8
The Production Process

A design objective which was common to many early desktop applications was the emulation of the traditional approach to whatever function the application was offering, be that typing a letter, painting a picture or designing a newsletter layout. Whatever the application, the emphasis was on creating a desktop metaphor. It is only some years later, as these applications begin to mature, that we are seeing the emergence of features which set these applications apart from their traditional counterparts, as developers discover and exploit features and functions which are uniquely digital.

Compared with these more mature applications, desktop video is still at an early stage of development. As digital technology and techniques have steadily infiltrated the analogue worlds of film and television, the skills of the two communities have increasingly overlapped. It is not surprising, therefore, that the early video editing applications which have evolved for the desktop have much in common with their analogue ancestors. In previous chapters we have looked at the nuts and bolts of this evolving digital videoediting environment. In this chapter, we shall examine how these nuts and bolts can be used together to help assemble a finished product.

For the purpose of exploring the various aspects of the production process, we shall plan and develop a business multimedia video for an imaginary corporate customer. Such a project will cover the widest possible range of content and will involve the same basic considerations as we would have to apply to any of the above project categories. The outline specification for the project is summarised below:

  Customer – Caledonian, a multinational petroleum company with headquarters in London

  Objectives – To inform and motivate employees

  Fifteen-minute video to be shown to employees at worldwide locations, summarising company results and achievements during the previous year and looking ahead to prospects and challenges in the coming year

  Output to be in a format, or formats, which can be viewed by all employees, including some at remote sites

  Content to be proposed by the design team, but to include introduction by the company’s chief executive, business results and an outlook versus the competition

  Budget £30 000. Completion of outline for management review within 4 weeks and delivery of completed output media ready for mailing in 12 weeks, with progress checkpoints at weekly intervals

The Production Process

The precise details of the production process depend, of course, on the nature of the project in hand but, broadly speaking, the following sequence applies to most cases:

  Planning – defining clearly the objectives for the project, the resources required to create it and the target date for completion, if appropriate

  Creating scripts for audio clips

  Assembling the raw material, including the required hardware and software, as well as video and audio sources

  Placing and synchronising elements within the timeline of a videoediting application

  Adding video transitions, filters, paths and overlays where required

  Adding audio special effects

  Testing and saving the project

  Compiling the project and generating output to disk in AVI or MOV format

  Producing output to CD ROM or to videotape

Planning

The level of detail required in the planning of a project will, of course, vary according to its content, length, complexity, intended output method, and audience. Production categories range from simple, video-only Web animations lasting for a few seconds, to promotional videos, advertising clips, educational or business multimedia videos, to documentaries or feature films lasting up to an hour or more.

The complexity of our Caledonian business video project is high and will require detailed planning and implementation by a design team consisting of a director who has overall management responsibility for the project and for ongoing liaison with the customer, an editor with technical and artistic responsibility for integrating the various audio and video components of the project into a cohesive whole which meets the design objectives, a script writer and various audio and graphics specialists.

Consideration should first be given to the objectives, which are to create a blend which communicates business information clearly and simply to an audience ranging from production workers to business managers, with footage designed to recognise achievements and to motivate viewers to identify with the company’s objectives for the year ahead.

Budget constraints dictate that, while limited resources can be applied to video-taping new footage – such as the chief executive’s introduction – as far as possible, existing footage shot by the company’s Communications Department during the course of the year, will have to be edited and adapted.

A first pass brainstorming session by the design team produced the following outline for the project:

  An animated introduction zooms in from space through a global view of planet Earth to the company’s European headquarters building in London, accompanied by background music. As the music fades, a professional ‘voiceover’ introduces the company chief executive and subsequently provides the voice links between the different sections of the video

  The headquarters shot fades to the CEO’s office, where he speaks directly into the camera

  Shots of the CEO are interspersed with stills of business charts, newspaper cuttings and FTSE trends, which he refers to as he describes the company’s results for the past year, including comparisons with the competition

  Cutaway shots of different locations appear as he refers to the performance of different divisions and countries

  References to achievements of the past year are supported by video and still shots depicting these achievements, such as major projects completed on schedule

  As he looks to the future, satellite and aerial shots show sites of new deposits. Stills show artist’s impression of how new sites will look when developed, a proposed new tanker terminal and pipeline construction. Reference to developments in technology are supported by shots of new drilling platforms and underwater shots of submersibles

  Theme changes to importance of employees to future success of the company, showing award presentations to outstanding employees, shots of retiring and new employees, with reference to winning by the company of a health and safety award

