[Bill Davis]

I’ll second the idea that with the complexity of today’s hardware software systems, it’s pretty easy to get into a failure trap.

My best advice is never to buy into any software/hardware system without access to a robust and reasonably professional users group in your area.

That’s the FIRST thing I looked for when I invested in NLE stuff decades ago. Because brochures and even company flacks aren’t gonna help when your system goes down at 8am on Sunday and you’re on a Monday deadline. Having the phone numbers of five other editors who use your same system WILL help. A lot.

All the major software players in editing have users groups in all the major cities. And of course, there’s on-line reasources such as here at the Cow.

I’ll second the idea that if any of us here can help – we’ll give it a try.

Good luck.

[Bill Davis]

I agree you need to do anything and everything you can.

I’m a video producer primarily, so I see my job as to shoot the stuff properly in the first place.
But when clients have wanted material delivered for the web, my solution is a deliverable that consists of the following.

A hard drive that contains:
The original NTSC DV clips, if they’re “full frame” and NOT for compositing.
The original NTSC DV clips of each web snippit shot against greenscreen if they ARE for compositing.
NTSC DV clips of each web snippit in full DV rez composited with the client supplied backgrounds.
Compressed files to their specs as to raster size, CODEC and frame rate in FLV format.
Compressed files to their specs as to raster size, CODEC and frame rate in SWF format.

Hopefully, they can just use the swf files and that’s it.
But if they’re a Flash version behind, they can typically take the FLV files, update them in Flash to whatever new version/codec they like, and re-render the swf files.

Or if there’s something more complex going on, they can go back to the DV clips and do their own damn encoding if that’s what it takes to get the job done.

The client communications is that I supply their WEB people with not JUST the work they’ve ordered, but ALL the work files they might need to re-encode or fix anything.

Usually, that moves the problem from my shop to theirs.

But I agree, it’s getting nothing but harder to keep up with universal output formats, codecs and encoding schemes in a world where there’s 100 decisions in every encoding job that can make something incompatible for the one delivery system it HAS to work on.

[Bill Davis]

This got me thinking…

Why isn’t there a standard label format that can help alert the playback folks as to what a DVD contains?

Seems to me it would be pretty helpful.

I fiddled around with the idea and in 5 minutes knocked this off.

I’m positive it’s incomplete and leaves out a lot, but wouldn’t SOMETHING like this make life a whole lot easier for all of us?

Or not?

[Bill Davis]

I may be missing something here, but if it was up to me, I’d take every form and slap it on a cheap flatbed scanner ($100 bucks at any computer store) and digitize it at 300 or 600 dpi. That should allow you to to zoom in by a factor of 4 to 8.

Then I’d build a simple motion path that does the following.

Shows the form full screen for a few seconds. Probably against a pleasing gradient background. If the client would allow it, I’d probably even tilt the form slightly back and apply a drop shadow to give the appearance of the paper floating over the background. That’s just for minor aesthetic appeal.

Then I’d set motion vectors to gently tilt and zoom toward any IDENTIFYING numbers or markings that indicate which form it is. The zoom would presumably allow the viewer to actually see the copy clearly and begin to read the content for themselves. If there was an ID number, case number, or other critical “lookup” data, I might then highlight it somehow.

Then I’d do another motion vector to move from that ID into the upper left quadrant of the main document where one would start reading (where you’d expect to see a “drop cap” in typesetters terms) – drop caps tell your eye where to begin to read – and that should further help the viewer get another visual ID clue about how this form is distinguished from others.

Those two zooms function to bring the document close enough to be distinguished by content rather than by the gross appearance shot of full page text that often fails in resolution when you show it full screen.

Then I’d return to the full screen shot and hold that until that form is no longer needed.

Once I’d set up those basic vectors for one page, I’d just copy and past the sequence for every new page shown.

Full shot – zoomed ID number shot – Upper left (drop cap position) shot – back to full.

The audience would come to expect the same orientation sequence for each document and after the first wouldn’t worry about trying to strain for content ID on the opening wide shot.

For me it’s a matter of trying to understand what the audience needs to see to be successful in understanding the content.

My 2 cents anyway.

[Bill Davis]

If the issue is that the white board projector is simply too bright, get some ND gel and rig it over the LENS of the projector. If you buy a sheet of full stop. And a sheet of half stop. You can double, mix and match until you get the projector beam down to the right level to match your talent lighting.

Often with projectors – you not only have an issue of brightness, but one of color temperature as well. Projector bulbs are often have a skewed CRI that’s nearer to daylight (5600K+)

Depending on the room lights (tungsten? fluorescent?) you might have issues with color balance.

You can combine the ND with CTO to warm the projector closer to tungsten lighting – or combine the ND with Plusgreen to better balance with spikey fluorescent room lights.

But the ND by itself should get the intensity into the correct range for a good exposure.

Let us know how it works for you. Good luck.

[Bill Davis]

I’ll quietly just say that I’m always troubled by these threads where someone feels that the mere act of shooting something imbues it with some kind of magical value that must be legalized, fought over, protected and negotiated. I understand rights for creative work. But really, unlike a work of creative fiction like a movie – most of the kind of corporate video we’re talking about is NOT generating unique creative work of lasting value. So I think trying to hold it tightly in order to squeeze more incremental billings out of it is silly.

Two thoughts.

After 25 years producing videos, I can’t think of a situation where my footage ended up being worth more than the EXPERIENCE I developed creating that footage. I’ll gladly pass along the footage without regret, precisely because I see it as the LEAST valuable asset I have. Think: they can take the images, but never can they take from me the understanding of how to create such images.

