We need it yesterday. We always need it yesterday. A common theme in post production is that high-end creative must be produced on a tight deadline. Few things are more frustrating than waiting on an After Effects render while the clock is ticking loudly in the background. Like many post-production facilities, DotLot generally has a limited amount of time to deliver beautiful videos augmented with amazing graphics. Even though our computers are fairly powerful, we use of dozens of video layers and plugins at once, which taxes our poor little 8-core processors to the edge of their capabilities. By putting our heads together with our amazing IT tech Aziz, we were able to construct a solid render farm at a fraction of the cost of most high-end professional solutions.

For the uninitiated, a render farm is a group of networked computers that help to speed up render time by sharing the workload. For instance, a 30-second commercial has 900 frames. If each frame takes 2 minutes to render, then a single computer would require 1800 minutes, or 30 hours to complete the job. With multiple computers working together, each one can tackle a single frame at a time and then take the next frame in queue when it is done. If you have a five-node farm, that very same render would be completed in one-fifth of the time, or just 6 hours. In a world of looming deadlines, this makes a huge difference.

Our render farm journey started at Ikea. Sort of. A while back, Aziz sent me a link to a blog post about a guy who had built a multi-core Linux cluster using DIY parts and an Ikea Helmer cabinet. (To be fair, Obscured Clarity actually credits this guy for coming up with the original idea.) Prior to seeing this post, we had assembled a five-node render farm using old workstations that were left behind when systems were upgraded. It was a decent solution, but having five big Dell towers in a small edit bay made a lot of noise and heat and wasn’t very practical. This Helmer idea seemed to be a great alternative - we could build cheap, bare-bones systems; connect to them through our network; and they would take up less space than a single tower. Good deal!

Our plan was to split up the work - Aziz would set up the computers while I modded the case. His first task was to order all the parts for the computers. Since this project was somewhat experimental, we decided to start small with three render nodes, figuring we would add more later. Here was our buy list from NewEgg.

We originally ordered 3.5″ drives - DON’T DO THIS!  The Helmer is only big enough to fit 2.5″ laptop drives. We returned the 3.5″ drives and ordered up some spiffy Western Digital Scorpio Black 160GB 2.5″ hard drives.

With all the parts in hand, Aziz set out to build the master drive, from which we would clone all the others. He installed Windows XP and the After Effects render module and then added all of our plugins and fonts. (We primarily use Red Giant’s Trapcode Suite and Knoll Light Factory.)

While he worked on that, my first task was to head out to Ikea to buy the Helmer. It’s available in a few colors (silver, white and red) but since we were building a render farm I decided it would be appropriate to go with the barn-red version.

Like most Ikea stuff, the basic build was pretty easy. The hardest part was cutting holes in the back of each drawer for the PSU and cooling fan.

Word to the wise - if you’re using a Dremel, be sure to use an appropriate routing bit for metal. I burned through a few wood routing bits before I finally realized that there was a bit made specifically for metal routing.

Once the rear panels are cut and the screw holes are drilled, you can mount your PSU and fan.

All that’s left to do after that is to slit the label holder on the front panel of the drawer so that you can fold it back to allow for a little extra airflow over the CPU.

The next step was to build the three systems into their drawers. Aziz used Clonezilla to make identical copies of the master drive.

In order to avoid issues with the bottom of the motherboards touching the metal surface of the shelf, we cut insulating sheets out of the tops of the motherboard boxes. High tech, I know!

With a handful of zip ties we were able to get the cables under control without having to cut any of the extra ones away.

We added a switch so that we could connect all of the systems to our network.

And our Pièce de résistance is our patent-pending screwdriver power switch. We had planned to order some lighted power switches that we were going to add to the front of each drawer, but there was a problem with the order and we needed to build the farm, so we went super low-tech and decided to forego any physical switch at all. We literally said “screw it” and picked up a nearby phillips head driver instead.

In this shot you can see the CPU fan is finally up and running…

We assigned each of the three render nodes a unique, static IP, and using the Windows Remote Desktop Connection feature, we were able to connect to each one from our primary edit system.

It worked like a charm!

