Loving Green Screen Again

I use to hate green screen work. Exporting clips to Adobe After Effects or Apple Motion and spending hours just keying out the talent only to bring the clips back in to Final Cut Pro. Compositing always ate up time for more creative pursuits such as animating graphic organizers and moving around topography. I was unhappy with green screen projects and the end result suffered with boring animations and static typography.

This unfortunate cycle came to a end this year when I was approved to buy a license of dvGARAGE dvMatte Pro. I've used many other keying tools including, Keylight, Primatte Keyer Pro and all the standard built in keying tools included with Final Cut Pro and others. The results were often mixed as green screen footage is never shot perfectly. Primatte Keyer Pro was the best quality keying tool of the lot, but playback was never in real time a the license costs $500.00. In order to really "see" the result you had to render everything out and then make changes and render again. The final render cost (not mention the license) was simply too much to use in the type of multi-module distance learning projects I've come to specialize in.

dvMatte Pro is by far the best keying tool I've worked with in the industry. The results are quick with a simple to use interface that makes keying tasks become effortless. I can play back keyed clips (automatically down sampled) in real time with many other composited layers, including imported Motion projects. I've keyed both EX1 and JVC HDV footage with the same simple and high quality results. The plugin even works well with my Matrox MXO2 box playing out to a Sony 24" CRT broadcast monitor. Final output render/compressions see no noticeable difference in time compared to exporting the same timeline without keying plugins.

If you cut with Final Cut Pro and you key a lot of footage, you should have a license of dvMatte Pro. You don't have to waist time or money on anything else. The cost of the tool is about half of the most expensive Primatte Keyer Pro. The real value of a quality keying plugin is the time you'll get back from rendering and round tripping with other applications. Workflow adds up and compositing costs can get out of control very quickly. dvMatte Pro controls compositing costs and the improved interactivity of each video benefits from a quick keying tool.

Now that quality keying is simple and fast, I've started to love compositing again. I have more time for more important creative animation and typography work. The result has been satisfied customers and entertained viewers with higher content retention.

How should you deliver your next video? a) Flash b) HTML5 c) javascript

The answer is d) all of the above.

The mobile web is exploding with new devices daily and tech giants are battle for format dominance; the video content delivery format war is in full insult mode. Will HTML5 snuff out Flash? What format should your web site support to make sure all your great video content is ready to be consumed by a growing audience?

The answer is nothing new. Give the customer what they want and make sure they never have to interact with the technology in the background.

Switzerland May Be Right
At this point in the game, don’t waste time or money trying to choose exclusively between formats. Both Flash and other video/multimedia technologies will be around to compete against each other for many years to come (the next 10 at least). Content providers must focus on delivering what the customer is asking for. Supporting multiple platforms is a challenge, but there are flexible solutions, both free and subscription based, to delivering great content to all users.

Consider these two items when deciding how to serve up your video content; data and flexibility.

Data is You Friend
Every site records analytics that will tell you what technologies viewers are using to browse your site. I work with a particular site that shows 97 percent of visitors are using Windows, typically XP machines, viewing content via the Firefox or Internet Explorer browser. IE7 is the more popular of the two according to the data. Other sites will vary of course and data changes often, so I’ll continue to monitor the numbers. But in the case of this site, it’s obvious that I don't need to work hard to offer HTML5 support, as the vast majority of viewers are not using HTML5 enabled devices.

The vast majority of images and interactions are HTML/CSS and javascript based, so all users will be able to read and interact with the site's more static content. As for video content, this same site happens to use YouTube to deliver most of its video content. So if viewers start requesting video content in the HTML5 format, the demand could be met with nothing more than switching a YouTube preference. Pretty easy.

Stay Flexible
For video content delivery, I recommend using a platform flexible enough to offer any technology your customers are demanding. In the paid delivery services arena, Sorenson Media 360 can seamlessly deliver video content to Flash and non-Flash enabled desktops, laptops and other mobile devices. Free content delivery services such as YouTube and Vimeo are also beginning to offer the same delivery format flexibility. While interfacing with these services, the user won’t notice the technology working the background. As it should be, the user can simply enjoy the content your serving up on your site no matter the device they choose to use.

If you're delivering video via your hosting server, encode your videos using a iPhone compatible preset. You can play the video in a choice of flash players and the file will work with iPhone/iPad devices when served up embedded on a mobile version of the page. Again, both technologies are used to deliver great new video content to different users.

The bottom line is not to deploy a delivery system that is flexible enough to meet rapidly changing technology and consumer demands. It would be nice and easy if one format was king, but we don't live in a perfect world.

A Brave New World

One area of the format battle which doesn't get a lot of attention is the difference between mobile and desktop web consumption habits and potential markets. Do mobile and desktop web users have the same expectations? Will the mass market continue to be the wired big screen or will wireless devices offer the best audience? Will audiences pay for video content by the episode or will an advertising model continue to drive the money mechanics of video content creation?

