Tips and explanations from GVI about the video production process:

Shooting

Post Production

Multimedia

Distribution

Shooting

How do I decide whether to shoot with a full-size camera or a mini-camera?

Full-size broadcast cameras have better lenses. They allow the cameraperson to set up the shot quickly and produce sharper images. They can zoom in closer and zoom out wider.   These features aren’t as important when capturing medium shots of your family and friends. But if you’re looking to creatively tell a story – and capture images that really stick in your mind – you need a professional lens. The pictures really do look better. Newer full-size cameras also record on discs so you have a physical copy of what you shoot. This eliminates the transfer problems that can pop up when you record on computer cards.

Mini-cameras are good for working in cramped areas, for producers working as one-person crews, to get extra shots to complement the main camera and when the presence of a larger camera may intimidate those that you’re filming.

What are the pros and cons of shooting with a camera that records on memory cards?

Pros: 

  • Cameras that record on chips are generally cheaper, which may be reflected in the crew rate
  • The video is transferred to a hard drive at the end of the shoot, so you save money by not buying discs.

Cons: 

  • Recording on chips is less foolproof than recording on discs
  • There’s no "original copy" of your footage
  • The transfer process is prone to human error.  If your footage is incorrectly transferred and the chips are erased before you realize it, then you're out of luck.

Post Production

What is time code and how do I use it?
Time code is a unique time stamp recorded with each frame of video. It makes it easy to identify the good takes when you review your footage and find those exact same segments during the edit.

What do "4:3" and "16:9" mean?

These "aspect ratios" tell you the shape of an image by describing their relative width and height. HDTV images are 16:9 and are wider than the 4:3 images that used to fill your TV screen.

What does "letter-boxed" mean?
Letter-boxed video has black bars on the top and bottom of the video. It’s used to display 16:9 video on a 4:3 screen.

What does "pillar-boxed" mean?
Pillar-boxed video has black bars on the left and right of the video. It’s used to display 4:3 video on a 16:9 screen.

How do you combine images in different aspect ratios in one video?
You can squeeze or stretch one set of images to fit the chosen aspect ratio or use pillar-boxing or letter-boxing as needed (preferable).

What should I save from completed projects?
  • the original discs, videotapes or video files from the camera 
  • graphics files
  • narration files  
  • an .mp4 or .mov file of the completed program for the Internet
  • a DVD master 
  • the Avid project folder with the digitized media from the master sequence, so the whole project can be quickly reloaded to make changes

Multimedia

What is Flash?
Flash is the name of Adobe’s multimedia creation program. It’s used to create interactive presentations for the web and CD-ROM. It also refers to the type of video file that plays in presentations created with Flash and on many websites.

What’s the difference between a Flash “player” and a Flash “file”?
The player is the box that displays the video. It contains controls to stop/start the clip, raise/lower the audio and expand the video to fill the screen. The file is the video itself. You need to put it in a player in order to view it.

Distribution

How do I play my video at an event?
The best way is to play a DVD on a DVD player. Playing a QuickTime movie from a computer is also a good option.

How much video fits on a DVD?
Roughly 2 hours on a single layer disc

How much high definition (HDTV) video fits on a Blu-Ray disc?
Roughly 4 ½ hours on a single layer disc