Now all of our renders are three times as fast as they used to be. In the near future, we plan to expand our farm to a full six systems. Eventually, we might even add additional Helmers to make our rendering lives even better.

–Mike

Defining what I’m shooting while I’m shooting is always one of the key challenges of documentary-style filmmaking. It’s not that I don’t plan for my shoots, it’s just that the reality of a given situation generally presents itself as different from even the most educated guesses. At some point, the planning has to stop and the first few shots have to begin. It’s that point at which what needs to be done diverges from what was anticipated.

Out on location the last two days, I have been shooting a set of small group interviews. As with many of the projects I work on, I am bound by secrecy (and NDAs and lawyers) to not say too much… so I can’t always tell you everything about what I’m working on. But, I can tell you that over the years I have developed a few techniques for getting the most out of the first few shots of a project.

Look For Patterns

You need to go into your shoot with some idea of what you intend to capture, but it’s critical that you look for patterns in the answers that will help guide your eventual edit. Without some degree of consistency in the footage you capture you’ll never be able to tell a complete story. This doesn’t mean you should bombard your subjects with slanted questions that will lead to the answers you want, but rather you should look for patterns in the answers that might help guide the story you tell to more accurately reflect the stories they tell.

Ask Extra Questions

Once documentary subjects are gone, they are sometimes gone forever. It’s important to start with a list of questions that you will ask of each subject, but for the first few interviews you should try to add more questions and followups than you normally would. Since the patterns you notice during the first few interviews will help guide the questions you ask later on, it’s important to ask extra questions at the beginning in order to cover as much material as possible. In addition to helping you refine your story more quickly, it also covers you with lots of extra footage so that you’ll have a better chance of ending up with footage from those early interviews that will be relevant to your final edit.

Make Options, not Choices

Whenever I shoot scripted videos (especially talking heads for the internet) I try to shoot the first few bits twice; once at the beginning of the day, and again at the end after the actor has found their character and all the kinks have been worked out. For documentary pieces, though, this isn’t generally possible. Real-world subjects come and go and rarely stick around for second takes. The solution is to shoot lots of extra coverage at the beginning of the project.

Cost permitting, shoot interviews from multiple angles, with multiple cameras. Time permitting, stage the first few interviews twice in slightly different locations or with different screen directions. If I’m interviewing two or more people at once I’ll ask one-on-one questions followed by “group sessions” where I try to get the subjects to talk to each other rather than to me. The more variety you get, the more options you’ll have and the fewer hard choices you’ll have to make.

Anti-Coverage

Perhaps the most important tip for eventually staying on schedule is to figure out what not to shoot. As you discover content patterns you’ll also be able to create the coveted what-not-to-shoot-list. Learning what types of questions, shots and B-Roll to avoid will help you further refine your primary story. Coverage is important, but over-coverage can be time consuming and expensive, leading to more time spent shooting and much more time in editing.

These techniques certainly don’t constitute a complete documentary how-to, but they do help get me through those first few critical shots of a project, when concepts are still being solidified and reality is setting in. Remember that when it comes down to the actual process of shooting it’s often more useful to have a general concept than a concrete plan. You can’t usually recreate the first few shots of a project, and you also can’t afford to miss important content, especially if one of those early subjects turns out to be critical to the story.

– Mike

A major step in any film/video project is sound design. For rich media, often times, sound design is not an overly complicated process. There may be a few lines of dialogue, some music, and sound effects and thats it. Since the piece is short, it can all be handled fairly easy by exporting .wavs and finalizing sound in Pro-Tools. However, as projects get more complicated, so does the process.

In order to work with the sound properly and efficiently, one needs to export an AAF. Depending on what form of media and your capture method, this can require different steps. For media such as DV, HDV, MOVs, AVIs, etc . the process is fairly straight-forward. Once the edit is complete and finalized, navigate to project and scroll down to “Export Project as AAF”. This will consolidate the project and export the necessary sound components into an AAF, which can easily be imported into Pro-Tools.

If you happen to shoot with tapeless media such as P2 or XDCAM, the process gets more complicated. In the future, I am sure there will be a patch to address this issue, but that is yet to be officially announced, so in the meantime workarounds are required. If you follow the above process you will get a long list of error messages upon export because Premiere is unable to unlink the audio and video portions of the MXF file structure. Therefore, it can’t consolidate the project properly. There is a solution though, but takes a little bit of work and foresight.

