VIDEO PRODUCTION ARTICLES

1. Analyze This! A Production Manager's Insights on Tracking Time and Tasks
   
2. The Invisible Editor
   
3. Slideshow/Outline: 10 Tips for Making Great Video on a Tight Budget
   
4. Five Tips for Lighting Faces for TV
5. Five Tips for Formatting Fonts
6. Do you want fries with that?

Analyze This! 
by Chuck Peters

***AS FEATURED ON THE RAMPANT MEDIA BLOG***

A Production Manager's Insights on Tracking Time and Tasks

There are two questions that you can bet most clients and managers will ask at the onset of any production: “How long will it take?” and “How much is it going to cost?” Unfortunately, these are two questions that a lot of creative people have a hard time answering… at least accurately! Many of us find ourselves making from-the-hip estimations of our expected investment of time on a project. We then become locked in on a rate and a deadline and find ourselves making a commitment to get the job done on time and on budget come heck or high water, only to later regret having not asked for more of both. While there are as many opinions on how to forecast costs and time commitments as there are people who predict them, over the years I have come to believe that the greatest indicator of future potential is past performance. The best way to accurately predict what you can do is it to know what you have done. That’s why I became a hardcore time & task tracker, and why I believe that you should become one too.

Why Bother?

Tracking and analyzing time and tasks is not something that came natural to me. When I was running my own production company I often put in a lot more hours than I expected to get projects done. Sometimes things didn’t go as smoothly as I had planned… other times I was simply overly optimistic. In the end, I often paid the price personally by putting in extra hours (usually when I could have been sleeping). As a result I created unneeded stress for myself… and I made a lot less per hour that I should have. I remember calculating how much I made per hour on some of those early projects… not good. =)

Scheduling, tracking and assessing data on production performances and efficiencies is something that I learned on the job as a production manager, first while managing the Editorial cycle for Videomaker Magazine, then in leading busy production teams at Digital Juice and KIDMO. Somehow when you’re in charge of other people and need to account for how they spend their time, you have no choice but to become a tracker. While my tools are self-built to meet my personal need to log & account for the man hours of multiple people on multiple projects, the principles that I subscribe to can work just as well for a one-man show as they can for a 10-person team.

Tool Time

One of my favorite tools for both scheduling and tracking is Microsoft Excel. My guys joke that I do everything in spreadsheets… and they’re right! I use Excel for task lists, brainstorming projects, writing script outlines, pre-production planning, and post-production analysis. Excel makes it easy to organize items into lists and grids, and to run formulas and calculations that let me quickly see and show progress, track & document efficiencies and make accurate projections. But, since this article is dedicated to tracking, I’ll do my best to stay on track.

I track all of my productions by Three P’s: project, person and phase. This allows me to analyze my data in a number of ways and helps me assess performance, determine inefficiencies and plan & budget for future projects more accurately.

Setting Up the Grid

I start all of my projects by creating a tracking grid with a list of phases (or tasks) of the production. For tracking purposes, I typically think of my team’s production process in 12 distinct phases: Planning, Script Work, Gather/Manage Assets, Screen Capture, Shooting, Audio Acquisition, Audio Post, Graphics/Design, 3D Animation, 2D Animation, Video Editing, and Screenings. (I don’t use all of these for all of my projects, and your projects may have more, less or different phases than these. The example below, for instance, doesn’t include 2D or 3D animation). I then lay out the names of participating team members across the top.

Because the different phases of production require different amounts of effort and contributions of multiple people with differing skill sets, and because each employee works at his or her own pay rate, I have found that it’s important to track the projects I manage in a way that lets me easily analyze the work being done both by person and phase.

With my grid designed and in place, the next step is to set up some simple formulas/equations using Excel’s ‘Sum’ tool to auto-fill totals horizontally for phase, vertically for person, and then to calculate our total team hours in the lower right corner. 

Data Entry

Gathering and entering the data is simple. At the end of each day my team members each send me a simple email telling me how many hours of effort they put into a given phase on each of the projects they are working on. I then enter their hours into the proper field as an equation. So, for example, if someone has worked on editing for three 8-hour days, I would enter their hours in that field as “=8+8+8” and hit enter. The field then shows 24 hours. At the end of each day, I update the equation by adding “+8” (or whatever the person reports). Once in progress, a typical project looks like this:

 

In addition to entering hours by person & phase, I note the details of a person/phase by Inserting a ‘Comments’ field in a cell (represented by the red triangles). In the Comments fields I make detailed notes of dates, hours and specific tasks that were performed that day.

