Stand-Out Shorts
Page 15
Adjust the filter for colors so that blacks are deepened. Look for a section of your movie where shadows and dark areas are most obvious, play around with the color levels so that you increase the amount of richer, deeper, darker hues. Practice this in Photoshop, using a still from your movie and play around with the Curves command in the adjustments palette.
Editing The combination of very small screen and poor frame rate means that you quickly get a strobe effect from editing in a fast MTV-style. Also, the screen size gives you less ability to see what’s happening, so each shot needs to be on screen for longer. You need to be very chilled out and slow paced in editing for the web. Go for clips that last more than 1 second.
Format Some sites prefer different file formats. For YouTube, use only H.264, MPEG-2, or MPEG-4.
File size Sites like YouTube restrict the size of your video file. You have a 1 GB limit on file size, raised from the old 100 MB for high-res versions of your video. But 90% of videos are smaller than 21 MB (from a study by the University of Calgary).
Encoding There are lots of ways to encode your video before uploading it to YouTube. The best way to encode your movie for YouTube is to use the H.264 compressor. Most edit programs have easy-to-use compressors to create a small version suitable for YouTube restrictions. To do your own compression, follow these steps: If you have H.264, set it to 480×360 screen size, at 30 frames per second (fps) if using NTSC (that’s the USA system of video images). Set the bit-rate (the speed the data is conveyed) to 13 Mbps. Set the sound quality to 96 Kbps in mono.
Deinterlacing Interlaced video is a way of making video look more smooth on your TV, but on the web it will look stuttering and jerky. Diagonal lines look like steps and lose their clarity. It also plays havoc with text. Make it the very last thing you do. If you use Final Cut Pro, it helps you deinterlace if you chose Export to QuickTime, or use filters to click “deinterlace.” If you use another edit software, look for the same command within Export options, or use a compression program such as Cleaner.
Contrast Video on the web tends to squeeze the life out of your images by reducing color and light contrast. Your images end up looking flat and dull. Use the contrast adjustments filter and increase very slightly, by no more than around 15%. Play back a few sections of your movie to see how this affects the images.
Screen size Compression software on the website you are uploading to may shrink the screen size, but if you have a choice preset it yourself. If you know the movie is destined for mobile phones, then you can shrink it down, or “scale it,” to 160×90 pixels as a very small screen, or 480×360 for average web use.
FIGURE 27.1 Make sure text is visible in the playback screen as you edit, to ensure it’s readable when watched on similar-sized web screens.
FIGURE 27.2 Shoot close-ups wherever possible if your movie is aimed at phone or web viewing, as in this student project by the Brothers Cho.
FIGURE 27.3 Web and phone movies benefit from stronger light with higher contrast, as in this student noir short.
Chapter | Twenty-Eight
Your Web Plan
OVERVIEW
Get a strategy that helps your movie reach the best audience and which links you up with the right people.
Most video websites offer one or more of the following:
Share videos
Give and get tips, advice and tutorials
Talk with other filmmakers
Work for other people on their movies or recruit people to work with you
Decide what you want a site to do for you, and what you can offer. Most people making short films want all of the above but they also want it in different ways, so they use different sites for each of these categories depending on what each site is good at. They want to show their videos to as many people as possible, but they also want to get them shown on more sophisticated sites where you get better quality feedback. They want to belong to local communities but also global ones. So it all means getting the right mix of sites and knowing how to integrate them so they work hard.
CREATING YOUR PYRAMID WEB PRESENCE
You need a plan to make use of what the web can do for your movies. The answer is to use a range of video sharing sites and social networking sites – but to use them in the right ways. Use them for their individual strengths, without relying solely on just one of them.
FIGURE 28.1 Create a pyramid of sites.
The trick with this model is to use every layer all the time, not just one of them. Don’t start at the bottom and then gradually work your way up over time – join everything and upload everywhere all at once, on the same day. Also, make sure you have one constant networking site to act as the focus and center for your work, such as Facebook. Also add in links to people you meet with LinkedIn, and keep it live by using Twitter messages.
The first layer – YouTube: The sites at the bottom of the pyramid have the biggest hits, the biggest spread, and could get you thousands or even millions of viewings. But these viewings might not help you much – feedback is poor and your movie quickly gets lost in the mass of videos. But that’s OK – the purpose here is mass coverage so upload all your movies here.
The next layer up has the niche filmmaker sites: These sites are also big, though not on the same scale as the mass-sharing sites like YouTube. Upload your movies but expect better feedback. This is the site you check into to see what people really think of your movie.
