Sacramento Video Production: Profiling People

Sacramento Video Production: Profiling People

Profiling individual people and telling their story is a fundamental method of documentary style film making. In this post, I give you two examples from my own library. I made both of these videos while working as a field producer/one-man-band video production crew for WSMV-TV in Nashville, TN. I did everything except narrate. Our anchor lady and my long time good pal Demetria Kalodimos narrated these pieces.

The best, most entertaining videos to make are compelling stories of individuals who experienced whatever issue the story is about.

How do you make a video about an abstract subject like depression? Tell the story of someone who dealt with it. That’s what I did with the first video in this post, which I named “Garden Grief.” (What is posted is just the first half of the story.)

The second video in this post is about losing weight. As you can well imagine, like any health reporter, I’ve written more than once of the subject of weight loss! This story stands out to me because I told it through the marriage of Maria, a lifelong obese woman whom I’d profiled several times before about weight loss.

Weight loss is a complex emotional issue. What better way to impart that in a minute and a half than to intertwine it with the most emotional of all events, a wedding! This video is the full story, just without the anchor intro.

In order to do a basic profile story of a person on video, you need a good interview plus video of them doing something. If you are doing a long piece, you can make it more compelling using variety. Videotape them doing several different activities, not just one.

Interview your subject in more than one location. Interviewing them while they are doing something, and not just sitting there, is also a good idea although neither of these pieces make much use of that technique.

Hopefully, whatever video you take is perfectly related to the subject matter. Sometimes it’s impossible to get the video you really WANT so you have to learn to configure the story around what you have.

In those cases, you write the narration in such a way that it makes perfect sense to be seeing the video we are seeing. In the story on Maria getting married, once I established the link between love, weight loss and her wedding, it made perfect sense to see video of her putting on her wedding gown.

In the same manner with the depression story, close-ups of bird’s nests and wind chimes make sense in context.

When I made the Garden Grief story, I really would have liked to have added some still pictures of the auto accident which lead to her depression. If you watch the portion of the story I posted, there is no doubt that at the right time screeching tire sound effects, music and quick shots of the wreck scene would have worked well.

I did not do this because this video was produced in a context of JOURNALISM. I needed images of the actual wreck, not just any generic wreck. There was no way I could get them by deadline so I left them out.

If I had not been telling this story in the context of journalism, I would have felt free to use generic wreck shots and sounds. It would have added to the impact of the story, but it would have crossed ethical boundaries of realism in journalism for me. Now there is not much ethical journalism going on in America today but that is another post! I sure always tried.

Neither of these stories is anything outstanding, rather they are typical of what I used to do on a daily basis. They are typical of documentary style film making in general. No matter what kind of documentary style videos you want to make, chances are real high that profiling people and telling their stories will be one of the best ways for you to accomplish your goal.

I hope you enjoy these examples and can see from them all the different elements it takes to make a quality documentary style video. Notice the pacing of the editing. Rarely does any one shot last as long as ten seconds. There are lots of close-ups. There are short natural sound breaks between paragraphs of narration.

The video illustrates the story but really does not match word for word with what the narration is saying. In is more of association type relationship between the words and the video, not a literal one. People who have been making video forever (like me) consider this type of relationship between our visuals and our spoken words to be a more creative method that tells a more effective story.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips. as always, drop me a line if you have questions about online video.

sacramentovideoguys@gmail.com

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Video Techniques: Using a Moving Camera

VIDEO DISTRIBUTION

“Spastic cam” is the slang term I came up for the technique demonstrated here, but of course that doesn’t sound too respectful. :)

A wildly moving camera can add a sense of chaos or urgency to your video.

I used a wildly moving camera in this video I did some time back for the state of Tennessee tobacco regulation division. It seemed the best way to take a fairly mundane B-roll situation and transform it into a somewhat dramatic and fun-to-watch video presentation.

The audience for this video was employees of all establishments who sell cigarettes. They had to watch it during training. It was state law! Yes, I had a captured audience but I tried to please them anyway. Poor things. You know they are probably bored to tears and wishing they’d win the lottery so they could quit this thing called working for a living.

