Joseph W. bourke
Forum Replies Created
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Richard –
She may know spreadsheets, but she doesn’t know doodly squirt about video encoding and playback. Here’s the word straight from Apple:
TV and Video
AirPlay Mirroring to Apple TV support at 720p
Video mirroring and video out support: Up to 1080p with Apple Digital AV Adapter or Apple VGA Adapter (adapters sold separately)
Video out support at 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable (cables sold separately)
Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High Profile level 4.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file formatThe above paragraph can be seen more clearly at:
https://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/
I’ve had good luck sending approval copies to my clients IPads with H.264 at 640 x 360 (bitrate is going to vary – tweak it down until you hit the magic tradeoff or the quality disappears). It’s not the movies, but neither is the IPad.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
If you’re really trying to do this yourself – find a book on the topic first, or hire a real television makeup artist for a couple of shoots, and pay her extra to teach you the basics. Here’s a book that looks pretty good:
https://www.focalpress.com/books/film_and_video/the_makeup_artist_handbook.aspx
That said, the makeup you use depends on your talent’s skin tone, the lighting (tungsten, LED, HMI, fluorescent), as well as the look you’re after. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, other than a kit which has a variety of choices. It takes experience to make those choices, and the last thing you want to do is jump into it.
One last horror story – the station I was working at had many daily newscasts and many on-air people, with skin tones varying from black, to tanned, to pale white. We hired a pro to come in (who did feature film and television makeup) and train the on-air talent to apply their own makeup. While it worked for the women, who were used to doing their own street makeup, the guys often looked as if they had been battered and bruised, because they didn’t know how to blend the makeup – they’d just apply it in clumps and leave it. Sometimes having makeup is worse than not having it.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
I’m guessing that would be something which would be created in Flash or Flash Catalyst. It might even have to be a customized ActionScipt programming project. I’ll bet if you can view source on one of those Flash clips with the popup ads, there might be clues as to the engine that’s creating them.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Hi Kevin –
You’ve just run into one of the major stumbling blocks of multiple device/format delivery. There are a couple of ways to go, neither of which is simple. Let me preface this with the first rule: find out as many of the delivery formats before you start the project, if you can. This will give you the chance to plan. If you know your smallest device plays back at 640 x 360, create a project in which you lay down some sample screens, making them readable. And leave a little leeway for people with not so great eyesight. This will give you a benchmark, and you’ll know that everything will read fine when it’s sized up. This is, of course, if you want to just do a single version and apply it to all delivery formats.
Another possibility (which is more work), is to do different versions of the graphics for, say, DVD playback and web delivery. On the web, you have more room for your graphics, since there is no title safe to worry about. If you edit a clean version of the production, you can then drop the video into your graphics templates – I would do this in After Effects myself, but I’m sure you could nest it in Premiere.
Another possibility is to make sure that any important graphics are read in the voice-over. This makes the smaller text not as important if it’s tough to read. If you have bullets, have the bullets read. Lower thirds aren’t so simple – they have to be readable. Lots to think about, as I said.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Let me augment Nick’s story with a nightmare story from around 2000. Newt Gingrich was in town, and the news department at the station I worked for arranged for an interview for uplink.
We didn’t have an in-house makeup artist, and the News Director called around and found a local Mary Kay rep who was more than willing to do the job for pay.
As a result of her lack of knowledge about the differences between street makeup, stage makeup, and television makeup, she put a very white looking coat of pancake makeup on Newt’s face, so close to air time that there was no time to make a change. Add to the last minute makeup the fact that the producer never did a camera check to see what it looked like.
Gingrich looked like a Kabuki dancer, with a very white face on a not so white neck! It ruined the interview, which was being uplinked to one of the networks, and killed the makeup artist’s chance for any future TV work. It’s always best to hire a pro for makeup, if the budget can bear it. Or apply some simple makeup yourself, then check it, check it, and check it.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Maybe next year they’ll get someone with a voice for Christmas.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
I guess it’s a question of how much configuration you want and are capable of doing. You could buy the parts and components and assemble a killer system on the cheap (for less than a thousand), or buy into a turnkey system for a lot more.
Here are Adobe’s system requirements:
https://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/tech-specs.html
This will lead you to a worksheet which will give you suggestions on systems that will do the trick:
https://www.intelsalestraining.com/adobe/demo.htm
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
It depends on what resolution your video card can display, and how far you need to zoom in.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
I use Camtasia to do any capture which has the computer interface or a website on it, and am able to output at 1920 x 1080. One of the tricks to success is making sure that your computer graphics card is set to a high resolution.
Another thing you could do is “fake” the interface. Do a fullscreen capture of the still website, then add the motion elements in After Effects, as well as any mouse pointer motions you want. It’s done all the time, but doesn’t quite look as “live” as doing Camtasia capture with the real thing.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
It may be a creative choice – does Citizen Kane ring a bell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Toland
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com