Next up, join and link in to communities and groups: in YouTube and Vimeo. Hitch up with people like yourself.
FIGURE 28.2 YouTube hosts a huge range of individual channels, like these activist ones, each of which have groups attached.
Next, getting smaller but more focused on you and your particular work: there are the smaller niche sites. Find out which ones are right for you. Check out the list in Chapter 29, Social Networking since most blend networking with video sharing.
Toward the top there’s you and your own small community or group: This is the one you set up rather than joined. You call the shots here and invite people you like and work with to join. It has a tight and dedicated bunch of people who you respect and like. At this level of community, audiences get smaller but quality of feedback and who you link with gets better and better.
Then, right at the top there’s your own personal site: showcasing your work and who you are. People don’t stumble across this, instead they get directed to it from the other sites below.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
MASS SHARING VERSUS NICHE SHARING SITES
What are the pros and cons of mass sites like YouTube and niche filmmaker sites like Vimeo?
I LIKE MASS-SHARING SITES
YouTube is great for being able to see everything you want any time. It’s become a kind of video encyclopedia so you can access any of the great moments of cinema history, world events and TV.
FIGURE 28.3 set up your own website dedicated to displaying your movies just the way you want, like this one for Youtube success story lone Bannana Productions. it links to a host of other sites on the left of the screen, including Facebook, twitter and Myspace.
YouTube has a greater turnover than other sites. Videos rise faster and dive quicker, and new “most watched” appear often.
YouTube and other big sites are great for how-tos and instructional videos. Whatever you want to find out, there’s a big chance someone has uploaded a film on how to do it – from putting up a tepee, to mending a broken zipper, to making a batik wall hanging.
YouTube is like a video library. Use it to store your work for anyone to access anytime you need to show people what you do.
You can’t beat the YouTube stats – people tune in for far longer than on other sites, upload more and create more viral buzz than anywhere else.
YouTube has become a valuable tool for democracy in places where freedom of speech is poor. Iranian videos about repression in 2009 spread around the world on YouTube to expose events during the spring demonstrations.
YouTu
be has far greater creative possibilities because more people tune in. (See experts’ tips on page 162).
Uploading is quicker on YouTube than elsewhere, especially so if you upload at around lunchtime in Central US time or early evening in the UK.
FIGURE 28.4 Vimeo viewers tend to leave better quality feedback than on mass sites.
FIGURE 28.5 Vimeo’s feedback stats give you instant overview of how people rate your film.
I LIKE NICHE SITES
Some mass video sharing sites are way too big, so wading through to find anything worth watching is getting harder and harder.
YouTube and some other sites have music clearance issues for many filmmakers. If you put a video up with music which you don’t have permission to use, the soundtrack might get wiped so it runs silent when people watch it.
YouTube is too big and too “corporate.” MYSPACE peaked after a few years, especially when it was bought out by News Corporation in 2005, and although still popular is focused a lot on garage bands and musicians.
Some filmmakers say they migrate away from the big sites like YouTube when they start getting more serious about your movies. In niche sites you can get seen by people who care about watching movies rather than just gags and recycled TV clips.
Some filmmakers say you are more likely to find your creative “soulmates” on niche sites, rather than on mass-sharing sites. Niche sites like Vimeo are more likely to net you a bunch of close collaborators, or likeminded people who give you well-thought out feedback.
Ratings mean more on niche sites. Five star ratings dominate mass sharing sites but viewers to niche filmmaker sites are more careful in how they rate your movie.
YouTube and other sites let you upload anything, even if you didn’t make it, so there are too many copies of other clips online. Niche filmmaker sites like Vimeo say you have to have made the film yourself to upload it, assuring viewers that only original videos get shown.
Commercial videos are more likely to get a showing on bigger sites like YouTube. Filmmaker sites tend to sniff them out more quickly on niche sites and flag them up. YouTube hates them too, but these ads sneak in more easily because of the sheer volume of videos uploaded.
… And undercover viral films (commercials pretending to be real homemade movies) have a free rein to get spread around on masssharing sites. Companies that sell links to bloggers, aiming to get over 100,000 hits for a commercial about a new product that looks just like a regular video, are more likely to succeed on mass-sharing sites.
Niche sites have a global spread of viewers and users evenly around the world. Vimeo, for instance, is in the top 500 sites in a more diverse range of nations than mass-sharing sites.
FIGURE 28.6 Metacafe has similar video categories to Youtube but its smaller upload rate means your movie gets a bigger chance of being watched.