Analyze This

Having this data updated daily helps me manage each project while it is in progress. If I see that we are taking too long on a particular phase, I can discuss the situation with my team, or with a specific individual, and then set limits on our time budget, or make a decision to alter the edit plan to simplify the job. Without this tool, some tasks can linger on day after day, burning up time and resources without coming up on a manager’s radar. With it, I can stay on top of every task on every project without losing track of the details, and I can give progress reports to my CEO and clients on any of the multiple projects I have at a moments notice without breaking a sweat.

In addition, I track dates, from our first production meeting to delivery of the final edit, so I can compare our actual hours of effort to calendar days. So, I may find that by adding resources I may be able to get the same 259.75 hours of work done in fewer calendar days.  

Once the project is complete, I have a permanent record of exactly what effort was required from my team as a whole, and for each individual contributor. This lets me determine exactly how much a production costs in terms of salaries (man hours per person x that person’s hourly rate); which phases require the most time and resources; and serves as a guide to help me accurately predict what will be needed in terms of time and talent for similar projects in the future.

Chuck Peters is a 3-time Emmy award-winning producer and VP of Production at KIDMO/Rivet Productions in Nashville, TN.

The Invisible Editor
by Chuck Peters

***AS FEATURED ON THE RAMPANT MEDIA BLOG***

 

10 Tips for Making Great Video on a Tight Budget
by Chuck Peters

Whether you've been making video for 10 years or 10 minutes, chances are you'd like to make BETTER video, but don't have a lot of money to spend (or ANY). If you can relate... join the club! Every production company I've ever worked for, from basement-based editing operations to NBC affiliates, is in exactly the same boat. The good news is that money isn't the answer to most of your problems! There are some simple secrets that professional producers protect that can set you up for success. This Slideshow (Created as a lecture given at CPC 2009 conventions in Nashville & San Diego) identifies 10 of my personal favorites... PLAY SLIDESHOW.

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Five Tips for Lighting Faces for TV
by Chuck Peters

There's no substitute for good lighting. I'm always surprised at how many producers count on software to fix poor lighting in post. The GIGO principle certainly applies to lighting. The fact is, if you start with grainy, poorly-lit footage, your end result will be compromised. No matter what people tell you, it doesn't matter how good your camera and editing software may be, if you are a lazy lighter, your productions will suffer. Knowing this, the best thing you can do to increase the production quality of your videos is NOT to buy a better camera or a new color-corrector. The first thing you should do is learn to light. While these five tips can't possibly cover all there is to know about lighting, my hope is that they will inspire you to learn to light like the pro that you are.

#1 - SHOOT A THREE-POINTER
Three-point lighting is the time-tested standard for lighting talent for TV and film (Figure 1).

Three-point lighting consists of Key, Fill and Back lights.

Figure 1

A three-point setup consists of a key, a fill and a back light. The key light is typically positioned to the front of the subject, slightly to one side. It provides the primary source of illumination in this setup and its quality and characteristics help to establish the mood of the scene. The fill light is less powerful than the key light. It is positioned on the side opposite the key and serves to soften (or fill-in) the shadows created by the key light. The back light (or hair light) is positioned above and behind the subject so that it casts light on the subject's head and shoulders. This adds depth and separates him from the background. Learning and using three-point lighting isn't difficult. It will make a huge difference in the look of your footage and in the overall professionalism of your productions. If you're not using it, it's time to start.

#2 - SET THE MOOD WITH SHADOWS
When a bright key light is positioned close to the camera, the result is "flat" lighting (Figure 2a).

A key light at the 6:00 position creates a flat, "ordinary" look that is absent of emotion. This look is often used for lighting news setups.

Figure 2a

Flat lighting is emotionally neutral. If you're doing news, this may be fine. But if you want to add emotion, merely flooding your subject with bright, flat, light isn't enough. Lighting can be used to move and manipulate shadows to create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional screen. To add depth, position the key light so that it strikes your subject at an angle (Figure 2b).

A key light positioned at the 4:30 (or 7:30) position adds the illusion of depth without being overly dramatic. This is the preferred position for the key in most three-point lighting setups.