Step 1 -SAVE AS!

Create a new project, otherwise you will be in a world of hurt in a matter of days, if not minutes.

Step 2 – Clean House

In order to allow Premiere to export properly, you need to isolate the audio portions of the MXF files first. The only way to do this is to unlink each video and audio clip and then delete the video (hence why you want a new project. I’d also recommend duplicating your sequence to be safe). This may take some time depending on the length of your project. It’s a daunting task, but not very complicated.

Step 3 – Add Handles

In the end we’re going to convert our audio tracks to individual wav files. However, when we do that, our audio will not be able to be lengthened. Therefore, if you need handles (which you probably do), you need to manually add them. You might have to add audio blank tracks in order to do this, so that you can move clips around efficiently. Another daunting task, but not difficult. Be meticulous about this, because going back is not easy because of Step 4.

Step 4 – Reduce and Render

If you haven’t saved as a new project yet, do so now because what is about to be done, can’t be undone. Select all of your audio and then navigate to clip/audio options/render and replace. This process may take a few minutes based on the length and complexity of your project. You are replacing all of your linked MXF media with new rendered .wavs. Once this step is complete, you will be able to find all your rendered wav files in your project window. I recommend reducing the project to nothing but your sequence and the rendered audio. It will guarantee that the export to an AAF goes smoothly. However, at that point, there is no going back.

Step 5 – Export

At this point, all you have to do is export you project as an AAF and it is ready to be worked on. Project/Export Project as AAF.

At some point in the future, I am certain that Adobe will release a patch to address this issue, but until then, this is the best workaround I have found. If you have any input into this process, please let us know.

- Brad Strickman

Production companies who make videos that are specifically intended for web distribution vary in size from one-man shops to major production studios. DotLot™ (and parent company The Buddy Group) is a mid-sized agency with clients from a lot of different verticals. We do projects for large, national brands on a regular basis. Where we have run into problems in the past is during the production of short videos for local and corporate clients. Just as we have learned over the years that web videos depend as much on story as feature films, we also know that all projects demand the same level of management and attention, regardless of size or budget.

At DotLot™ and The Buddy Group, we assign an account manager to every project, regardless of the actual logistics involved. The creative team on a project should be free to concentrate on making their project sizzle without having to worry about managing the budget and the overall production schedule. Often times, though, when a video needs to be shot or edited on a very quick timeline, it’s tempting to want to skip over the work required to plan and organize a project; but it’s these situations where that type of planning can be the most important.

We assign one person to every project who is ultimately responsible for keeping it on schedule. To aid in this process, we use a checklist that at a bare minimum answers the following questions:

1) What are the key elements of the project?

a. How long must it be?

b. What are the audio & video requirements?

c. Do we need to make fancy titles or other motion graphics?

2) How many hours are allotted in the budget and how does that work with the rest of our production schedule?

3) When does the client need to see a rough cut?

4) When does the client need the final video delivered?

5) Where and how will the video be delivered?

a. Hard copy?

b. Online distribution?

These may seem like obvious questions, but web video is usually ordered and executed quickly. Big projects carry a certain weight that demands careful planning. Small projects, however, can really put a kink in the overall production schedule if they are not planned just as carefully. The internet is still seen as a new world by a lot of clients, big and small, which is why we must continue to educate them (and ourselves) that production is production, no matter where your audience watches the final product.

We now live in a world where video on the web is as common as the delivery of the daily newspaper used to be. Many people spend a little time during their day, others a lot more, looking at different online videos for enjoyment, education or global information. As video producers we want to get our message out and our story told to anyone and everyone.  That’s why it’s important that we look into some of the major online video websites and discover their features and any drawbacks.

Online video publishers are looking for many different options when choosing a distribution website: number of potential viewers, video quality, searchability, community interaction, and monetization. I decided to compare some of the most popular and unique online video websites you can publish to, such as YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo, Viddler, and Revver to get a clearer “picture” of what to expect.