We have yet to see a content producer making money pushing video content to mobile or any other new media venue. It seems with all the battles over advertising delivery systems that the traditional model of ad driven video content will stay in the future. The difference in the dynamics of delivering media to mobile devices may not carry over to users more interested in consuming content on the big screen.

Mobile media is a brave new world with lots questions and few answers. In the future, content providers should watch the consumption data and stay flexible. Position your professional video content to be ready to make a move when you see an opportunity. After all, if you can't make money or strengthen a message with your content; you can't afford to produce new media to meet new opportunities.

Content Management Systems that Win

Delivering new content regularly, at least on a predictable weekly basis, is essential for building an audience online. A website that doesn't deliver new content will fall in web search rankings and eventually loose its communication impact.

The CMS Solution

Producing new and exciting content at regular intervals is challenging and often cost prohibitive. The content problem has led many organizations to look to content management platforms (CMP) such as Drupel, Business Catalyst, Wordpress and others for solutions. The idea is to enable nontechnical users within the company to add content to the organizations’ website without having to write a single line of code.

Examples in Action

I’ve been using a few Google technologies to set up a content management system that doesn’t require any set up fees or monthly costs. This blog is one example of a custom content management system solution. Blogger is free to anyone with a Google account (also free). Google has kept the code open for users to manage custom CSS, which enabled me to build this blog to match the style of my professional web site. Other CMS sites such as Wordpress offer custom CSS, but you have to pay a yearly fee for the service.
Blogging tools are a great way to enable nontechnical users with tools to contribute great looking content to existing communication venues. Blogs keep the content managed through the use of keywords and date stamps. Content can be moved, searched, archived and even interacted with by viewers via built in comment box systems (Wordpress and Blogger both offer free commenting services).

Journey Christian Church is another great example of a free CMS implementation in action. Google Blogger and also the free embeddable calendar tool enable church volunteers and staff to contribute content to the web site. Go to the calendar page, student ministry page and the Journey Press page to see the example in action. This CMS solution was built using a javascript package to embed each blog directly into the web site. The result allows the site CSS to be used to format each blog while maintaining all of the Blogger functions.

Do You Need a CMS?

If you want to create a meaningful communication venue, the answer is yes. The ever-expanding content appetite of consumers, and the bounty of new gadgets that stock the buffet of instant information, are driving demand for fresh professional content to crazy levels. A content management strategy is essential for any serious communication plan.

Of course developing with a free solution may not work for your specific goals goals or organizational structure. Be sure to thoroughly research your communication needs and the audience you want to reach before taking a look at the many CMS options. Focus on how each tool best enables the talents and current knowledge of the resources that will drive these systems. Also consider how much and what type of content you want to focus on. Finally, remember to consider how your plan will connect new content to social networking venues and repurpose collateral for sales presentations and other physical marketing venues. You want to get the most mileage out of communication content, as the investment in time and other costs will add up quickly.
Don’t forget to have fun with it! A positive piece of content is contagious.

Getting Answers with the Workflow Equation

Here is an everyday math bit that we can all appreciate the next time we have a workflow decision to make. Creative time, plus technical time equals the total time you have to produce your next project. Basically, you want to operate with a workflow that minimizes technical time, thus maximizing creative time, which makes the most of the fixed amount of time you have for a given project.

Break It Down

Let's take a closer look at the variables. Total time is the time that your budget allows. Unless you're working for free, you have to hit your deadline or eat the cost overrun.

Creative time is time spent producing what matters the most to the client in the end. Color schemes, design elements, textures, sound, refined edits and revisions; all the tasks a client and viewer will directly evaluate and consume.

Technical time is eaten up waiting on renders, compression, setting up compositing rigs, unpacking or adjusting your camera and so on. Technical tasks are not consumed by the viewer of your product. A viewer doesn't care about the rig you built in After Effects to move a particle system around a logo. They also don't care that you spent 9 hours setting up lighting or reinstalling Final Cut Studio... again. Your client and each viewer will only scrutinize and consume the final product in all its compressed glory. Technical time is of course necessary, but should be efficiently scaled back whenever possible.

Dollars Make Sense

The bottom line is what makes the workflow equation important. Viewers want to watch top quality content and clients want the best product for as little cost, both time and money, as you can possibly deliver.

Next time you're setting up a project, think about how to eliminate technical jobs to make room for more creative tweaking. How about shooting solid state instead of videotape, or upgrading to a 64bit OS and 64bit applications to speed up renders. Maybe work on setting up compositing rigs when you have some down time so they're there for you when you need them. Same situation with graphics, try to design a few components you could save in a folder to use in your next web or multimedia project. And don't forget to organize a set of commonly used snippets. Weather you're writing action script, HTML, CSS or an After Effects expression, a set of snippets will save you time.

Think Efficiently

Everyday, creative and technical time will battle it out to see which one will dominate the total time of your next project. To the point, technical time must loose this battle.