Figure 2b

The size, angle and intensity of the shadows cast by the key help set the mood of the scene. As you move the key farther to the side, the mood becomes more and more dramatic (Figure 2c).

A key light positioned at the 4:30 (or 7:30) position adds the illusion of depth without being overly dramatic. This is the preferred position for the key in most three-point lighting setups.

Figure 2c

Once the key is positioned appropriately, use the fill light to soften its shadows to your liking.

#3 - SOFTEN UP
The hardness or softness of a light can be determined by examining the shadows that it casts on your subject. A hard light casts a dark shadow with a sharp edge transfer (Figure 3a).

Hard light has a narrow shadow edge transfer and a dark, dramatic shadow		Soft light has a wide shadow edge transfer and a softer, lighter shadow. Soft light is typically preferred for lighting faces
Figure 3a		Figure 3b

Soft light casts lighter shadows with a wide gradient shadow-edge transfer (Figure 3b). Soft light is more flattering to the face than hard light and is preferred in most setups. Hard light can make a subject look intense and even wicked. Small, focused lamps cast hard light and shadows. Larger and more diffused lamps cast softer light and shadows. You can soften the effect of a light by adjusting its distance from the subject or by adding diffusion to spread the light.

#4 - HANDLE HARD-TO-LIGHT PEOPLE
Some people are inherently more difficult to light than others. The top three problems you'll run into are: people wearing glasses, bald heads and dark skin. While the solutions are slightly different, the problem is essentially the same: bright reflections and specular highlights that create unattractive, glowing, hot-spots. When lighting a person with glasses, lights placed anywhere near the camera create specular highlights on the lenses of the subject's specs (Figure 4a). Bald heads are less of a problem, but you'll still get small hard light spots across the cranium. When you expose subjects with dark complexions properly, you often end up with hot spots on the tip of the nose, forehead, cheeks and chin.

Lights positioned anywhere near the camera will create ugly, distracting reflections on the lenses of glasses.		Eliminate specular highlights in spectacles by moving lights out to the sides and raising them higher on their stands.
Figure 4a		Figure 4b

For glasses, the solution is to go up and out. Raise your lights higher and position them as far to the sides as possible until the reflections are gone (Figure 4b). People with bald heads or dark skin need to be lit with very large, very soft lights positioned very close. The goal is to make the specular highlight larger than the subject's face, bathing them in soft light.

#5 - LIGHT THE WHOLE SHOT, NOT JUST THE SUBJECT
The job doesn't end when your subject is lit. You're not done until you've lit the whole shot. Save a light or two for your background. Pinch your barndoors down to create a shaft of light across the background or add a gel for a splash of color. Taking a little extra time to dress your set with light will greatly improve the look and feel of your shots.

~cp

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Five Tips for Formatting Fonts
by Chuck Peters

A lot of good editors struggle when it comes to creating top-notch titles. The good news is that formatting fonts isn't difficult if you follow a few simple rules. Whether you design graphics for TV, the printed page or projected presentations, these five tips will save you from the perils of faulty fonting.

#1-BE BOLD
When it comes to finding fonts, go for big, thick and bold (instead of small, thin and swirly) for one simple reason: readability. If something is important enough to reinforce with text, it needs to be presented in a way that's clean, clear and legible (Figure 1). For television applications and often for presentations, become a serif sheriff: Sans serif fonts are thicker, bolder and less swirly than fonts that stand on serifs. For the printed page, serif fonts are often the way to go (pull just about any book off your shelf and see for yourself).

#2-CHOOSE COLORS CAREFULLY
Choose a font color that contrasts well with your background (Figure 2). Certain font colors work well, while others can make you look like an amateur. White text on a dark background is almost always Okay. Bright yellow might be an acceptable choice if you need to draw special attention to a word, phrase or phone number. Dark text on a very light-colored background is fine, but it can be hard on the viewer's eyes if overused for TV or in presentations. Some colors should simply be avoided at all costs. Avoid using bright florescent green, baby blue, pale yellow and Pepto pink. Watch out for reds in broadcast video applications. Red tends to smear and bleed on screen.