When it comes to viewers, YouTube attracted the most viewers with 81.1 million unique viewers watching 3.25 billion videos in February of 2008. Each viewer spent an average of 109 minutes of viewing. Fox Interactive, which includes MySpaceTV, attracted 55.7 million unique viewers who watched 586 million videos, averaging 10.9 minutes of viewing each. The third most popular site was Yahoo, which attracted 37 million unique viewers who watched 315 million videos while averaging 18.0 minutes of viewing each. The viewing percentages drop off enough not to reflect the viewership of sites like Viddler and Revver, which are newer to the online video market.

Quality! We all put time and effort into creating great video and want to see the final version reflect the amount of detail that we put into it. When uploading to these online video websites, it’s important to keep in mind the clarity, color and smoothness each site will provide you. Although YouTube makes it fairly simple to upload, it can be challenging to make sure your high-quality original still looks good once they reencode it. Videos on YouTube can be a bit blurry, as if YouTube is reencoding them at a higher compression rate. Another issue I’ve noticed is that the blacks get crushed, which makes the video quite dark, so be aware of your settings. It’s not impossible to get decent quality video on YouTube, but it’s not simple either, and I hope it’s something they are working to improve upon.

MySpaceTV and Yahoo Video seem to provide a similar experience, but many of the videos are from professional production houses, which makes them look pretty good. The downside is you’re limited to the content in their libraries. However, Yahoo Video does offer 16:9 aspect ratios. Good for the growing production format. As for Revver, I’ve been told that you can custom-set your aspect ratio to your liking, but I could not find examples to examine online. Viddler offers 4:3 aspect ratios as well. When it’s all said and done we come back to the age old saying, “Garbage in, garbage out”. Check your encoding settings. Shoot appropriately.

Site community. Most all of these online video sites include a rating system with the ability to share and space for making comments. I’m most familiar with YouTube’s layout and use it as a comparison point for other sites. On YouTube you can see how many viewers there are immediately, notice the rating of the video, (1-5 stars, although not enough people use the rating system), and just below this the viewer has the ability to share the video and add it to their favorite videos or playlist. Right below all this information is the ability to comment and discuss. Video comments are possible. It’s a relatively good layout for engaging other viewers and getting feedback on your content.

On MySpaceTV the viewer needs to look in two different places to find pertinent information about the popularity of the clip. On the right side it lists the number of viewers and below the video viewers can find the rating system, a thumbs up / down approach. It’s an interesting method but doesn’t allow viewers to easily know just how good or bad the video is. It’s ability to share begins with MySpace and only extends to blogs. I understand MySpace wants all the viewers but it very much limits the ability to share your content. The commenting section on MySpace adds user’s pictures or their icons to posted comment. This gives more personalize feel to the comments but also limits the number of comments visible on one page. Yahoo Video focuses more on providing content verses having community interaction. Most of the page is covered with other related videos or videos that are hot today. There isn’t a rating system in place and the comments section is very primitive.

Viddler does not offer a rating system but what they do offer  makes this site very interesting. Viddler has the ability to make comments on the video timeline. These comments appear while the video is playing, adding another dimension to community comments. Revver has your basic setup with nothing overly outstanding: a rating system, email a clip, add it to your FaceBook page, and comment on it. One great option that Revver and Viddler do add is the ability to download the clip. Good news for the viewer but possibly bad for creators.

Monetization. YouTube now offers a partnership where you can share in the revenue your uploaded content makes. The drawback for aspiring producers is that you need to have several thousand viewers each month to qualify for the partnership. Great if you can get there. MySpaceTV and Yahoo Video do not have a monetization model at this time. Viddler has lower-third advertising but you as the content producer do not share in the revenue. Revver is new and different. On Revver they will place adds on your video (lower thirds) and will split the revenue generated with you 50/50. It’s a great idea to get content producers to place their videos online with them. 

There are so many new and interesting online video website emerging all the time, but for content producers like DotLot, going to YouTube is a must as the viewers are already there. The ability to share in multiple ways exist, and if you become a partner with Google / YouTube you’ll be able to share in the advertising rewards. It’s great that new sites are appearing because it brings competition and advances in online video. There is much more to come and look forward to.

