove your current DVD drive and install the Blu-ray burner in its place. Since they use the same cables, it is just a matter of re-connecting the appropriate cables. The Panasonic drive is also backwards compatible with all DVD/CD formats. It can burn CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW plus Dual Layer DVD discs in both formats as well as DVD-RAM discs. This drive does it all. Unfortunately, Burn speeds for Blu-ray discs are limited to 1X and 2X. A 25 GIG disc will take up to 1 hour, 45 minutes to burn which will only improve as drives become faster in the future.

Main Title

From this point, I will walk you step by step on creating a Blu-ray disc using Adobe Premiere CS3, Encore CS3 and the Panasonic SW-5582. I recommend getting a BD -RE (Blu-ray rewritable) Disc for your initial tests. Discs are expensive right now ($18-$25) but should come down in price in a few months. To begin, you will need to install the drive in your system. Once the drive is installed, and you have powered on your PC, make sure that Windows recognizes the new hardware and installs the correct driver. You can easily check this by right clicking the drive letter in Windows Explorer and select properties. Click the hardware tab and view the devices that are listed. You should see the Blu-ray burner listed by the manufacturer’s product name. On my system, it is listed as Matshita BD-MLT SW-558

Now that we have verified that the drive is installed correctly and is working, go ahead and run Adobe Premiere. Open up one of your HDV projects with a finished timeline that you are ready to burn to Blu-ray. Insert chapter markers using the chapter marker button. These markers will automatically be brought into Encore when you encode the video. Once you are ready to export your project to Blu-ray, go ahead and select "Export to Encore" This will bring up a dialog box with several options. Go ahead and name your Disc. Under type, select Blu-ray Disc, single layer MPEG-2. The next item you need to do is choose if you want to Author with Menus or do a Direct Burn without Menus. (See Figure 1) Check your encoding setting and verify you have the correct one selected. Once you have that done, press the OK button to start the encoding. You will be asked what to name the encoded file and where to save it. Encoding times will vary based on the length of your video and encoding settings.

After the encoding is finished, Adobe Encore will automatically open and import your video into a timeline. (See Figure 2) From here, authoring is nearly the same as creating a standard DVD. If you are doing a direct burn, all you will need to do is verify your settings and go to the build DVD menu. For a fully authored Blu-ray disc, Encore provides a whole library of Menus for you to choose from that are already in the HD format. The great thing about these menus are that they can easily be brought into Photoshop and changed to your liking with a click of a button. You can use frame grabs from your HD video and replace the background, keeping the titling and buttons intact. Once you have created your menus and added buttons, you will need to link the buttons to the individual chapters.

Make sure to check your project for errors before burning using the Check Project wizard. Go ahead and select Build - disc to bring up the Build dialog box. (See Figure 3) From here you want to choose Blu-ray under format and select Blu-ray Disc in the Output drop down box. Your destination should automatically display the Blu-ray burner. If not, select it from the Recorder drop down menu. With the blank disc inserted, you should see how many Gigabytes are used up by your project. Once you press build, Encore will begin creating the files necessary for your Blu-ray disc and write them to the disc. (See figure 4) Once the burn is complete, you will want to test the disc. I recommend getting CyberLink Power DVD Ultra for testing your Blu-Ray disc on your PC. (See figure 5) This software costs $99 and plays all of the latest formats including HD-DVD. If you verify that the disc plays without any problems, you can test the disc on a PlayStation 3 or other stand alone player. Of course if you haven’t invested in a Blu-ray player yet, a trip down to Best-Buy is in order to try out your disc on one of the display models. This is great for testing compatibility among various players being sold.

Bonus features

Now that we have created the Blu-ray disc, you can easily take the same project and burn the video to DVD. Encore will automatically down convert the Blu-ray format to DVD standard. This is great if your clients want to give copies of their wedding to parents or relatives who don't have a Blu-ray player yet. Another great feature is the export to flash feature. This is a great option for putting DVD content on the web. You can host your clients wedding for virtually anyone to see worldwide. Not only do others get to see your work, the do so in a way that is just like watching a DVD on their home DVD player.

Conclusion

It is nice to see that there are finally some options out there for creating and delivering weddings in HD. Adobe has really stepped up to the plate and created an integrated solution that really makes the process easy and streamlined. With the cost of Blu-ray burners such as the Panasonic SW-5582 coming down in price, it makes it a very affordable solution for burning HD weddings.

Matrox Dual-Head-2-Go Review

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:51:00 +0000

by Laura Randall

With the increased popularity among event videographers creating 'Same Day Edits', more and more of us are getting powerful laptops for our on-site editing needs. A laptop gives you more flexibility in where you can work and less weight and bulk to lug around at events. But If you are like me, you REALLY miss your dual (or more) monitors that you are used to on your desktop computer. Even with my 17" widescreen on my laptop, my timeline just feels cramped. Now there is an easy, lightweight solution from Matrox called the Dual-Head-2-Go, or as I call it, the small and portable 'magic black box'.

