Beware the Unscrupulous Demo Makers!!!

If you’re an aspiring actor/actress or some other in-front-of-the-camera type hoping for your big break, chances are no matter how talented you are, your film or video production experience doesn’t necessarily match your on-camera skills.

This can make you vulnerable to those within the film/video industry seeking to prey upon those with these dreams to make themselves some big money. Watch out! If somebody says they will do your “demo” DVD for an outrageous amount of money, don’t do it!

I have had many actor/talent friends who’ve practically bankrupted themselves because some unscrupulous production person or company impressed them with the bells and whistles of “network quality” video.

Here’s the scoop! If someone is looking for an on-air personality or actor, they are presumably the professionals who have the ability to make you look “marvelous, darling” to quote Billy Crystal’s old Fernando character from Saturday Night Live. If they’re searching for talent, they AREN’T looking for “knock your socks off” production values from YOU!

What they are looking for is a professional demeanor, good, crisp audio that isn’t hard to listen to, decent lighting and your talent! That’s it! You shouldn’t be spending more than $150 tops on something like that and in many cases, such as having your own equipment you can probably even do it yourself! Don't don’t forget to put your contact info at the beginning of the DVD or tape and good luck!

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Hire a video professional

As a teacher, I often tell my students that film or video is basically the same, whether you’re a professional or an amateur. “The professionals, especially in Hollywood, just have bigger toys.”

As a video professional however, I’m at the same time disturbed at just how easily video can be shot, edited and uploaded by amateurs to a video sharing site. Is this because I am part of a business and hate to see potential clients go “out the window?” I can honestly say the answer to that question is “no”. What bothers me about this situation is the client becomes a victim!

What do I mean by this? Well, those who dabble in video, both shooting and editing have access to equipment that years ago would have been impossible to even imagine. They can produce special effects in both sound and video. That’s fine, but in most cases without experience or a real education about video or film, what they are producing is an unwatchable mess!

In my experience the victim or client many times has even LESS of a concept of what makes a good video piece than the amateur enthusiast! So what you end up with is an inexperienced person making a video for someone who doesn’t even know what to look for or what they want!

By putting themselves in the hands of a rank amateur who only “dabbles” because they happen to have access to this equipment, a business person for example, is jeopardizing the message that they are sending. Worse, they are jeopardizing the professional image that they want to project. Here’s an example. What if the Marriott Hotel chain decided to save money on their next commercial and have an amateur or 12 year old produce it? It wouldn’t impress many people would it? In fact, wouldn’t you think twice about spending the night in that hotel chain?

Not hiring a professional video producer is very much like someone who wants a website but doesn’t have the money to pay for it. We’ve all seen those websites with too many colors, a horribly amateurish layout with grammar and spelling errors galore!

What I’m saying is, when you want something done in brick, you wouldn’t attempt that yourself, you’d get a mason. When you want someone to fly a plane, you don’t just rent one, you hire a professional pilot. When you want a wedding catered, you don’t get your aunt or grandmother to do it, you get a professional caterer (unless your aunt or grandmother are professional caterers themselves)!

Get the idea? Video is no different than these other professions, in that for an impressive, professional job, you need someone who knows what they’re doing. For the best video results, hire a video professional!

By Leonard A. Caplan

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"What is Video Editing?"

By Leonard Aaron Caplan

"This video has to be edited!", "We can do it in post!". Those two statements are very common in our video/film/digital industry. Yet, there are people who continually ask the question, "What is editing?". For me, who have been in video since 1979, this is akin to asking the question, "what is "the"? We all know it, use it and recognize it and its results, but we'd be hard pressed to define it in words.

Nevertheless, I'm going to try. For one thing, editing is the process of putting something into a logical, storytelling, attractive order. You can edit writing, as I'm doing in this piece. As I go along, I read it back and either add, delete, correct spelling, etc. In editing film or video there is a lot more involved. In shooting a movie for example, the "raw", unedited shots may show a dialogue between two people. In the middle of the dialogue, there may be a mispronounced word, or an audio "pop" from a flawed part of the tape, or even a visual spot that would have to be removed. Editing, whether digital, analog or a physical cut of a film can take this away. Add a shot to take its place, one which we call a "cutaway", and you end up with a scene that is not only fixed but enhanced in meaning because of this cutaway shot.

Other types of editing involve not simply covering up a mistake but enhancing a scene with dramatic background music, changing the scene from color to black and white, perhaps selectively adding color, adding sound effects, the possibilities are endless!

The advent of computer-based editing has added another component. Through digital imaging, entire characters, places and situations that don't exist on this Earth can be created!

In summary, editing film or video is a. correcting, deleting or covering up mistakes. b. enhancing audio and video with music and/or sound effects and c. entire scenes, settings and characters can be created.