Using User Presets as an Efficient Workflow Tool:

One of the most common buzzwords in the industry is “workflow”. You will see this term used more often than any other whenever people are discussing post-production. What they are really talking about is efficiency. The faster and more effectively one is able to perform tasks, the more they can use their time to improve the final output through creativity and polishing. In other words, the less time wasted on menial details, the more time can be put towards creating better projects.

In that vein, I would like to share a useful tip I have been using in Adobe After Effects CS3 and Adobe Premiere that has saved more time than I can imagine. Most AE users are familiar with effect presets and the ability to create user presets. What I am going to demonstrate is very fundamental, but is scaleable and applicable to numerous uses. I am going to demonstrate how to use user presets in conjunction with an organizational process to streamline tasks such as keying.

For this process to work best it actually starts before the camera rolls. The first step is to have a shotlist, with shots labeled in a standard numbering and lettering format. Obviously, you may not have control over this, but if you do, make sure that you stick to this list. During the shoot, make sure to slate every shot clearly and correctly. Once the footage is brought into Premiere, label it accordingly. This is common practice, and should be a part of any post-production process. If there wasn’t a shotlist, create one at this point, making sure to use a numeric system (see below).

EDIT

You’ll have a timeline that looks something like this:

Notice that all the clips were labeled accurately and the same shot was used multiple times while cutting together this dialogue scene between two characters. Fine-tune your edit until you are completely satisfied and ready to move onto the VFX/Motions Graphix.

Import the premiere project into AE. When this is done, all the data from Premiere is brought in, including the sequences, clips, and naming conventions. You might have to do a little organization, depending on how your tracks were setup in Premiere, and how you want your AE project layed out. In a future article I will discuss some practices and methods for streamling AE projects. But for now, let’s assume we’re neat and tidy and ready to key. Start at the beginning and move forward. Everyone has their own keying process, so do what works best for you. Once again, in the future I will discuss my methods a little more in depth. However, almost all techniques require the use of multiple effects.

Once you have your key set up, highlight all your effects and select the make new preset icon in the bottom right corner of Effects and Presets box. It will open a dialogue box to save the preset. Here is where the system kicks into high gear. At this point, what you are doing is creating a database of effects (in this case, keys). Since the same shot is used multiple times in this project, the effect will need to be used multiple times, with little to no changes. One might ask, “How does one keep track of all these effects?” It’s easy. Your naming convention has already been set up; it’s your shotlist. As long as you labeled your clips correctly in Premiere, each instance of a shot will be its labeled accordingly as well.

When you go to save, create a folder structure in your preset library, preferably numeric and labels. Create a folder for keys, and save the preset in the folder labeled by the following three things: Folder number (100 in my case), shot, and description. By using all three, it will be much easier to search for the desired preset quickly by simply typing in the keywords or a shot label in the search box.

As you move through your project, you will be able to quickly locate the correct key and efficiently. By using the shot label to search, a few keystrokes will bring up the correct key. This is much easier than any ctl C/V method I have ever used previously. The purpose of the numeric labeling is more clearly seen when working with artistic effects that may be used in any number of shots or projects. By creating preset animations/effects, and labeling them by number, you can quickly pull up any effect quickly and effectively, without a lot of time spent searching or recreating. For instance, all lens flares animations can be labeled 51* so by simply typing 51 in the search box, all presets will be at your fingertips instantly.

(footage courtesy of iTwinkle.tv)

How to Identify and Solve Web Video Production Problems Before They Occur

By Mike Kirsch, Director of DotLot, The Buddy Group

An important trait of any successful video producer is the ability to troubleshoot problems quickly and effectively. To the end client, efficiency and quality of final delivery is just as important as killer front-end creative. For the online space, “quality of delivery” expands to include visual quality of an online video, speed of download or buffer time and smoothness of playback. When problems arise, quick solutions win the day, but in many cases problems can be avoided altogether if they are anticipated before they occur. Recognizing certain “Red Flags” of web video production is the first step towards making sure they never cause problems at all.