  In the final section, the importance of good communications within the company is stressed. Shots of department meetings and company conferences back this up, with shots also of screens from the company’s intranet pages and Web site pages

  As the CEO ends by thanking all employees for their efforts, the closing sequence reverses the starting sequence with an animated zoom out from London showing city features like Tower Bridge and St Paul’s and then continuing to zoom out, as if filmed from a space shuttle camera, showing Europe and then the globe, with supporting music rising to a climax as the video comes to an end

The above simple outline can now be expanded into a description of the sequence of major actions, or shots, in the video. This will include a series of storyboard sketches, like the example in Figure 8.1, which outline the beginning, titles, transitions, special effects, sound, and ending of the video.

As well as planning the video content, consideration has to be given to how the video will be played back in order to decide what frame size, frame rate, colour depth and compression settings should be used to for production. In this case, the plan is to cover the majority of viewers using videotape played back on TV screens distributed around conference rooms, therefore the video will be created at a frame size of 640 × 480 pixels, frame rates of 25 fps and 30 fps and 24 bit colour to ensure good quality. Different compressors will be tried to obtain the best result.

Any of the videoediting applications described in Chapter 4 could be used to manage the project. MediaStudio will be used for our sample project to maintain consistency. As the project will be large in terms of disk space and file size, it will be separated into several more manageable files. This can help speed up the work as well as making it easier to focus on the scene in hand. To help keep track of the work and to avoid confusion, features such as the MediaStudio’s Clip Library, Project Window, Browse function, and Packaging commands will be used. When managing a complex project, it makes life easier to keep all the relevant files in a single directory. The Package command in the File menu copies or moves all files in the current project to a specified directory.

Cues, cue names, and file descriptions provide the means of remembering where clips are in the project and which effects and filters are being used. Cues are used to name and identify portions of the project and clips. For example, to synchronize an audio, overlay, or special effect with another track, a cue can be used to help line up all the clips properly. Also, a cue can mark a part of the project to be later returned to for further work. There are two types of cue in MediaStudio. Project cues appear in the bottom of the ruler and can apply to any part of the project. Clip cues can only be assigned to video or audio clips and appear in the cue bar below the track the clip is in.

Creating Scripts

Scripts will be needed for the CEO presentation and for the voiceover introduction and some links between sections of the project. Time slots need to be booked in advance with the CEO’s secretary to preview and fine tune his script to his satisfaction.

In preparing scripts for any project, care needs to be taken to ensure that the language used (e.g. when covering financial or technical subjects) is appropriate to the level of the target audience.

Assembling the Raw Material

Our Caledonian project will use a wide array of materials including the following:

  New video and audio footage (e.g. CEO presentation) and existing video and audio footage on both tape and disk

  Still images in the form of scans (e.g. from award presentation photographs or slides), business graphics designed in a charting application, screen captures and CD ROM images (e.g. for introduction and ending)

  Analogue audio recordings and synthesized music and sound

  Animated flythrough sequences showing artistic impressions of new sites

  Animated title clips

The following quality guidelines need to be kept in mind when video-taping and then capturing video and audio clips, to ensure the highest quality results are obtained:

  Careful and effective use of lighting enriches colours and shows details more clearly. The use of a flat lighting scheme which illuminates the subject from all sides eliminates shadows, reduces colour variations and improves playback performance. The use of such a scheme can, however, produce a dull, uninteresting scene, so a balance has to be struck to achieve the best compromise

  The masters, rather than copies of existing tapes should be used as source material. Copies introduce background noise, which affects playback quality, and results in lower compression ratios. High-quality video formats such as Hi-8 should be used to create new tape footage

  Regular geometric patterns such as tartans, Venetian blinds, tiles or check patterns can cause visual interference and should be avoided when shooting new footage

  To improve compression, creating smaller compressed files and reducing the demands on the system during playback, the degree of the change in the image between frames should be limited. In the extreme case, a still image clip yields a high compression ratio, while panning or zooming the camera during recording decreases the compression ratio. Areas of flat colour compress better than fine textures

After video-taping the new footage, the sequences to be used in the project are captured to disk using MediaStudio’s capture utility and the procedure described on page 34. For each sequence, a capture file is pre-al-located on disk, ensuring sufficient space for storing incoming video and audio data. After allocating a capture file, a disk-defragmentation utility is used to defragment the hard disk on which the capture files are to be stored. If the capture file does not reside in contiguous sectors of the hard disk, the system will be forced to perform a disk seek during the capture session, which could result in dropped video or audio data. During capture, as much processor capacity as possible needs to be dedicated to the capture process by turning off all unnecessary applications, minimizing all open windows except the capture window and turning off TSRs.

