Digital Video - October 2008 - (Page 34)

DV 101 BY JAY HOLBEN ONLINE HORRORS PRODUCING THE WEB VIDEO SERIES CRYPTIQUE CREATED A TANGLE OF TECH ISSUES. I ’m currently in postproduction on the first Web series that I’ve produced, a horror movie review show called Cryptique. I first stumbled across the show on MySpace. Created by a Pennsylvania college student named Sophia Baxter, Cryptique is a cross between Joe Bobb Brigg’s Drive-In Theater and Mystery Science Theater 3000. With Miko Macabre, the hostess (played by Baxter), who is a witty, young, modern-day Elvira meets Tom Servo, the show caught my attention right away. After trading several messages with Baxter and watching her next two episodes, I started negotiations for my company to take over the production of the show and try to get it out to a larger audience. Although I have been involved with video on the Web since the late 1990s — when things were significantly more difficult to do than they are today — Cryptique is the first Web series I’ve been directly involved with. As we’re nearing a final cut of the show’s first episode (which will premiere in October at www.Cryptiquetv.com), there are a few tidbits of wisdom that I may be able to impart to those of you considering putting your own work on the Web. The early decision was made to shoot the show in standard 4:3 (1.33:1) aspect ratio. Nearly all of the standard Web video sites display their content in the classic television 4:3 aspect ratio. Since most video online is standard-definition (640x480) resolution or smaller, we elected to forgo the letterboxing (which would have made the image smaller) necessary to present a widescreen program and shoot in 1.33:1. There were some surprising advantages to this — one was set design. With the 16:9 aspect ratio, if we were to shoot Miko in a full body shot, it would require a wider set and set design. Maintaining the same framing in 1.33:1, it was much easier to keep the set’s width down, meaning that a standard 12' x 12' solid was a sufficient backdrop. If we had shot in 16:9, we would have had to step up to a 20' backdrop, which would have increased the cost. The height remains the same as we’re rarely, if ever, framing the scene wider than a full body shot. Being a “film guy,” I elected to shoot the show in 24p mode. We utilized a Canon XL2 recording to Mini DV tape. As there are clips from the movies being discussed in the show, I felt that shooting the entire show in 24p mode would blend more smoothly with the film clips and give the show, overall, a more “pleasing” look. It also opened the door to shooting 30p for specific segments where we wanted a more “soap opera” like look. As this is a business experiment for me, I kept the production and dv october 2008 Miko Macabre (Sophia Baxter) is the hostess of Cryptique. budget extremely small. It was made with an absolute skeleton crew — primarily just myself and Sophia the majority of the time — so I needed to simplify as much as possible. Although the set consists of black and red predominantly, I went with a medium contrast feel to the lighting to better translate with compression codecs later on. I’ve found too little contrast tends to turn to mush online and too much contrast gets too sharp, blocky and aliased. The show was lit with an Arri 650W Fresnel through a small Chimera as Sophia/Miko’s key light, an Arri 150W Fresnel and 4' 4Bank Kino Flo as backlights and second 4' 4-Bank Kino with daylight tubes for lighting the backdrop. Sophia preferred a warm tone to the show, so although I was primarily lighting with tungsten, I set the camera to a daylight color balance to achieve a very warm look, which accentuates her skin tone and the red of the couch on which she’s perched. Red is a dangerous color, however, and I anticipate some issues with that in compression later on. Red tends to “bleed” between pixels, which causes havoc in compression. More than likely, I’ll have to tone down the red slightly in color correction before compressing the episodes. Compression is an entirely different can of beans, to be sure. In my previous experience, I’ve found that I’m most happy with QuickTime video online, and I generally turn to the H.264 codec. One of the best tips I’ve discovered is to always deinterlace the footage during compression. There’s no reason to have an interlaced image on the Web, and it generally causes more artifacts than anything else. Deinterlacing removes the vertical aliasing seen during motion in QuickTime videos and makes for a sharper, cleaner picture online. I’ve worked with Apple’s Compressor and Autodesk’s Media Cleaner, and www.dv.com 34 http://www.Cryptiquetv.com http://www.dv.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Digital Video - October 2008

Digital Video - October 2008 Contents First Look: Creative Suite 4 D800 Raid Edirol F-1 Video Field Recorder Universal Dolly BT-LH1760 Monitor Bench Test: XDCAM EX PMW-EX1 Camcorder The Dead Can Dance Cutting Crew Unrest In Peace DV101 Production Diary

Digital Video - October 2008

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