So when editors say "editing is everything", they aren't kidding! From the special visual effects which lifted Dorothy's house in "The Wizard of Oz" to a fully created universe such as "The Matrix", editing lets us realize our vision to the fullest. It translates our imaginations to the screen, at times even enhancing what we've imagined into things we haven't even dreamed of! In short, editing is what we want our project to be!

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What Will Play On What? And What Will Not??

by Leonard Aaron Caplan

Too often we find that people are confused about Blu-Ray, HD and what can or cannot be played on a DVD or Blu-Ray player. For those of you also wondering, here’s the scoop. Blu-Ray is the current standard format for high-definition video. HD-DVD, the competing high defintion format put out by Toshiba, was soundly defeated in the market some time ago and Toshiba stopped making those player entirely.

So what we have left today are Blu-Ray and regular DVD. A regular DVD can be played on a DVD player as well as a Blu-Ray player. BUT…..a Blu-Ray disc will not play on a regular DVD player. If you by any chance have one of those left-over HD-DVDs, they may or may not play on a Blu-Ray player and they too will definitely not play on a regular DVD player.

Hope that clears things up for you all out there!

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What About Editing?..............Editing? By Leonard Aaron Caplan

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER-"Hey, will you tape my (fill in the blank....................{

wedding, birthday party, anniversary, quincenearo,etc."

ME-"Sure, when is it?"

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER- (gives date) "How much?"

ME-Oh,,,about (I give the price)

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER-"What? I can get my nephew for free! Why is shooting a ______________so expensive? It's only a few hours!"

ME- "What about editing"?

POTENTIAL (confused) CUSTOMER-"Editing??"

This little fictional dramatic exchange is an example of something very common in the world of videography. The potential customer forgets or doesn't realize that a video needs editing to look and sound good!

In 2009, we've all grown up and are used to video images telling a story, having a main character or characters to identify with, camera angle changes, music as a theme or in the background, etc. But some people don't realize how a video gets that way!

The customer sees the videographer videotaping an event, but doesn't see what happens afterward!

The point is, what goes by on the screen in the blink of an eye and possibly not even noticed on a conscious level, takes hours and hours of decision making and concentration! A minute of an edited video, say a little musical montage of how a couple met for example, can take many hours! Getting the images to change at just the right second to go with the music, even PICKING the music itself is challenging! Did you know that putting together a 30 second commercial or Public Service Announcement can take between 15 to 40 hours, depending on required effects?

Ok, now that you know that, how long would you estimate producing a polished wedding or quincenearo would take?

Now that you get the idea, please don't forget that producing a high quality, watchable video of any type requires a lot more that what is visible to the person doing the hiring.

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Learn from the 'Net! It's Free and Easy!

By Leonard Aaron Caplan

There’s a new learning phenomenon on the internet. Well, maybe not new to you or most people but definitely new to me. And that’s YouTube Tutorials! It’s amazing how anytime you might have a question about Photoshop, a non-linear video editing program, or basically any program, it’s a safe bet you can find the answer from some generous, knowledgable amateur. Results vary, of course from the 13 year old computer geek with the squeaky voice who knows everything about everything you could want to know about how to chroma key a weather map, to the mature, professorial grey haired type who SHOULD be able to give you the answer you want to know, but really only says a lot of nothing!

These tutorials are mostly unsanctioned by the companies of the software they teach. This is both a good and a bad thing. It’s good because nobody has an agenda other than sincerely teaching you what you may want or need to know. It’s bad because being unregulated and unsanctioned, you don’t know what you’re getting! If you’re discerning enough to be able to tell the difference between valuable information and MISinformation, YouTube, Google or other online video tutorials can be a fantastic way to save money and learn. If you want a more consistently reliable source of learning, bite the bullet and pay for it. When it comes to learning, the best thing is to always have an opened mind and believe that you are capable not only of learning a new skill, but excelling at it. Try one and you decide!

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The Business Side of Video-TV to the Web, How Advertising/Sponsorship is Changing

Recordable video has been around since the 60’s, beginning with Kinoscope, which was more film-like than video and today we preserve our memories via harddrives. We’ve talked about how one day video will be available primarily on huge servers, YouTube being the most popular “world-server” today.

What does this mean for the business side of television? The traditional system of selling ad time for commercials seems to be giving way, or at least making room for a system of posting a video online and simply having clickable boxes or banners take you to the advertiser’s website.

Is this good or bad for the video business? Looking at it one way, less commercial production means less video contracts for production companies as computer/web technology merges and in some cases takes the place of video production.

Looking at it another way, the opportunity for video production is beginning to head into another “boom” period! Though the above scenario of web clicking is in some cases taking over from video production companies producing commercials, other opportunities are arising.