Before capture is initiated, option settings which are consistent with the plans for the overall project are set for the colour depth, frame size and audio format. Capturing and compressing video can be a time-consuming process, so it’s important to adjust settings carefully and then test the setup by capturing a few test frames before capturing a lengthy sequence. Once the right setup has been created, to capture the CEO sequences, for example (Figure 8.2), it can then be used for other footage to be used in the project.

Some existing digitised video clips received from remote sites are in MOV format and some are in AVI format but this should not pose a problem as MediaStudio can import both formats. While one member of the design team continues to collect and, where necessary, digitise the video footage called out on the storyboard, a second member collects and digitises the audio footage. Music will be used for the project’s introduction and ending and some synthesised sound effects will be used in conjunction with the business charts and animated flythrough scenes. The voiceover, which will introduce and link the different sections of the project, will be added in the final stages, after the visual elements have been placed in the correct order. Two 3D graphic artists will work together to create the animated flythrough graphic sequences in Ray Dream Studio and Bryce 3D.

As the material begins to accumulate, work can begin to place the first clips roughly in position within MediaStudio’s timeline.

Placing Elements on the Timeline

To ensure that the system works at optimum efficiency, as files are imported and placed in the timeline, a number of preparatory steps have already been taken:

  In MediaStudio’s Video Director preferences dialog box (Figure 8.3), a RAM cache of 48 Mb and a disk cache of 100 Mb have been set to allow MediaStudio to maintain a cache of files, making it easier to recall information quickly

  Using Proxy Manager (Figure 8.4), available from the File menu, proxy files will be created, modified, and tracked. The proxy files are used to show preview information and other intermediate results. By using proxy files in place of the larger original files, memory utilisation is improved and work can proceed more quickly. When the project is complete, the Save to Video command from the File menu will automatically replace the proxy files with the original clips

  Using Preview Options (Figure 8.5) from the View menu, a frame size of 320 × 240 and a frame rate of 12 fps have been set to speed up the preview process. Later, as work nears completion, these settings will be adjusted to produce a preview representative of the final project dimensions and frame rate

We are now ready to place the first clips in the timeline (Figure 8.6). An opening standard video clip of outer space, placed on Track Va, is accompanied by a stirring celestial stereo music clip on Track Aa, to capture the attention of the audience. The effect of travelling through space is created by panning and zooming towards one of the more prominent stars in the galaxy, using the technique described on pages 51 and 52. After placing the second video clip on Track Vb – depicting planet Earth rotating on its axis – adding a Crossfade transition, which overlaps the two clips, causes the Earth to fade in, with stars and the blackness of space in the background. As the clip runs, the Earth rotates and becomes larger as if we are approaching it. Another Crossfade transition takes us to a still image aerial shot of central London placed on Track Va. Panning and zooming in towards Big Ben identifies the city, which then crossfades to a third video clip showing the Caledonian headquarters building. This clip opens with a shot of the lower part of the high-rise building with its characteristic blue tinted glass facade, and then the camera pans up the building facade until it reaches the top floor.

As video and audio clips are added to the timeline, thumbnails appear in the Project Window (Figure 8.7a). Clicking the button to the top right of the window rearranges the thumbnails into a vertical left-hand column, providing space in the right column to add notes or comments (Figure 8.7b).

Note: When placing audio clips in the timeline, the Level button in MediaStudio’s Audio Format dialog box should be used to adjust the audio level so that the loudest audio passages are about 80% of the full range. Ideally all audio clips to be used in the projects should be recorded at a consistent audio level.

After completing this first stage of the project, it’s time to check how well the video clips, audio clips and transitions are working together. An quick preview of part of the project – e.g. the transition between two clips – can be seen by clicking, holding down the mouse button and dragging from left to right in the time ruler at the top of MediaStudio’s workspace. Alternatively, selecting View/Preview initiates the compilation of an AVI file of the work completed so far, using the preview options set earlier. The Preview window appears (Figure 8.8a) and, below it, another window which displays real-time data relating to the compilation of the new file (Figure 8.8b). On completion, the movie appears in the preview window and begins to play. Such previews, carried out periodically as work proceeds on the project, identify any obvious problems related to clip duration, smoothness of transitions, synchronisation of sound with video, etc. Clips can be trimmed using the Scissors tool , which is permanently displayed to the top left of MediaStudio’s workspace. When the tool is selected the mouse pointer changes to a pair of scissors and a clip can be cut into two by simply clicking the scissors at the point where the cut is to be made. When it is important to make the cut accurately, the Magnify tool can be used to zoom in repeatedly in the vicinity of the cut point until the boundaries between individual frames in a video clip can be seen. (The tool can also be used for precise editing of an audio clip). Another convenient editing tool, displayed beneath the Magnify tool is the Time Selection tool which can be used to select an area with high precision by dragging with the mouse in the timeline over the area to be selected. Using this method, clips can be selected over multiple tracks.

