Roll Your Own Embedded Video

Wow! It's been a long time since I have posted to this blog. Time gets away from a guy.

Regardless, I have been makings short films and learning tons of cool techniques just by doing it. There is no going back now.

One quick thing that I wanted to post was about the proliferation of embedded video and link through to a great way to roll your own.

Big conglomerate social media sites such as Youtube, Vimeo, Revver, etc have really made embedded video commonplace on the internet. As a filmmaker with an online presence, it is expected that you will be using a similar feature on your website or blog.

Although sites like Youtube are great for quick one-up shorts and trailers (like Blogger is good for quick posting) it's nice to have the option of offering streaming content directly from your personal site. I know what you're thinking... "just embed your Youtube or Vimeo clip to your site cuz it's easy".

True, you can do that but... in most cases there will be watermarks or link-throughs to those very sites providing the stream or worse yet... ads. For me, I would perfer not to advertise for those big guys from my personal filmmaker page since that page is about me and only me (or my production company... no matter how small it may be).

There is a decent solution for this though and it goes by the name of JW Player.

Now there are two version, one for FLV and MP4 files and one for streaming WMV files based on Microsoft's Silveright.

Personally, I had no luck getting MP4 files to stream and any software that I have access to does a lousy job outputting to FLV so... I decided to give the Silverlight version a try. It streams wonderfully.

Now WMV and Microsoft are surely not my first choice by any means but it was so easy to impliment that I was sold (actually, it's all free as long as you have something that can convert your footage to WMV).

If you manage your own website, which most of us do, then embedding with JW is super easy. Just use the setup wizard on their website, copy and paste the code, upload your video file to your server, define the path and you are good to go.

If you want to delve deeper, you can also create skins and all that other bs as well.

Sound... the Other Half.

Everyone knows that poor sound quality can destroy a descent "looking" film. The reverse is also true yet less talked about... but we won't go there.

Not many film-sound websites or tutorial pages are available on the internet, probably because everyones' main concern is what you see on the screen. This makes it tough to self-med-educate on the subject of stage and location sound recording, Foley, voice-over, film scoring, etc.

Take a peek at the following links...

Whoa! Way more information than us indie-chumps need (and all on one scrolling page no less). Location Sound: The Basics and Beyond answers any and all stupid questions about location sound and and sound management. Make sure to check out the 15 Tips and Tricks section toward the bottom of the page.

Film Sound! Click your way on over to Flimsound.org and loose yourself for hours reading and clicking and clicking and browsing. This site seems to provide quite a bit of philosophy, history and other educational tidbits that may come in handy when designing your soundscapes.

Now of course, none of this matters if your prefered genre is "silent film".

Three Links to Lighting

Obviously learning to light is crucial for any filmmaker. The following links have some decent tutorials and tips... and yes, the information is free (though some try to up-sell you to their other products... which is fine if you're looking for the stuff).



Wow! What can I say... this guy really has some great tutorials and tips on lighting (and more). This site is especially useful for lighting interviews. His name is Nino, check out his page for some great info... EFPLighting.com (** recently changed from free to $50/year **).

The gentleman over at Blue Sky Media is hocking his tutorials on DVD or something but he also gives some good free info which is quite nice of him... Blue Sky Media lighting tutorials

Of course, every suburban-indie-filmmaker with a couple of bucks in his pocket knows of Lowel... but did you know that they have a few free tutorials on their site? Take a peek... Lowel lighting tutorials

Here is a nice long read for you theory-heads out there. The fine gentleman (Richard I believe his name to be) over at Itchy Animation lays it out for all to comprehend.

DIY: the $30 Dolly!!!

Look out Hollywood! For thirty bucks you can set up dynamic camera moves to rival the pros. All you need are some skateboard wheels, angle brackets, plywood, screws, nuts, bolts washers and a couple of pieces of 1" PVC pipe.

This is so simple you don't need plans or schematics to create this engineering marvel. Just take a close look at the pictures, then head down to your local home improvement mega-center and grab all the necessary hardware (excluding the skateboard wheels and bearings).

As for obtaining the wheels and bearings... Ebay. I suggest purchasing these prior to your trip to the home improvement center. That way you can take a wheel and a couple of bearing with you to match up the hole sizes, etc.



Once I had all of the components gathered, the actual process of building this dolly took less than an evening.

A word of caution... this is a DIY project and the dolly is kinda flimsy so use extreme caution when loading it out with your costly camera equipment.

I hope this is useful info. Enjoy.

Links that Don't Stink

One of the most helpful and useful things when homeschooling yourself is a vast array of internet resources... or "links" as they are most commonly known. In Self-Film-School there are two main categories of useful "links". One category is Educational and the other is Tools.

In a previous post I had praised celtx screen writing software. Well... link added (see side bar).

An extremely useful capturing and editing freeware download that I highly recommend is VirtualDub. I won't go in to all of the great features but it is great... and free!

Go cheap with DIY DOF... one essential part in making your DV footage look like film is shallow depth of field. Check out the DOF Machine. (great DIY lesson)

As for DIY, check out the Home Built Stabilizer Group board for great education and ideas about cool film equipment you (and I) probably can't afford to buy.

Speaking of community forum boards, DVXuser.com is probably one of the most popular boards for the super-indie film making community. There are some pros there as well. Great place for many of your educational needs.

I will add links periodically but for now these are enough to keep us busy for a very long time.
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