Experts’ Tips
Luke While, film student, UK
“Try creating an interactive storyline on a video sharing site, using related videos to link a bunch of clips together. shoot multiple storylines, letting the viewer click on the next clip they’d like to see in the story. For instance, a man reaches a set of doors, so you click on different clips to find out what happened if he passed into each room, then more clips to find out various outcomes inside each room, and so on.”
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Experts’ Tips
Liam Daly, film student, UK
“Vimeo is the best by far. You get a much better quality of viewer so you get a better quality of feedback. and it looks more professional with better content. it has a more creative feel to it. Vimeo now is the way forward.”
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FIGURE 28.7 Join a group or community on a niche filmmaker sharing site.
USING FACEBOOK FOR YOUR MOVIES
Facebook has relatively poor upload times and a lot of filmmakers say it crashes often as you wait to upload.
Facebook is ideal for keeping in touch with friends and crew. It’s more personal, and lets you create a strong team. You’ve got your close collaborators, other people you work with occasionally, and still other people you never meet but who like to talk about your movies and offer ideas.
But Facebook isn’t professional enough for your movies. It’s more like a scrapbook, to enable people to check in and then link on to another site where they can watch your movie in better surroundings.
Although it’s great for creating groups surrounding your projects try to keep group size manageable. If it gets too big, friends lose interest and don’t get their voice heard.
Facebook is excellent for increasing your circle of contacts, especially on the next rung of the ladder above you. Get yourself attached to groups of people who are where you’d like to be a year or so down the line.
Use Facebook alongside business networking sites like LinkedIn to have a more business-like side to your work. LinkedIn is good for keeping contacts live, even months after you last met them.
FIGURE 28.8 Facebook is great for keeping your team of people you like to work with in touch with each other. it also hosts opportunities like this 48-hour Film Challenge in Pittsburgh, Usa.
Chapter | Twenty-Nine
Social Networking
OVERVIEW
Make your movies better by linking up with other people to work on your movie,
act in it, or just share advice and tips.
Social networking sites don’t replace face-to-face meeting, they add to it, increasing your chances of meeting like-minded people and getting your movies out there.
First, decide what you want from a networking site.
Which of these do you need?
Create your own profile to promote yourself
Meet other people
Get jobs and contracts by RSS or email
Search for cast and crew
Solve problems in your movie
Create a group of like-minded people
Keep interested people in touch with your movie as you make it
Find out about screenings
Buy and sell equipment
Find out about events
Find out about courses
Join in with discussion boards
The bigger sites cover all of these. Others give you information but no way to post questions or profiles; others still are almost completely peer-to-peer, acting like a virtual media center you can drop in on to post questions, and recruit crew.
The most useful kinds of network sites are what’s called “vertical” ones. That means they are a thin slice of the web population who join for just one sort of common interest. The other kind are “horizontal” where one member may not have anything in common with any other member, like MYSPACE which is host to any number of groups, communities, and individuals.
Vertical ones have very specific aims. For movie makers they are more than just resources to help you – they are at the center of your production, from recruiting crew, to getting advice while you shoot, to spreading the word about your finished movie. And of course they help put you face-to-face with people just like you.
Take a look at Shooting People (www.shootingpeople.org), based in the UK but expanding into the US. It has daily bulletins you can sign up for, on topics from general filmmaking to scriptwriting and animation. You can get daily news about directors needing crew, or items for sale, or events coming up in your area. It all depends, however, on the right people uploading the right stuff, so always add this with other bulletins from other places, such as your local arts funding board, or national screen commission, or city arts center. Subscribe to more than one bulletin from other sites and you increase the chances of getting the right news as it happens.
US network sites are more localized. This works better than big networks in many ways because they know the region, what the particular challenges are there, and how they can help. Take San Diego, for instance (www.sdfilmmakers. org). It has an energetic group running monthly workshops for local people, from acting to makeup. It also links up t
he San Diego Film Festival, the local media center, a women’s filmmakers group, a student film festival, the film school, an editing group, plus the city’s movers and shakers.
Horizontal sites such as Facebook, MYSPACE and others have their uses too. Everyone knows them so it is a good way to form a small community to track your movie as it gets made, or follow the progress of several filmmakers who link themselves together as a group. You can upload production stills, storyboards, blogs, and news about the film to build a profile for it. It makes you look serious and can increase your chances of getting funding or other help later on. It becomes an archive of your commitment. (Check out Chapter 28, Your Web Plan for more about Facebook.)