At any time during construction of the project, clicking on View/ Project Information or View/Clip Information will open the windows shown in Figure 8.9a and 8.9b respectively. Project Information displays data about the current project including file, size, description, and configuration information. It also lists all clips and other files used in the project so far. Clip Information displays data about the selected clip including file, size, format, path, and mark in and out data.

Since no major problems have been revealed by previewing the project up to this point, fine tuning can be left until a later stage and we can proceed with the next stage of the project. As the introductory music fades, the voiceover begins with the introduction of the CEO and the building clip fades to a clip showing the CEO seated at his desk and looking into the camera. The CEO videotape, which runs to 20 minutes, was prepared in parallel with the business charts to which he refers. The relevant sections of the videotape and the business charts and other visual aids –which were prepared using Lotus Freelance – now have to be converted to digital clips and placed in the timeline. To provide continuity to the pre-sentation, a set of animated title clips will also be inserted at appropriate points to introduce each new section.

Creating Title Clips and Business Charts

Figure 8.10 shows four sample frames from each of two title clips. Such animated titles are easily created in an application like Ray Dream Studio, using the techniques described in Chapter 6. The same typeface, colour and size is used consistently throughout the presentation to provide other titles covering Financial Highlights, Accomplishments, Competition, Research and Development, Market Outlook and Future Strategy.

To blend the project introduction with the start of the CEO presentation, the introductory music clip is faded out by selecting the clip and adjusting the volume profile by dragging down with the mouse as shown in Figure 8.11 and then a professionally recorded voiceover clip is added to Track Aa, welcoming the audience to this annual event and introducing the CEO. As the introduction is made, the first title clip plays on Track Va and is followed immediately by the clip showing the CEO seated at his office desk, also on Track Va. The CEO voice clip is placed on Track Aa and carefully aligned to synchronise with the video clip.

As the CEO speaks, the plan is to emphasise and illustrate his words with title clips, stills of business information and video clips of material supplied by the company’s Communications Department. For example, after his introduction, he moves on to speak about the business results of the last four quarters and a title clip displaying Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 provides added visual emphasis to this. As shown in Figure 8.12, by using a 2D moving path, the title clip – which has been placed on Track V1 – appears over the CEO’s left shoulder and zooms out to fill the screen, before disappearing. The same 2D moving path will be used to display other titles and charts, as the CEO continues to speak.

In parallel with video-taping the CEO’s presentation, work has been proceeding to create a set of supporting business stills. A number of charting applications can be used for this; Figure 8.13 shows an example – a three-dimensional bar chart – prepared in Lotus Freelance, summarising company sales in Europe and around the world during a five-year period. After preparing the chart in Freelance using the same frame size and aspect ratio as for the video clips, the chart was saved in TIF format so that it could be imported using Media Studio’s import image button and placed at the appropriate position on the V1 track of the timeline. The same 2D moving path as that used for the title clips was then applied to the chart clip.

In addition to business charts, the CEO, in his presentation, refers to general business trends and important events reported in the Press related to the oil industry. Figure 8.14 shows two examples of charts to be used to illustrate points to be made about relative performance of different divisions of Caledonian around the world (a) and about press coverage of the company’s performance versus competition (b). Chart (a) was constructed in CorelDRAW using a clipart world map and an envelope special effect applied to the text, before saving in TIF format. Newspaper clippings or spreads, such as chart (b) can be scanned and saved as TIF files for use as image stills.

As construction of the project continues (Figure 8.15), further video clips, titles and still images are introduced, with video showing work proceeding on a new drilling platform and the use of a new design of submersible craft for underwater maintenance work on deep-sea drilling rigs and for underwater exploration work. A new title clip introduces the section of the presentation covering strategy and the first illustration in this section is a still of a series of satellite shots being used in the search for evidence of new oil deposits.

At regular intervals during construction work, each new section is previewed and adjustments are made to synchronise the start, duration and finish of clips with the CEO’s words and to ensure that the visual aids will be easily readable by the audience.

