After thirteen years it’s become an established medium for branding, art and entertainment. Web Video is now following in it’s footsteps.

Video on the web has only recently become popular. Beginning around 1995 with streaming media players such as RealPlayer. In 1997 Shareyourworld.com was one of the first video sharing sites but failed mainly due to limited bandwidth.

With the birth of Adobe’s Flash Video codec in 2004 and the increase of bandwidth video sharing sites like YouTube emerged in 2005 popularizing web video.

There’s a shift from many TV and Film professionals to the web feeding the demand for web video advertising and entertainment.

Sites like YouTube catered to the users desire to connect and share. The user community varies from vloggers to independent filmmakers. Other video sites cater to a specific community or host certain content such as Funny Or Die, iKlipz and Expert Village.

For Advertising video communities can be difficult because of over saturation of content. YouTube being a good example. There are too many videos being uploaded too quickly for yours to stand out.

This video summarizes the most common techniques. Keep in mind these days everyone and their chimpanzee uses them.

Under three minute, hilarious content will always stick to web audiences. The trick is not just cheating the system by uploading tricky thumbnails or changing the title to “boobs”. Recently high quality content in both entertainment and advertising for the web has become a demand.

You can only watch this so many times. Professional talent and original ideas shouldn’t be excluded from the budget.

To make an effective web advertising campaign Viral Marketing is used like Batman: The Dark Knight and I Love Bees advertisements.
Combining their techniques with web video will insure you stand out and reach your audience.

For independent filmmakers to make a profit from their work many sites have partner programs were ad revenue is shared. To make more profit many use services like iTunes or Amazon.

Also through merchandising and hosting advertisements on the series/films official webpages. Brightcove is often used instead of YouTube or such sites because it allows for high quality video to be streamed.

A good example of this is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog which was created by Joss Whedon starring Neil Patrick Harris. It streamed free online and earned it’s revenue from iTunes sales, merchandise, and DVD and Soundtrack.

Thanks to technology video has become an effective medium that can be incorporated into anything. From games to web sites.

AKQA’s work on the microsite for Unilever’s Peperami Noodles Army and the Philips Bodygroom site are examples of incorporating interactive video into a sites design.

YouTube’s annotations, Video Clix are an examples of easily attaching interactive information to a video.

Web games can incorporate video just like the classic FMV games used to. A simple yet hilarious example being Aliens from Planet Dave.

Like Web Design, Web Video is a new industry emerging from the internet. It is still in it’s infancy but with the rate today’s technologies evolve it is quickly reaching it’s prime.

I’ll tell you how a normal day of shooting goes. It consists of putting the equipment up and taking it down everyday because the studio space is also living space.

I really enjoy being cast and crew at the same time. I love the challenge of balancing the creative side and the technical side and hallucinating do to lack of sleep. Everyday I have to place the lights, set up the camera, get into character and start shooting. And everyday I feel like it takes a piece of my soul…

When that’s done I take it all down, then go through the footage and write some notes for post production. While I’m shooting I also think about post production. You want to shoot it right and avoid the “We’ll fix it in post” because sometimes what you could of fixed on set in less an a minute will take you weeks to fix in post production. Which can cause you to feel just a bit homicidal.

When I am editing and throwing down some VFX madness I use a combination of random ideas I have in my head and the story board and some hardcore drugs. Since almost anything is possible with the software; I love to improvise and let my creative side go insane in all the stages of production. Sometimes I just plane ol’ go insane but I have meds now.

I’m also a sucker for tedious precise planning and knowing exactly what I want. Since I’ve learned what can happen if you don’t keep those two sides in balance. If you get too creative you’ll end up re-doing and re-doing and not ever finishing. Plummeting into creative madness without any sign of a deadline. If you stick to close to the plan it tends to drain the creativity like a hungry vampire… except it’s not so kinky.

When I think it’s finished I pass it on to everyone else for a critique session. I don’t settle for “it’s perfect” and that drives them up the walls crazy. I think they’ve started putting rat poison in my coffee. Thankfully their brutally honest (and don’t have a place to hide the body) so I always have a few things to fix. I run through it again and again and have them review it one final time. When we all agree it’s finished I encode it and upload it onto the wide wide webs.

