[Fernando Mol]

Charles, thanks for solve the mystery of your identity. I will say no more about the links you posted.

There are so many aspects around video production that it will be hard to recommend a single course that covers them all. Here’s a link to one that I considered can worth the investment, if you are interested in the subjects they teach. Look for the samples page to see how they explain the concepts of film language and visual effects.

https://www.hollywoodcamerawork.us

Of course, this may not be what you are looking for, and maybe others have different recommendations, but this is a good example of what for me is a good way to sell a course on the web.

I have to mention I found this site posted in one of the COW forums (free stuff), as they offer green-screen plates, free to download, to experiment with visual effects.

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[Fernando Mol]

Great thread!

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[Fernando Mol]

That intro video is really a “great” example of how to capitalize the benefits of using video on a web site. The guy looks as he just drop down from bed, then he talks and talks for minutes looking at… err, my left hand? Oh, I got it, the audience in the picture. That’s creative!

If they are really trying to start a viral campaign, then they may be successful, but in a negative way.

And if they are just trying to get a higher page rank by placing links to their site, well, good luck with the black hat SEO. They may be banned soon.

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[Fernando Mol]

The site is a normal web site, the people is placed in a div in front of the site inside a flash movie.

The flash movie has a transparent background, this is, shooting in greenscreen then keying out, leaving the transparency in an alpha channel in the final video, placing the video inside a swf, then the swf inside the div, then the div in your page.

I will try to cover the fundaments:

-Shoot your subject in front of a well lighten green or blue background.
-Double check your subject doesn’t use any clothes with the same color of the background (blue jeans in front of a blue bg).
-Keep your subject away from your background.
-Use different lights for your subject and your background. Avoid shadows in your BG.
-Color is not that important for BG, it’s just that green is easy to key out because humans are usually not green.
-Different softwares have different ways to key out the bg color.
-Export your movie to a Flash compatible format, including the transparent alpha channel.
-Place your movie inside a Flash project.
-Publish your .swa file.
-Create a div in your web page.
-Place the swf.
-Read this thread

I hope this helps

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[Fernando Mol]

I don’t know what to say. In my country many industries do that all the time. Not just in media, but in education and many others.

People could be working for years as a “freelance”, this is with no insurance and other benefits that being on the payroll offers, and any day they’re just not required anymore. No retirement plan, no nothing. Just good bye.

I don’t say that the business model you mention it’s a bad idea. Sometimes the economy doesn’t leave you many choices and if you want to do business you do what you need to do to survive.

Most of the time the budgets we have are so low that you have no option but to do the job yourself and hire an assistant for $57 dollars a day. A “freelance” assistant.

I really wish this situation could change. I wish I could hire people with a real payroll. I wish I could give to them and their families some security. But right now I can’t.

Definitely not an “ideal” business model, I have to say, but the one we can afford to have. If you don’t have any other choice, then welcome to the third world.

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[Fernando Mol]

In the Dreamweaver forum, I once got a post of somebody complaining that the advice he got was not appropriate for his level of experience. I wanted to answer “no problem, you can have you money back”, but I only stopped answering the questions of that person.

This was only once. COW members usually are very grateful, so I am.

Personally, and for the same reasons of Rick, I prefer to leave all advice on the forum for everyone to read. I began, years ago, as a newbie too. I still go from forum to forum reading and learning and I have to say:

Thank you all for sharing your time and knowledge.

PS. I have answered some direct emails too, but always trying to convince the shy person to ask trough the forum, usually with no luck. No choice but to respect that, I think.

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[Fernando Mol]

There’s a way to change some aspects of the look of the player in both, VIMEO and Youtube.

In VIMEO, when you click the Embed button, a window opens. At the bottom you can change size, color and some info for the player. Youtube gives you similar options.

VIMEO also have VIMEO PLUS, with a much more flexible player and without the ads, but for a cost. Look here to find more info. I don’t know if Youtube has a similar service.

Curtis is right, nothing is really free. They give you the option to use the service, but the cost of maintain such sites must come from somewhere. Usually advertising.

If you don’t pay anything to them then all you can say is thanks. Same here!

Thanks all.

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[Fernando Mol]

Thanks for the tip, Scott.

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[Fernando Mol]

Thank you, Dave

I see Syntheyes it’s well documented. I’m downloading the Demo to continue my tests.

Great advice, as always.

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[Fernando Mol]

I believe the effect you are looking is “CC Light Sweep”.

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