Secondly, all that so-called valuable raw material? Timelines. Graphics. 3-D source files? If they ask for it, send them EVERYTHING! Boxes of tapes, Disc after disc of digital files. Why? Because it’s so much fun to think of another person trying to go in and deconstruct/reconstruct a project without any fundamental understanding of the original thought process behind it.

I envision them as they start loading stuff into their computers. Poking around. Realizing that they don’t even have most of the software necessary to RUN the files. (Haven’t met a client with Omni-Graffle, the program I used to do quick video graphics, yet!) I imagine them so confused that they tuck the box in a closet and start over from scratch, because the program isn’t really the digital assets – a good program is the THINKING behind the program. The decisions. And you can’t typically look at something and decode the WHY of it easily.

So holding on to so called “assets” is, IMO, the attempt to control something that there’s really no need to control.

Send the “STUFF” wherever it needs to go. It’s just stuff. Particularly if releasing the stuff helps to make people feel good about who you are. THAT’S Valuable. You always get to keep your experience and understanding – and to walk away knowing that they PAID you to learn more.

That’s the real win.

My 2 cents anyway.

[Bill Davis]

Personally, I use a Prompter People Universal 17.

Runs around 1500.00.

Yes, you can certainly make your own. But the point of purchasing commercially developed tools is that all the R&D is done for you. When I took delivery I was pleased that not only was the prompter rig well-built – but there were a lot of extras like the milled aluminum blocks that easily allow you to adapt smaller cameras to be positioned correctly.

Plus the software has been under constant development. That’s valuable. For instance, when I first started using the system, you needed to invest in an expensive VGA reverser so that the prompter operator at the laptop and the talent could BOTH see the correctly oriented text simultaneously. Today, the software does the split/reverse without any adaptor.

I also realized that since my larger clients were quite prepared to pay between $250 and $300 for a typical prompter rental – the cost of the unit represented only 7-8 rentals (thinking pre-tax dollars) before it would have paid for itself.

It’s done that probably a dozen times over since I bought it.

So personally I think it’s a great investment if you have the practice to support it.

My 2 cents.

[Bill Davis]

We do only department-general holiday food gifts.

We try to be creative and client specific. For example, one of our largest clients is in the Pet industry. So Linda found out that Sprinkles Cupcakes (a nice “premium” brand) Not only does Cupcake baskets suitable for an entire corporate department but also has a line of DOG SAFE cupcakes so there’s something for both the people in the department AND their pets.

So we acknowledge the client group, never individuals. And we try to make it fun.

[Bill Davis]

Guy,

I’m a little confused. The spots you cite as targets are essentially branding-oriented TV ad campaigns. That kind of campaign builds brand recognition and implants a message about general utility or quality but it’s typically NOT the kind of thing you do in order to describe detailed benefits.

I think it’s dangerous to look at one thing (TV commercials) as instructive forms to do an entirely different thing.

I think you need to look at what the CENTRAL PURPOSE of your videos for this client will be.

Force them to give you a SHORT list of perhaps 3 specific goals for the training video. And if branding for a mass audience is NOT one of those items. Dissuade them from following examples from TV commercials – precisely because those goals are so different.

Based on what their 3 goals are – you need to create an instructional design that meets their ACTUAL objectives.

The production effort required to sustain a “TV commercial” visual environment over, say, a half hour training program might be totally unnecessary to meet the real objectives of training people about your client’s real world computers.

Think about it this way. Right now, the Progressive Auto commercial girl is very popular. (The spot where she shows off her “tricked out name tag” ) She’s quirky, singular, attention getting, and very likable – in occasional 30 second bursts.

If I had to watch her character narrate an entire 1 hour training video, she might well reach a point where I wished she would stop being so insufferably quirky and just give me the INFORMATION clearly and concisely.

Only you know how much information you need to present in your program. But if there’s a lot of content – particularly a lot of nuts and bolts expository content – than the personality of the presenter (attractive, competent, likable – whatever) might outweigh the need to use a complex delivery theme or look.

Don’t get me wrong. I love creativity on display. I just also realize that over-spending on a totally “creative” approach in a form where creativity is secondary to functional learning can also be a mistake.

Only you can tell.

FWIW, YMMV.

[Bill Davis]

I’ve developed the belief that the better a job you do – the more “parents” your project will grow.

It’s especially fun when you’re sweated over an edit for a couple of months with 3 people in the edit suite. Me editing, a content expert and a client producer all of who know each other well and who’ve learned to work together smoothly.

So we three join a couple of other corporate types plus maybe a minor exec or two for a viewing – and starting immediately after the piece shows, everybody in the room starts calling it “our video” – which is cool and shows buy-in. But then the phone rings, and suddenly one of the exec types says “Yeah, I’m down here editing the new company video…” And the next week, I watch the presentation of the work to a wider company audience and some Junior VP of sales stands up and starts saying things like “We decided that this would be a great design approach” – and I look at the two other people in the room who had ACTUALLY been there and made all those tough choices and tweeks and we grin at each other.

It’s annoying at first. Now I just remember than anyone can “talk” a good game. But the three of us who actually did the work get to walk away knowing that when it’s time to do the next video – someone has to come talk to us – because we’re the people who actually know how to create something worthwhile on the screen.

And I’ve got to believe that that’s always going to be valuable.

In general business, the bigger money flows toward leadership – which is primarily about achieving results through the efforts of others. But in the creative world, the only people who are indispensable to the process are those who can take a blank screen and fill it with something that will drive results.

FWIW