Were I wait for spiteful comments from slackers living in their parents garage thinking they can convince me to commit suicide, messages and friend adds from weird greasy hairless men posing as fourteen year old girls who want to “go shopping” with me.

At the end of the day it’s exhausting and leaves you kinda cranky with the “after project blues” but it’s damn worth it because now it’s done and it’s awesome. And you really didn’t have anything better do to for those two whole weeks.

That’s how I roll. None stop till it’s done. No excuses and no half awesome. With plenty of cynical jokes along the way.

Now I’m taking a break and working on some games. With the creature that sits next to me all day. The Nathalie. She will eat your brains and make little patties out of your liver. That’s why she’s the captain.

I found this article about AVCHD High-definition Compression. Mpeg 4 instead of 2 and I guess it’ll be double the capacity of P2 cards. I’m glad to see there’s a lot of progress in tapeless recording.

After browsing the Wiki I made my way to YouTube. Where I saw well known YouTubers collaborating on some fun vids. Like this one and this one. Even though the world seems to be a sneeze away from Armageddon, I’m happy to be in these times of creative freedom and where you can just get together and make movies and distribute with a single.. Okay, well about four clicks, a few text boxes and a progress bar.. but you get it.

Check out Blender, an open source free 3D creation program. You can download it right here then either read the documentation or watch some video tutorials.

Also check out Project Orange a short movie made using Blender distributed under the Creative Commons license. You can purchase the DVD in advance to sponsor the project.

I also found some free After Effects plugins from Pete Warden, Philipp Spoeth and aeFlame by Drew Davidson. This webpage here has a long list of cheap or free plugins. I looked around at Pluginz.com and found more free plugins like FieldFixer and HSL Selection from Frischluft and Reveal from Profound Effects.

Use IndieBudgetBuddy 1.6 if you can‘t get your hands on the expensive software. It will help you estimate budgets for 35mm Film to High and Standard-Definition Video Productions. Done by Richard Ferrando.

Hope that helps.

Quote from their site: ” ClickStar, Inc. offers branded online services where consumers can easily access, purchase, and download pre-DVD, first-run Hollywood films and artist created entertainment channels through numerous viewing portals.”

Sa-weet!

Here and here are also some short articles about it.

Some of the concerns I’ve heard about ClickStar are whether it’ll only encourage piracy, if it will be secure enough and if the studios will go for it.

Personally I think ClickStar is an awesome endeavor. It’s about time Hollywood embraces the digital age.

Of course ClickStar isn’t up and running yet. I’m sure many studios are extremely skeptical, and we don’t exactly know what kind of system they have planned to use.

If it is better, faster, more convenient and better quality compared to poor quality pirated DVD rips that take days to download, then I’m really starting to like Morgan Freeman, a lot.

I can’t wait to have my films on my hard drive without worrying that I’m going to loose them or mistake them for a coster.

Tips n’ Tricks

Mobile phones are like Swiss army knives. Take the Nokia Nseries for example. Newer mobile devices are among other things capable of playing mp3s and movies like the PSP.

So, what’s this got to do with filmmaking? Mobile devices are another way of distributing your film. Microsoft has a video downloading service for mobile devices and there are a few mobile film festivals already like the Nokia Shorts. Also there’s mobile broadcasting.

So, how does it all work? You make a mobile compatible version of your film. Then post your film on the web. People download the film to their PC, then upload it to their mobile device.

How do you make a mobile version of your film? Makayama’s software Mobile Media Maker will convert your DVDs and any other video content to various mobile formats. There’s a free program PSP Video 9 that converts to Sony’s PSP.

If you don’t want to spend the money on software you can try to do it yourself with the software you have. All you need to find out is what sound and video format the mobile device you want to distribute to, uses. At times the video frame rate has to be configured as well. So it’s a bit complex depending on what device you choose. Pocket Movies has a FAQ on getting your movie to an MPEG-1 file that can be played on Pocket PCs.