Honestly, our mission was to guilt them into not wanting to sell cigarettes to kids. The state knew they had no real enforcement power (or the budget to bother to enforce) so they wanted to encourage them to do the right thing rather than come across as a threatening body eager to harshly enforce rules.

So we had quite a story to tell. How to tell it? Right or wrong, this is what I came up with. I decided to break the rules of video making to encourage other to keep the rules of cigarette sales to minors.

Generally speaking, the “rules” of video making say keep your camera rock-solid steady and ALWAYS shoot off a tripod. Yeah, yeah, I agree. To a point.

One of the joys of videomaking is that it’s a golden opportunity to break rules and not get in trouble. And not just because the state has no budget to enforce. :)

When it is done right, which means it’s planned chaos not random chaos, a wildly moving camera can enhance your final video. Usually, a wildly moving camera is the obvious mark of a rank amateur. It’s nearly universal. When people first get their hands on a video camera they pan, tilt and zoom like crazy. The resulting video is so horrible it actually induce sea sickness.

I call that “earthquake video.” “Spastic cam” is a whole other thing.

Now, my slang terms aside, earthquake video is to be avoided at all costs. (Unless there really is an earthquake going on.)

Spastic cam should be reserved for appropriate instances, but I think it’s a great technique when used properly. It adds an element of excitement, urgency, chaos, panic, however far you want to carry it.

Good Spastic Cam is actually quite controlled. The camera moves but not that much really.

For this project, I thought spastic cam video helped make our smokers look BAD. I wanted them to look wanton, careless and thuggish. Of course this video was staged. They were smoking clove cigarettes because they were not actual smokers.

In addition to the moving camera I made the video black and white and gave it a staccato effect. I thought both of these effects enhanced the moving camera technique and added to the mood. In contrast, I made the graphics on top of the B&W shots highly color saturated.

To transition out of the spastic cam, you’ll notice at the very end of what I posted here, I finish off the sequence with the male character flicking off his cigarette butt. This is a natural ending to the action of smoking. Always be conscious of the order of real events when editing your sequences.

Visual storytelling relies on editing shots in an order that is logical. In this case, the beginning shots were buying the smokes. Ending shot was an abandoned butt. If you are trying to end your video (or that portion of the video) end your sequence.

After the wide shot of him tossing his trash, I cut to a rock-solid shot of the cigarette butt flying into the shot from the correct angle to match the wide shot and landing on the ground.

Then, I dissolved into the same shot without the black and white. From this point on, most of the rest of the video was shot in a standard way off a tripod. I cut that part out before I posted it here, but it was mostly interviews and graphics. The boring stuff!

Of course to make the transition look right, the ciggie butt shot had to be extremely steady. I bet we flicked that thing a million times to get it to land in the right spot! This was a case where I set up a nice-looking close-up shot on the ground, then had him throw the butt over and over until it landed just right. The rocks, beer bottle tops,and other junk you see was there to begin with, but I placed them attractively within the frame.

Yes, I do those kind of things. I position trash JUST SO in order to make the shot look right. I find that fun and it definitely makes the shots look better.

As you learn to make video, study different styles. Spastic cam technique is one of many ways you can add visual, unspoken elements to your video that affects the viewer on a gut level. I never said these characters were bad people but I sure implied it.

Just like mood lighting, mood music, sound effects and other storytelling elements, a moving camera “says” something to your viewer and is one of the many tools you have as a video maker.

I hope you enjoy watching my old videos. I certainly had fun making them. This particular one was actually quite a gas.

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FREE Royalty Free Music Collection

GENERAL ONLINE VIDEO MARKETING PRODUCTS AND ADVICE

FREE Royalty Free Music Collection

The word “free” has such a nice ring to it!

Especially when there are no strings attached.

If you are looking for cost-effective resources to build a library of royalty-free clips, both music and footage, for your video making, I don’t think you can beat Footage Firm.

They just put out a brand new 10-disc collection of royalty free production music they are giving away FREE if you pay shipping. Go sign up!

Footage Firm Free Music Collection

Footage Firm is large provider of royalty free footage with a client base that includes television networks and other huge production facilities. They have been supplying video footage for a very long time, but until now had never supplied music clips.