The Dual-Head-2-Go plugs into your VGA port on your laptop and then you can plug up to two external monitors into the other side of the box, giving you up to three screens. And the beauty is, you don't have to turn one screw on your laptop to make it work. Install the simple software that comes with the Dual-Head-2-Go, change a few settings in your control panel, and suddenly you have tons of real estate. According to Matrox, you can have up to a 2560 x 1024 resolution stretched across two displays - that's 1280 x 1024 per display, depending of course upon your system and the monitors you are using. You can also determine your window and monitor positioning which is a great bonus.

My test was nothing like PC Magazine might do with a hundred different monitor combinations, but I think my test was more 'real world' in that the monitors I had were not the same. In fact they were extras that were just sitting in the garage because they had been replaced in recent times with newer, bigger, wider screens. I also used a spare Sony Vaio laptop that is 4 years old just to put the Dual Head 2 Go through its paces.

The first thing I needed to do was update the video card drives on the Sony Vaio. It had probably been at least 3 years since that had been done, especially since the last two years it spent most of its time just sitting in a laptop bag not being used! So that was easy enough to do by going to ATI's website and getting current drivers. As I mentioned the monitors were different from each other, one was a Hyundai 17" LCD monitor and the other was a Samsung 18" LCD monitor as you can see in the photos. I set up my Adobe Premiere Pro timeline stretched across the two 17" monitors and then used the laptop's monitor as an 'output' screen so I could view my video in a larger format.

Wow. Quick. Easy. And it works!

For those who travel and use a laptop to edit, you can still use this solution if you make arrangements at your destination to have one or two monitors available for your use. I've done this very successfully on the road with my Dell M90 laptop and whatever monitors I'm able to get a hold of in my destination city. The one thing you have to understand though is that the monitor whose highest resolution is the lowest common denominator between the two monitors, is the highest that you can set the other monitor to. So for instance if "monitor A" has a maximum resolution of 1024x768 and "monitor B" has a maximum resolution of 1280x1024, the most you will be able to get on both monitors is 1024x768 each. The one downfall is that then the larger monitor might seem slightly fuzzy or too big, but again this is a temporary solution in this situation and the goal is to get maximum real estate so you can edit easier.

The other way the Dual-Head-2-Go can be used is for a more permanent solution. So let's say you want to use your laptop in the office yet you'd like to have two more monitors hooked up to it. That's fine, just make sure you have two of the same monitors so they can use the same maximum resolution. In general the Dual-Head-2-Go won't work with a docking station or expansion station since the video card is 'passed through' the docking station. I also tested the unit with Adobe Photoshop and it worked great!

The Matrox Dual-Head-2-Go retails for $169, and is an excellent value for videographers (and others) who use laptops but need to expand their monitor real estate. I was very pleased with my little 'magic black box' and look forward to continuing to use it for my mobile productions.

Matrox RT.X2 Reviewed for EventDV Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 20:26:00 +0000

Review: Matrox RT.X2
By Chris Randall, Laura Randall - Posted Jan 3, 2007

The Matrox RT.X2 is a long-awaited answer for wedding and event videographers looking for an HDV editing solution. With the flood of inexpensive HDV cameras on the market, current Matrox RT.X100 users have been looking for an HDV editing solution but haven't been willing to step up to the Matrox AXIO line due to its cost. Matrox has since released the Matrox AXIO LE, a lighter version of the AXIO at a lower cost than the original AXIO. The great thing about the RT.X2 is that Matrox used a lot of the core technologies that were created for the higher-end AXIO line and folded them into the RT.X2 product at a much lower cost ($1,995).

Real-time Preview
First, let's look at what the Matrox RT.X2 card does for video editing. Those who have edited in Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 or earlier versions know how valuable real-time preview is—when it works, anyway. Real-time preview allows you to see your video with effects as it would play back in real-time.

Unfortunately, you often have to render out these effects before you can export your video to DVD or other formats. And sometimes your system can only support real-time playback at a reduced frame rate (Premiere Pro scales playback quality based on what your system can handle).

With the RT.X2 card, you eliminate the need to render your video before exporting your project. Video playback is smooth with multiple effects applied, and scrubbing of the timeline is lightning-fast.

Working with Real-time Effects
But the RT.X2 does so much more than provide real-time playback of SD and HDV video. When Matrox created the AXIO line, they developed many hardware-accelerated effects that utilize the same Effect Controls as the effects that ship standard with Premiere Pro.