Is it really worth it? There’s no question weather there’s a market. Fox adapted their TV series for mobile devices. It’s a lot cheaper then trying to get your film played in theatres and it might just end up with the wider audience.

Filmmaker’s Journal

You could consider this part two of my last post were I basically stated that filmmakers should use the web for distribution of their films. Google Video a search engine/archive for video lets you upload your video and will also let you charge for viewing it. Currently it’s in the beta stage. Yahoo also has a video search engine.

From Vlogs to web banners, video is everywhere. It’s up to the filmmaker now to take advantage of the technology and realize were the market is.

I’m still waiting for many of the commercial services that offer the latest in Hollywood films to come to my side of the globe. I guess they don’t realize that the web is a global market making it possible for anyone anywhere any time to get whatever they want in information and entertainment. If they can’t grasp that vision then it just leaves more room for independent filmmakers to give the new kind of “moviegoer” their dose of entertainment.

My Bookmarks
Doom9 is a great source for making backups of your DVDs. Their information saved me a lot of headache when I first had to author a DVD.

Tips n’ Tricks
When I first got an interest in filmmaking I had no clue what I should know, so I could start on my first film. I read up on it, and was overwhelmed by the traditional Hollywood methods. The amount of people and money it takes to make a Hollywood movie is huge.

I figured I’d work with what I have, like many independent filmmakers do. A lot of them can’t afford a professional crew and huge cast. It all comes down to what makes a good film, and that’s telling an interesting stories with passion.

You do need to know the filmmaking basics, so here are a few online guides and courses to get you started.

CNET’s Help.com started a digital video workshop.
Look for Digital Video Workshop: Shoot & Edit Great Videos. The course is perfect for the complete beginner. It covers everything from purchasing the right camera to capturing and editing your video. The information is simple to understand and fun.

Video 101 is about video and film production. It covers editing, shot composition, camera operation, sound, lighting and more. As well as how to work equipment that’s often used in film and TV.

Guide Book for Guerrilla Filmmakers This site approaches filmmaking using traditional Hollywood techniques. It starts with film production followed by a chapter on video basics covering digital video. It also has chapters on Pre-Production and Post-Production.

Filmmaker’s Journal
I was wondering what has the web done for filmmakers? How can they use it to it’s full potential? For me the web definitely is a one stop for news, entertainment, education, shopping. You name it. It’s got it.

Around 1998 independent filmmakers started using the web to showcase their talent. Hollywood slowly followed when file-sharing communities like Napster or Kazaa, showed that people didn’t want to drive to Blockbuster to get their movies. They wanted entertainment at a mouse click. Now there are sites like CinemaNow and MovieFlix, where you can watch or download the latest movies with pay-per-view or subscription.

Using a digital camera and computer anyone can make a film for cheap. Then showcase it on the web. Some use this to get their foot in the Industry door. I think it can be used for much more.

If you write, direct and edit your films on your own, why not take distribution in your hands as well?

The way people are getting their entertainment is radically changing. As this Cnet article points out. People want their entertainment to be convienient, their favorite movie or TV show right at their finger tips.

So far I found filmmakers advertising their DVD and VHS online. Why not let people buy a high quality downloadable version as well?

Bandwidth restrictions or Download time? This Cnet article points out all the shortcomings of the web as a distribution medium. The basic argument is the web is not ready to bring DVD or High Definition quality video on demand. Some of the discussions going on about the article are interesting, basically pointing out the web is ready, or getting ready to handle the workload.

What about per-to-per technology? Altnet through Kazaa offers to sell your work securely.

BitTorrent is another technology commonly used for file sharing. With a torrent file basically the more people downloading the faster it goes. Maybe you can get a programmer to write you up a BitTorrent client designed to sell and distribute your film quickly and efficiently.

Valve has their own distribution program Steam. Which they use to distribute their pc games. Apple’s iTunes is another example. Maybe Apple will come up with something for movies, But why leave it to them?

My Bookmarks
Wikipedia has a helpful breakdown of Hollywood movie production.
Raindance Indie Tips Great tips and tricks of the trade, From financing, directing, screenwriting to distribution tools.