Streaming video, that phenomenon where video is broadcast “live” across the web, is growing! People love the idea that their relatives can see their wedding ceremony even as companies teleconference to people on the other side of the world to people who can’t make it to a meeting at a business’s home base.

What about the profitability of video being streamed online? Say you have a cable TV show or simply a show or segment produced in your home with industrial or consumer video equipment? What if not that many people are finding your video on YouTube or blip.tv?

Sites such as tubemogul.com allow you to upload a video there and they will in turn automatically transfer your video to a plethora of other video uploading sites! This will surely translate into more “hits” for advertisers and more cash for both advertisers and web/video content creators. Today is a very exciting time for not only video producers and companies, but for consumers and businesses who have more opportunities than ever to make video work for them!

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What Makes an Audience Care?

What makes a good film or video? What engages you as a viewer? What separates the good from the bad or mediocre? Before we answer that, first, another question. What makes a good movie? Film analysts have found that it's not the special effects, car crashes, shock value, violence or sex that makes something we watch good or bad. It's two very simple things. 1. the story. 2. the characters.

An example of what I'm talking about is the second Tomb Raider movie. Nobody went, despite the action, special effects and the star power and sex appeal of Angelina Jolie.The movie disappeared very quickly! Why? A horrible script and not a real human being the audience could root for!

Ok, that's a movie but you know what? The same thing applies to every kind of film, video, webcast, etc. If someone's taping a wedding or quinceañera, to satisfy the audience, the videographer must show the human drama of getting ready at the house, rushing to be on time, etc. This element makes the actual event that much more satisfying. A commercial? We all remember the Dunkin Donuts "Time to make the donuts" man getting to work at 5am, or the cavemen who get insulted by the "so easy, even a caveman can do it". Both of these have lead characters the audience can get behind, as well as a "plot". The plot is the reason the character has to do something. The Dunkin Donuts man HAS to make the donuts for all the customers who want them. The cavemen WANT the insurance people to stop equating cavemen with simplicity for their ad campaigns. Or go back to the Trix cereal rabbit! He wants to get the tricks, only to be stopped by those two obnoxious kids saying "Silly rabbit! Trix are for kids!"

Even reality TV has their plots, heroes and villains. Good guys/girls, plot and character. Who's hooking up with who, or who's betraying who behind their back? Think about it.

So if you're shooting a video, however it's done, by yourself or hiring a company, keep in mind that you want your audience to identify or root for a main character, and have a story to tell. These are what makes an audience, ANY audience watch and care!

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Camcorders: Is Bigger Necessarily Better? By Leonard Aaron Caplan

When it comes to video cameras is bigger necessarily better? Whew! I’m glad I avoided that somewhat sleazy cliché, “does size matter?” lol. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll ask this question. When you see a videographer at a wedding or other event, are you more impressed by a cameraperson with a huge camera or conversely, if you see someone with a very tiny video camera, are you disappointed?

If you think a larger camcorder is “better”, you’re not alone. When most of the video world was analog, the larger cameras meant three tubes or later on three chips which definitely meant better depth and quality of image. This was true of tapes as well. One and two inch tapes were professional quality, U-Matic ¾ inch industrial, Betamax and VHS ¾ inch for consumers.

When everything went digital, all of a sudden, size wasn’t an issue anymore. Today’s tiny palmcorders and handicams produce substantially better quality images than a lot of the larger cameras of the 80’s and 90’s. Who would have thought that a tiny miniDV tape shot in a camcorder no bigger than a kitten would be capable of such clarity and be so good in low light?

There is another downside to using the miniaturized camcorders of today besides the “lightweight” (pun intended) reputation smaller devices have with the public. That is the weight of these machines being so light, that it is sometimes difficult for the shooter to hold a steady shot without a tripod.

As a video professional at Higher Dreams Productions I myself prefer medium sized, three chip camcorders for the added weight and balance that they have. But I never discount the value of their baby lightweight siblings to take along on a shoot for a backup camera in case the unthinkable happens and the main camera suddenly develops a problem that makes it unusable.

Whatever the size camera, there is a definite place for both in the world of videography and always will be.

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The Incredible, Shrinking Video Storage Problem!

In the 1980s, consumer videotaping became the norm, with VHS defeating Betamax to nab the lion’s share of the video market. For the first time, people could tape their favorite TV shows or movies and watch them later.

Flash-forward twenty odd years, and you most likely had a basement or attic filled with space-smothering tapes, no doubt some unlabelled, most you probably haven’t watched or even looked at for years. The solution? Copy your tapes to DVD!

In 2009, despite the innovation and growth in popularity of Blu-Ray,the winner over HD-DVD in the high definition war of 2007-08, it’s safe to say the DVD is still king of visual digital media-for the most part.