This will be familiar to those who use Premiere Pro as a standalone product but will be somewhat foreign to those used to using the RT.X100 system. With the RT.X100, all of the Matrox Realtime Effects had their own user interface. This interface came with many presets and gave the user the ability to save custom presets. Although the Effect Controls were basic in design, you still had plenty of ability to keyframe the effects.

With the RT.X2, you now use Premiere's Effect Controls window and After Effects-style keyframing. For those who were used to the old Matrox Effects Panel, this can be a bit frustrating until you get used to using the effects control window to manipulate all of your effects.

The RT.X2 does ship with many custom presets which are located in the Presets folder, but we do find that we miss some of the original presets that came with the RT.X100. On the plus side, having the Matrox Effects emulate the way Premiere Pro controls effects gives the user more professional results and streamlines the process.

Mixing SD and HDV
For those who are looking to start editing HDV footage, the RT.X2 allows you to mix SD and HDV footage on the same timeline in real time and output to SD DVDs. This is great for those who may have recently purchased an HDV camera but still have SD equipment that they use as a second or third camera. The Premiere 2.0 Multicam feature can also be utilized with mixed formats and output in real-time. This is a real time-saver and performs remarkably well with two or three cameras.

In order to edit HDV, Matrox recommends getting a Dual Core editing PC. We use the RT.X2 with a Dual Core ASUS A8NSLI Deluxe (left>. We have had success using ASUS motherboards in the past with Matrox products and chose this board based on the Matrox guidelines for using the NForce 4 Chipset. We also chose the AMD 4800+ X2 processor along with an Antec Titan Case with a 650 W power supply.

The RT.X2 card is a full-size PCI-E card and does require a larger case. For graphics, Matrox recommends the ATI X1800XT Dual Head card. This card has given the best performance when accelerating the Flex GPU effects such as the Adobe Motion Effect and Matrox Old Movie effect. The key point here is to be sure you double check the specifications and tested systems information on the Matrox website. If you go outside the range of tested products, you will most likely have issues. This is very important!

Accelerated Effects
The RT.X2 is packed with tons of great real-time effects (left). Effects that are accelerated by the CPU include Speed Changes, Color Correction, Chroma and Luma Keying, Matrox Transitions, and Realtime Upscaling and Downscaling of HD and SD footage. Graphics card-accelerated effects include the Premiere Motion Effect, Advanced 3D Digital Video Effect (DVE), Shadow, Soft Focus/Blur/Glow, Mask & Mask Blur, Shine, Lens Flare, Old Movie Effect, plus 10 others.

The performance of these effects improves with faster processors and better graphics cards. The advantage to Matrox's scalable design is that it allows you to easily improve performance as better-performing processors and graphics cards become available. For weddings, the slow motion is hard to beat, and the RT.X2 makes all speed changes in real-time. Frame-blending means your slow-motion video is fluid and smooth. There is also the option of selecting field-based slow motion, which is ideal for sports videos and other fast-moving footage which requires an edgier style.

The filters we use the most for our weddings are Soft Focus/Blur, Color Correction, and Old Movie. Each filter has loads of options for customizing your look and are all previewed in real time. However, when you use some of these filters together on the same clip, you may need to have the transitions rendered since one may be CPU-based and the other may be GPU-based. But that small amount of rendering is a small sacrifice when compared to the overall performance improvement you'll see with this card.

Accelerated Export
Another great feature of the RT.X2 card is accelerated export of your video to various formats, including DVD, and multimedia formats including Windows Media files, Flash, and Adobe Clip Notes. You will find the Matrox Media Encoder to be identical to the one that Adobe provides. A typical one-hour timeline can take as little as 30 minutes to export to MPEG-2 format, depending on the speed of your system and the amount of filters in the project. This time-saving feature alone is almost worth the cost of the upgrade. The RT.X2 allows full-resolution output for SD and HDV. We have a 42" LCD HDTV set up in our office and use it for viewing full-screen previews from Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore, and Photoshop. In other words, we can watch the video full-screen—just as the client will see it—while we're still working on it. We can view DVD menus in Photoshop on the TV just as our client will see them on their set at home.

Matrox still has more product development for the RT.X2 in the works. They announced support for the JVC ProHD GY-HD100U at IBC in September with the availability of Release 2 of the RT.X2 driver software. This release will include four new effects: Cube, Impressionist, Ripple, and Twirl. This latest set of drivers will be available to all new and current RT.X2 users for free.

Conclusions
The Matrox RT.X2 is a stable real-time HDV editing solution that adds filters and time-saving features to Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. Dynamic Link and WYSIWYG video output allow users to view their work just as the client would. Most editors will need to upgrade or build a new system to accommodate the card and its requirements, so it's not an inexpensive upgrade, but you will have a professional SD and HDV editing system that rivals much more expensive options.