Picking the right combination of settings to maximize the playability of a video means juggling a slew of settings while prepping that clip for final export. It’s no accident that the number of visitors to a site is referred to as “traffic”. The internet is not unlike a freeway. The speed at which a given piece of video will play is limited by the bandwidth of a server (the number of lanes) and the total number of current users (the number of cars on the road). There are other factors, too. “Bitrate” refers to the amount of data encoded in a video file for each second of runtime. Higher bitrates mean better image quality, but the higher the bitrate, the more data there is that must stream before the video can play. In the freeway analogy, this might correlate to the steepness of a hill. As hills get steeper (higher bitrate), it takes more power (bandwidth) to climb at a given speed. Without sufficient bandwidth, you’ll either need to reduce the bitrate of the video or risk sliding backwards down the hill, causing an accident, and wrecking your car (client relationship). Believe it or not there are even more factors than those mentioned above! Resolution, length, frame rate and even visual content all factor in, but the freeway analogy gets more complicated from here, so let’s just talk in terms of general considerations.

When planning a project that is going to involve video, the first thing that needs to be determined is the intended audience. Who is going to watch it? What type of connection are they expected to have? How many users will potentially be accessing the site at one time? Understanding the intended use and distribution of a website and its videos will help dictate the parameters that should be used to prepare the final files. Someone with experience producing and encoding videos for the web should always be consulted when planning a video project, but the following list can serve as some basic Red Flags to help identify issues that will require further investigation.

• Bitrates over 400kbps
  • Some videos look fine at bitrates of 400 or less. In instances where there are a lot of smaller textual elements or a lot of quick motion, higher bitrates may be necessary in order to achieve acceptable visual quality. Higher bitrate, though, means longer download times and more bandwidth costs.
• Frame Rates above 15fps
  • Video on television typically plays at either 24 or 30 fps (frames per second). For the web, the standard is to cut the native frame rate in half, which reduces file size and bandwidth needs. Tests have shown that higher frame rates place more load on a user’s CPU than higher bitrates, which means that from a user-end perspective, lower frame rates will increase performance dramatically. The drawback is that video looks choppier as frame rate is reduced. In videos with a lot of fast motion, pans or small details, this can lead to strobing and other issues. If a client requests video at 30fps, take note. This could cause a problem later.
• Resolution
  • 320×240 used to be the industry standard for web video. As broadband connections get more common, the capability for producers to go live with larger videos increases. Be aware that larger videos mean longer load times and higher bandwidth needs. Always compare requested video resolution to the other involved factors to determine if a video will work at a given size.
• Running Time
  • A 10 second video at 900kbps running a 30fps may not pose a huge problem. A 2 minute video with those same parameters will likely not play properly on most computers. If a client is planning a site with a series of videos longer than 15-20 seconds, then length becomes an issue that will have ramifications on video quality.
• Screen Content
  • If the creative call for a lot of on-screen textual information, charts, closed captioning or other small details, then the videos will need to be played larger and at higher bitrates in order to be clear and legible.
• Transparency
  • Interactive videos that are intended to be laid over other web content using alpha channels are always a cause for concern. Even though the alpha channel information is invisible, it still draws bandwidth and CPU power, not to mention the bandwidth required by all the stuff we see through the transparent layer.

By Dylan Highsmith, DotLot Editor, The Buddy Group

Ok, so we know how best to optimize content for mobile video, but how does the average person get their content distributed? Currently, when you think of mobile video, one of the first names that comes to mind is Verizon’s V-Cast. V-CAST is a mobile network for Verizon Wireless phones that delivers media to its users for a subscription fee. V-CAST typically streams between 400-700kb/sec and streams can be saved to a phone or memory card.

Initially, when V-CAST was launched, it only offered video clips from major TV networks such as NBC, soon after smaller cable networks started to follow. What is most interesting, is the new addition of the V-CAST channel ‘Net’s Best’. This channel provides content from some of the top video hosting sites on the web such as YouTube, Maxim, Break.com and Revver.

YouTube’s deal with V-CAST is currently a limited-time only deal and the content consists of videos from YouTube’s Most Popular tab from its website, so to get on V-CAST through YouTube, your video would have to appear on the Most Popular tab of YouTubes site. Revver however, has a slightly different approach.