The question is, “what will we choose to watch and store our videos on in five, ten or even twenty years?

There are mp3 files, which can be stored on your computer, harddrive, ipod or other mp3 players and of course, mini-DVDs, smaller versions of the long time favorite mentioned above.

So how do you choose a format and if you make a choice, how long will its’ popularity last? Say you’ve dubbed (pro-video speak for “copy”) your entire videotape collection to DVD and you’ve thrown away the original tapes. What if they stop making DVD players? What if they make the MICRO mini DVD player instead? Would you then copy your DVDS to micro mini DVDs? What if those things are as small as a thumbnail? There comes a point where you have to say, “ok, small is great for saving space, but any smaller and the average person is going to lose items in their collections as easy as we lose a contact lens!

I just don’t know where it will all end! Maybe the Earth will have world peace, all the countries on the globe will have international boundaries and we’ll all be ready, and willing to store all of our precious videos on one, gigantic WORLD SERVER!

What? Oh yeah. I guess we kinda do have an approximation of such a thing with sites like YouTube. Maybe it’s best to quote Doris Day and say “Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be” and stop worrying about it! Just enjoy your video collection no matter what format it’s on.

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Video as an Afterthought...

We get calls all the time from people who want a 'rush' job! Whether it's taping a commercial, an industrial video, wedding or quinceañero, preserving home movies on tape or DVD, some people always seem to want their video "yesterday", if you know what I mean! The reason for this is obvious. Video is an afterthought! We're video people of course, so it's particularly difficult for us to understand how people's special message or unique keepsakes, could EVER be considered last!! We got into this business to help people get their message across, to preserve and enhance a memorable event, to tell stories and yes, to create works of art!

Some people just don't realize the importance of video! No, wait! They DO realize its importance, but only at the last minute after they realize what they'll be missing if they don't HAVE a video, THAT'S when they'll give us a call! Herein lies the problem!

All our lives, we are bombarded with television, music videos, etc. so I guess most people take for granted that they're always available! For the videographer, however, a day's or even an hour's notice simply adds unnecessary stress to the situation! In order to give a client their full money's worth, some planning must be involved.

Our suggestion for people is to think of video not as "frosting on the cake", but as an important part of the cake itself! In your advertising campaign, realize that video is just as important as print or the Internet. Make it a part of the budget and as you're making some phone calls, find out who the best videographer is for the money you have to spend. For weddings or quinceañeros, same thing! As you're consulting your wedding planner, finding your venue, searching for the caterer; get demo DVDs and prices from at least three videographers. And do these things MONTHS before you want them. Do this and we promise you you'll have much less stress in your life!

In any importance venture, there should be NO afterthoughts! As your parents taught you when you went to school, "plan ahead and don't procrastinate!" You'll never be sorry!

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Common Courtesy in Business

It seems to be a trend that a client, whether corporate or average consumer will request a quote for whatever video service they want or need and then..................they disappear!!! I wonder if they would do the same if they realized how much time and effort it takes to get price quotes from vendors on video equipment, tapes, lights, studio rental, etc.? Of course, everyone has a right to choose whom they want or don't want to do business with. That's not the point! The point is an all too rare thing is our society these days called "common courtesy". If you don't want our services, at least tell us asap! Don't leave us hanging and make us keep calling, wasting money, time and energy that could more productively be used to pursue other prospects!

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The Cutting Edge!

Welcome to our first blog! At Higher Dreams Productions, though we specialize in video production, we try to stay at the cutting edge of all forms of communication. I guess you could say that blogging is our latest method of keeping our clients and colleagues up to speed on what we're doing.

A short history of video since the 1980s can gain us some insight on where we're going and why. In the 80s and earlier, video was video, audio was audio, print was print and that's all there was!

With the advent of computers and the Internet of course, all that changed! All of us video people had to start re-educating ourselves in the 1990s to use non-linear editing systems, digital "camcorders" (a word that never existed before!) and eventually high definition, "streaming" video, ipods and webcams came into the mix! Where will it all "end"? The truth is, as long as there are innovative people and companies, the answer is "never". There will always be new worlds to conquer, new technologies to master. This is all well and good as long as we remember that innovations and technology must serve a productive purpose. Either they should make existing task or tasks easier and less time consuming, or let us do what had been impossible before, aiding our storytelling abilities in ways heretofore unimaginable. Special effects must be more than ends to themselves. They should upgrade and uplift our works of art.

Where does blogging come in? Through blogs and our monthly newsletter, Higher Dreams Productions hopes to let our clients and colleagues in on our own innovations and upgrades. We want to let you all know that we plan not only to be on the cutting edge, but at the forefront of it!

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