This is their first collection of music and was produced by a select group of composers. Human ones at that! Here is a quote from Joel Holland of Footage Firm.

“The music tracks are all original compositions created by actual composers, and not electronic garbage like most production music. We just partnered with a production music company to introduce music to our customers for the first time, and to celebrate that and build exposure for the new product line, we are giving away copies of the 10 CDs. We are only doing this for one more month, then then prices go up to $139 per CD, which is still a very good deal. (But at $8.41 for S&H it is a no brainer right now!)”

Footage Firm is a great resource that I have relied on and used myself for many years. I have several more post on this blog about their products.

This post features a video made from their footage and a link to a collection of backgrounds.

This post features a link to a collection of royalty free video clips.

Even if these particular collections are no longer available, I suggest you sign up with footage firm and you will be notified on their next release.

If you are going to make any quantity of video, it ALWAYS helps to have a library of footage and clips to use. Today, I often make whole videos out of stock footage so my library of royalty free clips is invaluable.

Nice to get something invaluable for free!

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Video Production Services Sacramento

Video eMail and Video Conferencing with Covideo

By The Video Guys in Business Marketing with Video, Featured Video

How soon do you think it will be before the word vmail is just as common as email? Video email is just now taking off and someday will be commonplace.

Video email has been difficult for two main reasons.

Video files are too big to easily send through email systems

Email systems often block video files for security

So folks had come up with ways, the easiest being to email a link to your video. If you wanted to go to some extra trouble, you could make an image that looked like a video thumbnail and turn that into the clickable link to your video.

That tends to be too much effort so few people go to the trouble.

Now you don’t have to.

Covideo video email, or V-mail, is an extremely easy way to send out stunning video emails without any trouble at all.

All you need is a webcam and a covideo account.

Covideo records your webcam signal and uploads it as you are speaking. So when you click “stop recording,” covideo instantly creates a video file in your account library. Then you can email it out inside a gorgeous, branded template with just a few clicks.

Truly incredible.

Covideo also provides online video conferencing and presentation services. Just like the video email service, their conferencing service has more capabilities than any other I have seen.
online video conference covideo

A covideo conference I attended with Thom McFadden and Dave Kaminski.

You can have up to twelve webcame inputs on the screen at any one time. Soon that capacity will be increased to 50. You can show videos, slides, or a white board.

The system is very flexible and you can switch modes live.

Any number of people could watch as off-camera participants and communicate via chat or email.

The third main service offered by Covideo is what they call Live Rep. This enables you to set up a live video stream some you can speak face-to-face with web visitors in real time.

Imagine how that could conquer shopping cart dropout syndrome! Solve their ordering problems right then and there and make the sale.

Covideo is a service I am proud to be partnering with. I’m working with them to develop an entire online video marketing campaign.

Luckily for me, the online video niche supplies me with LOTS of products and services to recommend. That means I can pick and choose the very best. Covideo is easily one of the best. For less than $50 a month, you can have access to easy, powerful ways to use online video to market or communicate with loved ones.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me.

Thanks for being a Video Guy reader!

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Beginners Video Production Services Sacramento

Quick Note for Beginners

Have you ever bought a new pack of MiniDV tapes, popped one in the camera and hit the record button a few seconds before that special moment you wanted to capture? Then, when going to show your friends and family your priceless footage comes out all distorted and ruined? I've got a few simple steps you should take with each new tape you put into your camcorder to ensure the that you capture every second of footage with very few headaches.

First, as a general rule always remember to start recording at least 5 seconds before the action you wish to capture takes place. Camcorders typically do not start the instant you hit the record button. Record heads and the rest of the internalized parts need to engage and this takes at least a second or two. So play it safe and start recording well ahead of the event. Dropout or banding on tapes is a defect on the tape which causes a loss of signal. This results in bars, or sqare patterns distorting the image on the tape.

Unfortunately, as tapes get smaller dropout becomes more of a problem. You see, dropout is typically caused by dust, small obstructions, or part of the tape itself falling off and creating a small section of tape that the heads were unable to record on. This is part of the reason larger tape formats have survived so long, they can take the abuses of editing and field shoots because dust and debris cover much less surface area on a large tape than on a MiniDV. So, ALWAYS record over the first 30 seconds of your tape with black, colorbars, or meaningless footage. You should do this because the first 30 seconds (and the last 30 as well) are the parts of the tape that are exposed to dust, light and physical contact during the tape stocking and manufacturing process.