Revver, like YouTube is a video hosting site. What’s unique about Revver is that it shares all ad revenue roughly 50/50 with you – it’s content creators. With V-CAST, as mobile video doesn’t include advertising – content creaters share the subscription fees that Verizon pays for access to the content.

What is unique about Revver’s approach to V-CAST is that their content that appears on V-CAST is not simply taken from their most popular tab, but rather picked out of submissions.

In order to be considered for V-CAST, when uploading video to Revver you must opt to participate in the Revver Mobile Distribution opportunities. From there, fifty new videos are chosen by V-CAST each week. Revver’s website has a few basic guidelines of what kind of videos they are looking for:

Videos should be between 30 seconds and two minutes long.

• No pornography
• No copyrighted music (not even in the background)
• No depictions of crime or drugs
• No advertising or prominent brand logos
• Only videos in English can be accepted.
• Videos shot at a distance won’t be accepted — it needs to be decipherable on a small screen!
• Watch out for text — that screen makes small text really really tiny.
• Please avoid mentioning religious or political views.

One thing of particular note is that Revver and V-CAST don’t seem to like branding. They are looking for media that is purely entertainment. As the content on V-CAST is paid for by users through a subscription fee, this makes sense – and is an extra thing to keep in mind when creating content that you may want to be distributed through mobile media.

By Mike Kirsch, Director of DotLot, The Buddy Group

We don’t need to talk about the future of mobile video; it’s here already and we deal with it every day. Regardless of how much we use the feature, almost everybody’s phone is capable of shooting or displaying video. For a fee, most cell providers now have TV and other content available on demand via cell phones. The debate over what content is most popular for handset viewing is not yet settled, but it is clear at this point that we must be ready to produce video for this platform, regardless of what that video might turn out to be.

The first big challenge when designing video for the mobile platform is to identify what aspect ratio to shoot for. Television is relatively easy; we shot exclusively for 4:3 through the 20th century and then, with the dawn of HD TV we started to choose between 4:3 and 16:9. Web complicated things a bit, but we still tended to create videos in the aspect ratios dictated by our cameras, which means that many web videos are also either 4:3 or 16:9.

With mobile, we get a chance to find new aspect ratios. Two very popular screen resolutions for mobile devices are 240×320 (.75:1) and 176×220 (.8:1). The Apple iPhone has a 480×320 screen (1.5:1) and as other such “many-media” devices hit the market, we’ll see mobile screen sizes increase.[i] In the 2008 market, though, mobile screens tend to have aspect ratios of between .6:1 and .85:1.

Of course, we can take any 4:3 or wider video, slap on some thick letterbox bars and display it on a mobile device, but it would be far more engaging to release content that is formatted to fill mobile screens. This means we need to change some of the more traditional video rules. A .75:1 aspect ratio is taller than it is wide. This aspect ratio lends itself well to medium talking head shots and vertical motion graphic applications. Traditional new-style talking-head-with-graphic-box-over-the-shoulder doesn’t play well in this layout. Look to other options such as lower-thirds or lower-halves for supplementary info. VO also becomes a very useful tool to help back up textual graphics that might be difficult to read on a small screen.

Where the actual content is concerned, many of the same rules that apply to web video hold true here. Close-ups rule on small screens. It’s hard to identify details in big, wide expansive shots. Staying close allows us to draw focus to certain elements that might otherwise go unnoticed. Also, shorter videos play better. People often look for video content on our mobile devices when we’re between other events- on a train for two stops, waiting to board a plane, while walking between classes or even while in the bathroom. It is unlikely that you’re going to hold anyone’s attention for 10-15 minutes on a mobile device. Work on creative that can be absorbed in smaller chunks of no more than 2 minutes.

The next few months and years are going to help define the specifics of mobile video. There seems to be a trend towards bigger phones with more streaming capabilities. Helping us along the way is Adobe’s Device Central. This useful tool, included with CS3, allows an editor to preview videos as they would appear on any of the included device templates. The program allows for the adjustment of many parameters so that you can closely simulate the final output of a video intended for distribution on mobile devices. Keeping the end in mind as we plan projects for mobile platforms will allow us to stay on the forefront of mobile video.
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[i] http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html