Chris and Laura Randall (info@edit1media.com) are award-winning videographers based in Tacoma, Washington. Chris is president of the PEVAN regional videographers association. The Randalls are featured speakers at the 4EVER Group Conventions, and were selected to the 2006 EventDV 25 All-Star Team.

Dell Precision M90 Review

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 19:57:00 +0000

At approximately 4pm a few weeks ago my doorbell rang sweetly and the nice DHL man handed me my latest prized possession…a new Dell Precision Workstation M90 laptop! Adobe and Dell gave us this unit to test on Same Day Edits and we received it the day before another Same Day Edit, so the timing was perfect. This laptop is replacing a 2 year old Sony Vaio with a 15” display.

My initial impression was…man this baby is BIG!! The screen is sharp and the extra space the 17” widescreen has over the 15” standard screen is really amazing. I knew right away that I wasn’t going to have to squint at the screen like I had been with the old laptop. I was surprised to find that it weighed almost the exact same as the 15”. And anyone who knows me, or has been to one of my Same Day Edit presentations, knows that I like to travel as light as possible. So I was pleased.

My new baby is an Intel 1.66Ghz Dual Core with 2GB RAM, a 60GB 7200RPM hard drive, a beautiful 17” wide screen (1440 x 900) WUXGA display and an Nvidia 512MB display card. It came fully loaded with the Adobe Production Suite Premium. Unfortunately all that software also took up half the hard disk space, but for Same Day Edits, I really don’t need too much anyway. I’m sure I can replace it with a larger drive if I need to. I was pleased to see that Premiere Pro 2.0 loaded almost as quickly as on my new AMD 2.6Ghz Dual Core desktop! Sweet!

The keyboard is laid out nicely and has a good feel to it. My old Sony Vaio literally has the ink rubbed off many of the keys so it’s nice to see which keys are supposed to be what letter again!

The battery life is great…almost 2 hours of constant use. The audio quality is also much better than any other laptop I’ve seen with volume controls (and DVD player controls) on the front panel of the machine. That comes in very handy if you are showing work and need to turn the volume up or down if you are talking with a prospect. I actually gave a short presentation in the middle of a busy shopping mall food court and the couple was able to see and hear the videos well enough that they booked our top package. DVD’s play beautifully with both 4:3 and 16:9 videos.

So on to the next day’s Same Day Edit. This wedding ceremony was going to be at the couple’s private residence for 40 people with a reception immediately following at a different location for 200 guests. A cool situation for a Same Day Edit. So I decided to put the new laptop to the test.

I pre-loaded a timeline into Premiere with the song and opening titles. Since the wedding was taking place at a private residence, I had no “stock” footage to place on the timeline ahead of time. This was also a 5 minute Same Day Edit (normally ours are about 3-4 minutes), so I knew I had a challenge ahead of me. Also, we did not have a third person to help with shooting at the reception, and we had two locations to deal with. Another challenge was going to be that my Firestore drive was in for service so I had to capture all the footage by tape. I was really looking forward to pulling this one off!

We arrived at the groom’s house where thankfully both the bride and groom were getting ready. I filmed the bridal prep while Chris shot the groom getting ready. Chris also obtained shots of the front of the house, the view (which was amazing!) and the ceremony setup (which was pretty simple). This bride and groom did not see each other prior to the ceremony so the bulk of the video would be focused on the ceremony itself.

While there were short breaks prior to the ceremony either Chris or myself would run out to the van (there was NO WHERE to work at this house!) and capture footage. Capturing on the Dell M90 went very smoothly with no problems. By the time the ceremony started, I had the first half of the Same Day Edit video completed. No crashes, no issues. I was jazzed!

The ceremony was shot with three cameras…two manned and one static. Unfortunately the photographer we were working with seemed to get into every angle as the bride was walking down the aisle. So I knew even before I saw the footage that he would be an integral part of their Same Day Edit. Oh well!

Immediately after the ceremony I headed back to the van and began capturing my full ceremony tape and then pulled clips out from the other two cameras. By the time we arrived at the reception location, I was done capturing and had synced up the vows. I had an hour left to complete the second half of the video.

At the reception location I had to sit in an uncomfortable chair in the lobby while using another chair as my ‘table’. Thankfully I had an outlet nearby so I could operate on AC power. Editing was going really smoothly. Not one crash and no glitches whatsoever. The footage was great (thank goodness for polarizing filters because there were no clouds in the sky that day for this outdoor ceremony).

When showed the Same Day Edit I looked around the room and saw everyone crying.
We received a standing ovation, and the wedding coordinator said “Wow, that was the best one yet!” I love my job!!

In summary, I am thrilled to have this new Dell laptop! It’s a tremendous improvement over lugging around one of our tower systems or using a two year old slower than mud laptop for our Same Day Edits. It is very reliable and just as powerful as a desktop. It’s truly an amazing little machine!