Your chance for dropouts decreases dramatically after the first minute or so has passed. Also, you should stop recording within a minute or two of the end of each tape. Additionally, tapes are becoming less and less expensive so if you are concerned about dropouts or banding, only use a DV tape once. After you use a tape once you have already exposed it to additional dust, dirt, heat and light. The more you use it, the more likely you will have some sort of issue that will impede your recording in the future. Finally, be gentle with your tapes. The smaller tapes become the more fragile you should expect them to be. Each damaging drop or bump is magnified because the actual tape inside the cassette is so small. A tiny abrasion can do plenty of damage to your tape.

For Video Services see the Video Guru

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Press Releases Sacramento

Press Release: ActionBacks

ActionBacks Releases HD Animated Clouds, Water and Fire Racine, WI, June 2008 Suite Imagery, LLC has announced the completion and release of three new royalty free animation volumes in the Nature’s Motion series. The new volumes, Nature’s Motion 5, 6 and 7, each contain 20 new animations in full HD resolution. These animations serve as professional looping motion backgrounds useful in all levels of video and multimedia production. ActionBacks Releases HD Animated Clouds, Water and Fire Racine, WI, June 2008 Suite Imagery, LLC has announced the completion and release of three new royalty free animation volumes in the Nature’s Motion series. The new volumes, Nature’s Motion 5, 6 and 7, each contain 20 new animations in full HD resolution.

These animations serve as professional looping motion backgrounds useful in all levels of video and multimedia production. Nature’s Motion 5 is a collection of 20 animated cloud animations. The volume has a nice variety of color, clouds, and mood making it useful in many applications. Nature’s Motion 6 contains all water and aquatic animations and backgrounds. From glimmering waves at sunset and underwater effects to waterfalls, these 20 HD animations offer many options to multimedia producers. Nature’s Motion 7 is comprised of 20 animated graphics with a fire and pyrotechnics theme. Animated explosions, fireworks, and fire all in high definition make up this latest release in the ActionBacks collection. Every animation contains a built in alpha channel for quick and clean keying.

The standard definition versions of all three of these new volumes are available for download, along with the rest of the SD volumes. HD volumes are available on DVD. ActionBacks has discounts on purchases of 2 volumes or more, and also has bundle pricing available. For more information, visit www.ActionBacks.com.

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How to Archive a Video Production Project Sacramento