As the project nears its end, still shots and video clips are added to mark significant employee achievements and communications events which have occurred during the course of the year. Visual consistency in the way in which these clips are presented is maintained throughout by using the same 2D moving path.

The end of the project mirrors its beginning. As the CEO finishes his monologue by encouraging all employees to greater efforts in the coming year, the camera zooms back out of the office to show briefly the headquarters building and then continues to zoom out to the aerial view of London, fading to the view of the Earth rotating and finally .to a view of space, as accompanying music rises to an appropriate crescendo (Figure 8.16).

Testing and Saving the Project

As the project has been previewed and obvious problems have been corrected during the course of construction, the purpose of the final preview is to fine tune the precise synchronisation of the many video, audio and still image clips which it now contains and to carry out a final check of legibility, particularly of text and business chart contents, and of audibility of the sound tracks. This is best done by setting up a test configuration in a conference room facility typical of those to be used around the company and running the videotape in front of a live volunteer audience. Before this can be done the project file must first be saved in the videoeditor’s native format ready for compiling.

Compiling the Project

The penultimate stage in completing the project is to compile it to create an AVI file. This is done by selecting the File/Create Video command. After compilation is complete, the file can be played back on screen or imported into other applications which support the AVI format.

The quality of the finished video clip depends on a number of factors, such as the type of image compression used, the frame rate selected, and the speed of the computer system used to play back the clip.

To compile the finished project, we have to:

  check to ensure that there is sufficient free disk space to store the new file

  choose Create Video File from the File menu. The Create Video File dialog box appears (Figure 8.17a). Here a Subject name as well as a Description of the file contents can be entered, before clicking on the Options button

  set the Frame Rate and Frame Size using the controls provided under the General tab (Figure 8.17b)

  specify the compression settings – compression type, quality, key frames and data type – using the controls provided under the Compression tab (Figure 8.17c)

A live preview appears in the Preview window and below it an information window displays data describing progress as the video compiles.

The Key Frame option is available if a codec which uses frame differencing has been selected. A key frame is the baseline frame against which other frames are compared for differences. The key frames are saved in their entirety, while intervening frames, called delta frames, are compressed based on their differences from the key frames. The Key Frame option specifies the rate at which the movie is sampled for key frames. Using this option allows for greater compression and increased playback speed, but can affect quality where the video depicts fast motion or rapidly changing scenes.

When creating a video file, settings can be saved by clicking on the Save button in the Create Video dialog box. Then each time a new file is created, clicking on the Load button recalls the saved settings.

Output

Now that we have created an AVI file of our Caledonian project, we can click on Print to Video in the File menu to open the dialog box in Figure 8.18a, where we can select the file in readiness for printing it to videotape. Before initiating the copying process, the Options button gives access to the two windows shown in Figure 8.18b and 8.18c. From within these windows, we can specify the frame size for the image to be printed to tape and the activation method to be used to initiate the copying process.

To cater for language considerations and different country video formats, several versions of the videotape will be created. Copies of the AVI file will also be written to CD ROM for use by employees at remote sites who will view the video on desktop PCs or Laptop machines. Before this is done, the first tape will be used, as explained earlier, to test the results on a live audience in a conference room environment. After making adjustments based on feedback from the audience, the project is re-saved and re-compiled and a small number of videotape copies are created for review by key executives, including the CEO. After making changes resulting from these previews, the final compilation is done and the final videotapes and CD ROMs are produced and distributed around the company in readiness for the agreed review date.

Summary

Fundamental to the production process is careful planning. Unless project objectives and responsibilities are clearly defined from the outset and the necessary resources are available, then time will be wasted and the quality of the project will suffer. A storyboard can provide a useful tool for crystallising ideas and sequences and highlighting and resolving inconsistencies before work commences.

The simple quality guidelines described earlier in the chapter, regarding, e.g. lighting and colour, need to be kept in mind when videotaping and then capturing video and audio clips, to ensure that the highest quality results are obtained. Before capture is initiated, option settings for colour depth, frame size and audio format should be selected which are consistent with the plans for the overall project. The setup should then be tested by capturing a few test frames before capturing a length sequences.

Compared with relatively mature applications like desktop publishing or image editing, desktop video applications are still at an early stage of development. This is reflected in different approaches used by developers of the applications studied in this chapter to the design of toolsets, menu functions and the means of applying filters, etc. In future application releases we can expect to see progressive improvements in ease of use. Tighter integration with image editing, animation and charting applications will also simplify the task of integrating elements produced in these applications into the mainstream project.