#3-GO DEEP
Use drop shadows and outlines to pop your text off the background, create contrast and add an illusion of depth (Figure 3). Shadows and outlines are great ways to make your titles look better, but they also make text easier to read in most situations. Make sure all of your shadows all fall in the same direction. Shadows are almost always black and have the same level of partial transparency, too. The distance of the shadow from the font causes the text to appear closer to or farther from the background, but close is usually better than far. If the shadow is too far from the font, it just looks silly.


#4-BE CONSISTENT
If you're working on a project that uses multiple pages of graphics with text, be wise and templatize. Pick a look you like and stick with it for the entire project. If your fonts change in size, color, position and style from page to page within a project, you will definitely look amateurish. The key to looking professional is consistency. To avoid errors, copy and paste your original and use it as the foundation for each new graphic.

#5-STOP SHORT
Be brief. Don't write out long sentences or full paragraphs. Hit the highlights. Emphasize key points. Star Wars fans take note: The long "Lucas scroll" is not a good choice for most of your productions. Do any of us (besides our hardcore Jedi readers) remember anything beyond "...In a galaxy far away?" There are two exceptions to this rule: if you need to type out (1) a direct quote or (2) a disclaimer. In either case, it is proper to have a narrator (or live speaker) read long titles verbatim. Long textual titles accompanied by silence make viewers very uncomfortable.

In the end, you can apply one simple principle to all of your graphics: Every graphic you use should enhance your message and not be distracting. As soon as the audience stops listening to the message and starts squinting at small text, cringing at the ugly colors or reading paragraphs of text instead of listening to your message, you've got a problem. The best way to learn to build better graphics is to become a student of other people's work: Don't be afraid to imitate good design when you see it.

~cp

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Do you want fries with that?
by Chuck Peters

Everything around us is becoming more modular and more scalable. Fast food may be the best example of this. Today’s fast food isn’t just fast; it’s customizable. I can get a #2 with no mustard and extra pickles, substitute onion rings for fries and get it with a shake instead of a soda. I can even get my kids Jolly Meals with fruit instead of fries. Back in the day, BK had a national ad campaign that was driven by the fact that you could “Have it your way” at their restaurants. Remember the jingle? “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce special orders don’t upset us.” At the time that was a big deal. Most people just ate it the way they made it or went somewhere else. Today, having it our way is the only way. We expect it. Who would accept anything less? The portions are scaleable too. I can get my custom-created-just-to-my-liking #2 combo Regular size, Jumbo size or Gargantuan. It’s up to me! I like that. I bet you do too. As consumers, we all like to have things “our way.” I think fast food chains have done a brilliant job of serving us their “content” in modular combinations and scalable portions.

As a video producer, writer and host, I wish that I could do that for my viewers. As producers, we face a dilemma when it comes to distributing our programs. There just isn’t a good way to create and present a video in a modular format that can be customized by the viewer on playback. We edit video in a nonlinear, random access fashion, but (with very few exceptions) our viewers still watch our productions as linear presentations. They start at the beginning and they have to watch the middle to get to the end. In my opinion, that’s too rigid for today’s busy, fast food content consumers.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could watch your own custom-created edit of a video, rather than being forced to settle for the one-size-fits-all option created for a mass audience? I think it would be cool to be able to offer my viewers optional 2-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute versions of a show and let them choose which version they’d like to watch. Sure, I could edit and distribute 3 or 4 versions of a show on DVD or post 4 versions to a web page, but that’s way too time consuming and bandwidth intensive. It’s not practical. What I want is a way to create one edit, the full-length version, and then embed invisible markers into the file to assign commands that would re-direct or re-sequence the show on the fly during playback based on the viewer’s individual level of interest in the episode.
So, a short version of a Field of View episode, for instance, might play the opening, then seamlessly jump to a quick example, then skip to the “so what” part of the conclusion in a way that’s totally seamless to the viewer.

QuickTime, Flash and DVD can all sort of do this, but none of them is meant to do this or makes it a fast and easy process for the editor and a high quality viewing experience for the viewer. My hope is that it won’t be long before we see this kind of technology built into editing applications.

I predict that, in the future, the way we distribute video will have to change to become more viewer-customizable. Our shows will need to become modular and scalable. Viewers want to watch videos on their own terms; they just don’t know it yet! Until that day comes, they’ll just have to watch what we give them… or exercise their right to turn us off.

~cp

Have a question or comment? Email me at cpeters45@gmail.com