Post Production 911

There are so many codecs for digital movies out there that is becomes really confusing when you are trying to make a small file to place on Youtube, an ftp site or to email to everyone in your address book.  By the way, a codec is the formula used to compress and decompress a digital movie.  For example, you can compress your video clip using H263, H264, Animation, Sorensen, Cinepak, Animated GIF, DV, DV  Stream, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, M4V, FLC, SWF, and on and on.

You could literally test and play with settings and parameters for days and you will eventually drive yourself crazy trying to get the perfect file that is small enough to email but vivid and snappy enough to get you the recognition and accolades you deserve.

Here’s a fool proof, easy way to do it…

Buy Apple’s Quicktime Pro application for  around $40 bucks. Then open your big, uncompressed monster of a movie file, then say “EXPORT” in Quicktime Pro and choose “FOR iPOD.”

That’s it. Your file will be tiny and look amazing. Even though you ended up with merely an .M4V file that you could have done that yourself, you would never be able to compete with the genius eggheads at Apple who have spent hundreds of hours in R&D to have the perfect codec settings!

This is also a great file to upload to YouTube. Their upload robot LOVES this file. However, if you want to make it absolutely perfect for YouTube, you should create your original big file at 400×300 pixels, because otherwise YouTube will scale your file and cause it to lose some resolution. I understand that 400×300 is a non-standard aspect ration in computer land, but that’s what YouTube is, so you might as well create your original file that size. Be sure to make the file with those dimensions PRIOR to crunching down with the “EXPORT TO iPOD.”

-Kirk

Okay, so you spend three months onlining and color correcting your film. It looks stunning and projects like a Technicolor masterpiece.  Excited to show your friends and reach a wider audience, you decide to stick the project or its trailer on Youtube. And of course, it instantly looks like dog meat: blocky, faded, desaturated and worst of all, it actually skips frames and looks out of sync. Dang it! 

So you in the Youtube film requirements. But when you upload it again, it still looks barfy.

And it will always look barfy because Youtube RECOMPRESSES every single film using very loose setting for Flash video. It needs to make it look cruddy because they need small files that take up small bandwidth since so many people upload shots of their cat looking out the window.

Bottom line: If your content ROCKS, then it will be giant on Youtube. If your content is dependent on pristine color correction and the ideal image, then I’m afraid your film is going to look like dog meat and nothing more.

Shoot for content and story and the world is your oyster.

- kirk

We often run into people with Resolutionitis. It’s a disease that makes filmmakers think they must have the absolute highest resolution and quality no matter what. But they forget that content is king. If you ain’t got a compelling story, you ain’t got a film worthy of resolution.

Just the other day, a client came to me asking if we should transfer his footage to HDV or HDCAM. Ummm, sorry, but you’re just wasting your money. You could transfer it to VHS from the 1980’s and it would still get just as limp of an emotional response from the audience.

When filmmakers are new to the process or overly in love with their project, Resolutionitis is almost blinding every bit of common sense they every had. The filmmaker will charge up credit cards, call in all of Daddy’s favors at once, and even mortgage a house in order to get the clearest, sharpest picture available! Nevermind that the acting really stinks… because the writing is pedestrian. Nevermind that the story is a jumbled mess and then the production was shotty (due to not paying for a professional crew).

Films on YouTube can have tens of millions of views and launch entire careers, even though the video quality looks like 1969 Moon Landing footage. Speaking of which, the moon landing was one of the most memorable television moments in all of television. Even almost 40 years later, it’s still holds up as about the most emotionally charged footage a camera has every produced. It looked like pure crap: fuzzy, contrasty, poorly lighted (fire the moon as gaffer). But it was the content that kicked all our emotional butts. Since Neil Armstrong took a giant step for television, the media has been repleat with gigantically successful, but terrible-looking, mega-hits.

Remember the “Blair Witch Project?” That film was shot on crappy Hi-8 video and it still grossed tens of millions! Content is king. The TV show COPS has become television juggernaut, using a dash-mounted consumer camera with a plastic lens and no image stabilization. But damn, is it compelling. The examples go on and on. Content is king. Don’t put your house on the auction block just because you need to see your film in its perfect state of flawless resolution.

And if you’re really in love with your film, send the rough cut to a distributor and see if they are completely blown away by your movie. If not, I wouldn’t spend a giant wad on post production. If the distributor’s socks are knocked off, then THEY will gladly pay for more resolution than the filmmaker could every afford on their own. Case in point is the film El Mariachi, which supposedly cost $8,000 until the studio went bonkers for it and threw a million dollars into the sound production in post. Good movies are good movies regardless of the resolution.