One of the most overlooked aspects in the production process is the final step... archiving and storing a project. If you haven't yet, then you will in the future need to make a change to a project you were certain was all done. Here, I'll walk you through a thorough process for archiving your footage and project files so that you always have to option to go back and make changes. One of the most overlooked aspects in the production process is the final step... archiving and storing a project. If you haven't yet, then you will in the future need to make a change to a project you were certain was all done. Here, I'll walk you through a thorough process for archiving your footage and project files so that you always have to option to go back and make changes. For this example we will list the ways to archive a video with music and dialogue, still graphics, and a fully authored DVD menu. First you should always try and retain 2 copies of the final project in its delivered format. For our example, we will make a master DVD that we will put into storage and a DVD copy that can be put onto a spindle with your other projects and kept near by. The next step is laying all of your video elements from your timeline to tape. I would suggest a more reliable tape format than MiniDV. If you can, try and master tapes to DVCAM, DVCPro, or another digital format. MiniDV will work, but it is more likely to have 'dropout' or some sort of digital glitch (so it might serve you well to watch the segments once they are layed to tape, to make sure they are clean). An important step, if possible, is to utilize both channels of audio (left and right) on your tape to separate both your music and your dialogue. If you put music on the left channel and dialogue on the right channel, it will be much easier to replace a Voice-Over, or change a cut of music in the future because the VO and music won't be mixed together. At this point your completed video elements are saved, so now we must archive the elements used to build the project. From here you'll need a CD (or in some cases a DVD) to burn the rest of your data. We will call this an Elements Disc. The first thing you'll want to make sure you keep copies of is all of the paperwork involved with the project. Emails, contracts, invoices, notes and other important items should be kept on a disc that you can easily access. Another folder on your "Elements Disc" should contain all of the still graphics or pictures imported into the project. As you'll see in a bit, the reason we do this is so if you ever need to rebuild your entire project, you will have all the media that the project files will try to refrence. It is also wise to put any music tracks on to your disc, so that you have access to the full unedited files. The final folder include all of the program project files from whatever editor you use. If you used Avid or FCP, there should be a neatly organized folder with your "Project Files" clearly labeled. Basically, any non-media files from your editor should be saved. This is essential if you ever try and rebuild the project within the editor. When you go back to make changes the following will happen: you will click on your project file and all of your media will be offline (obviously!), your project files include the most important data that includes notes about what media went where. The file won't actually have the media in it (that would take up too much space), but it will know where it referenced those files. Then you will start reconnecting the still graphics and music from your Elements Disc. If titles were built within the editor, your editor should be able to regenerate them. If you labeled your tapes correctly and used timecode while digitizing, then re-digitizing the video should not be difficult. Your editor will ask for your to reconnect the media by importing a tape with a given name (this is why you should name each new tape you put into your deck or else they will all say "new tape") into the deck. From here the editor should be able to digitize the original files and reconnect the media. So your set for editing, but you still have a few steps in the archiving process. If you use a third party compression program, you'll want to make sure you save a copy with the correct settings. Also, you'll want to save the program files from whatever DVD authoring program you use and any associated artwork for menus, etc. Do not save an .m2v files or large media. The point to save project files and not all of the media is that you can save yourself a lot of space and it is not difficult to regenerate or recompress files, it just takes a little time to finish. If you follow these steps, you will have a thorough way to archive your projects and put them to bed. You will be able to sleep soundly, knowing that when a client comes calling with unforseen changes, or a drive crashes you can go back and recreate your work.

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The challenge with music and video production Sacramento

The challenge with music and video production.

Music can be one of the most challenging elements during the production process. Original footage is not hard to create and Photoshop or AfterEffects can assist in creating one-of-a-kind graphics, but music often times becomes a thorn in the side of smaller production facilities and can even lead to some loose standards when it comes to copyright laws. Music can be one of the most challenging elements during the production process.

Original footage is not hard to create and Photoshop or AfterEffects can assist in creating one-of-a-kind graphics, but music often times becomes a thorn in the side of smaller production facilities and can even lead to some loose standards when it comes to copyright laws. Great music is often vital to smaller budget projects, usually "slideshow" videos, many of which cannot afford licensing fees on popular music and have no supporting dialogue to fill dead air.

While there are a multitude of options to suit your music needs, copyrighted music, without a license, should never be one of them. While prosecution, up to this point, have been relatively sparse, a lawsuit by the RIAA or related music rights group would not only tie you up in years of litigation, but send your chances of working in the production industry near zero. In this article, I will offer some advice and resources to help low-budget and independent producers find high-end music to complement a wide array of video projects.

Even on a tight budget there are ways to use copyrighted music in your production. At this point, Australia has the best set-up for smaller project producers that create media for 'domestic use.' This process is overseen in conjunction with the Australian recording industry and allows for music to be licensed for a reasonable fee. For those producing outside of Australia, there is a similar, albeit less developed version of this concept.

There are several sites that offer use of copyrighted music for domestic use. The difference, again, is the licensing fee is a fraction of what it would cost for large scale production or corporate use. Zoom is one such site that offers low cost licenses. The word on the street is that the list of available songs at Zoom is decent, but hopefully expands quickly. It is worth checking out the site, as the information changes constantly.

Finally, there are Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons allows artists and authors to post original content for a variety of uses. The content creator sets the terms of use for each type of media (music, images, videos, etc). There are plenty of tracks to search and many that allow low cost or no cost use in return for a credit in the final production. These are just a few ways to find great music for your next project. If you have any luck with the afore mentioned methods or have any other great resources to share, please email sacramentovideoguys@gmail.com. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - From now on, you'll have no excuse to use unlicensed music in your next project.

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