American Medical Associaion House of Delegates Opening Video

Jeff says:

Four weeks before the AMA convened its semi-annual meeting they approached one of our clients and asked them too produce an opening video for the convention. The video was to highlight the seven planks of health system reform. You can read about their position at the AMA HSR microsite to which we also provide services.

Once the agency had lined up all the doctors we got the crews together. Time was tight, we had to have a few crews working simultaneously, so Tom McCosky and Dave Cosby were hired. The client had also lined up an interview with Joanna Rudnick, a patient that had been denied coverage because of her family history with breast and ovarian cancer.

Once shooting was finished the fun stuff began. We the took all of our interview selects and tossed them into different “buckets.” One bucket for tort reform another for the SGR and so on. After we had all our good takes sorted we looked at all on Joanna Rudnick’s interview and got all of her good takes sorted we knew she would be a good thread for the entire piece. Then we started to weave together the story with Joanna commenting on her situation and doctors responding in kind.

The first reaction from the AMA was very positive and we just had a few minor changes. After we completed the revisions I took the video into Apple’s Color. I really wanted to separate the interviews with Joanna from the doctors, so I added a color tint to the windows and more saturation to the bricks and a vignette.

Here is the original:



Here is the final look:


I also went through the entire piece corrected all the other interviews and b-roll, then returned to final cut to complete the final audio mix.

Here is the final piece.

Beyond the Pedway

We are profiled the week on Beyond the Pedway.

Beyond The Pedway is a weekly video podcast dedicated to highlighting the creative entrepreneurs of Chicago.

Created by Tim Jahn, Beyond The Pedway seeks to discover creative entrepreneurs and explore their unique story of passion, dedication, and what truly excites them. A song from a local Chicago band is featured during the intro and credits of each episode.

Special Olympics

Jeff says:
Genesis of a project:
It always amazes me how many different people I meet at my kids sporting events.

This summer was no exception; my son Jack started playing travel baseball for the Oak Park Eagles. Travel baseball is pretty time consuming with 6 to 7 days a week of practices or games for the entire month of July. Needless to say you get to know the other families very well. Jack’s coach, Chris Winston works for Special Olympics Illinois and asked if we’d like to help him with a pro bono video about an upcoming fundraiser, the Illinois Law Enforcement Torch Run Plane Pull.


After baseball wrapped up, we set up a meeting with Chris to find out his needs for the video: recruit more sponsors and teams for next years Plane Pull. Our producer Stacey Evenson worked with Chris and set up all the details for the production. She recruited our friend and excellent photog Tom McCosky to shoot the plane pull.

Production:
The event included a couple of dozen 20 person teams from area law enforcement and fire departments as well as a number of local businesses. Each team played a tug-of-war with a UPS Airbus A300 aircraft (weighing more than 198,000 lbs.) at the Lynxs Cargo Area of O'Hare International Airport in Chicago all for the benefit of Special Olympics.

Stacey and Tom showed up at 7am and worked straight through a beautiful sunny September day. They recorded interviews with Mayor Richard M. Daley, Tom Reasoner director of the Illinois Law Enforcement Torch Run and many of the event participants. Tom really delivered some great footage. Great close ups of the participants pulling the rope, beautiful wide shots of the plane and the people.

Post:
After the event Tom delivered about 45 gigs of 720P30 P2 media to Motion Post and it was my job to make it into something coherent. I usually just go through all the footage and interviews to get a first impression, taking notes as I go. From there I’ll start to get my themes together, team names, plane pull techniques, how fun the event was, etc. With all the interviews categorized, I started to put together the show.

I decided to do a little montage at the top to create a little drama and excitement for the event. From there I figured I’d talk about the Special Olympics just in case a viewer did not know about the charity. After the brief Special Olympics introduction, I’d move into the event, showing the audience how fun it was to participate. For music, I grabbed a jazz track for the body of the show and an uplifting guitar piece for the end. Then I figured I needed some heart beats for the beginning along with a an uplifting track to help create the tension.

The first cut went over very well with our clients at the charity. They changed around a few bites and added a little voice over to the end. After making the changes I moved the entire sequence into Apple’s Color to color correct and finish the show. I really like taking the time to play in Color; the footage looked great originally but Color was able to really get the best out of each frame, adding more blue to the sky and pulling down the luminance on the concrete of the tarmac.

Take a look at the final product.

The Critics, Episode 2

Our new editing project for Zacuto Films.

All of the [CRITICS] episodes can be found here.

The Critics

Ed says:
In our new editing project for Zacuto Films, [CRITICS], film/video veterans, Steve Weiss, Director of FilmFellas & Critics, and Philip Bloom, a London based Cinematographer and Filmmaker, come together as dueling co-hosts to candidly critique web based video content.

[CRITICS] is an eclectic mix of personalities, perspectives and laughter.

AMA Virtual Town Hall, Part 2

(Motion Post and it's employees do not represent the AMA or speak on it's behalf. My opinions are my own and are not necessarily those of Motion Post or the AMA or it's affiliates or anyone else for that matter.)

AMA Virtual Town Hall

Ed says:
I'm working on a series of "Virtual Townhall" videos for the the American Medical Association. I generally don't allow my political views to mix with my business, but I have to say I have been VERY impressed by their stance in these pieces on the subject of health system reform.

Right now they are starting a major push to raise the level of the conversation and express their own take on the subject. I'll post more links as I am able.



(Just so we are clear -- Motion Post and it's employees do not represent the AMA or speak on it's behalf. My opinions are my own and are not necessarily those of Motion Post or the AMA or it's affiliates or anyone else for that matter.)

Kittens in Paper Bags

There has been a lot of talk in the last couple of years about "Viral Video". I've seen a number of producers try to sell the concept to small businesses in an attempt to somehow leverage the power of the internet on the cheap.

As Michael Hoffman's article points out, this rarely works.

The people who are most successful on YouTube aren’t focused on making a single viral video. They are making a series of videos with a character or a set-up that is interesting and brings people back for more. In other words, they are building an audience through regular production of videos that tell stories. That’s what you should be thinking about. By investing in many videos over a long period of time, you are also much more likely to hit on one that attracts others to join your long-term audience.

As I was doing research to create an article about our observations and experiences at Motion Post in working in this new field of Web Series (FilmFellas produced by Zacuto Films is one of the best examples), I ran across Michael Hoffman's essay on Beth's Blog that captures our thinking exactly. One quick note: the essay is primarily concerned about "Non-Profits", but really the concepts are true for any business.

So read it over... Then give me call, we don't produce "viruses", we help you create fans of your business.


...
Ok, in spite of all that, I can't resist. Let me introduce you to Moru:

I've now edited a lot of interesting FilmFellas episodes. Today Zacuto released one of my favorites so far. Check it out.

Time Travel

Ed says:

This is kind of a sneak preview from my roughcut of episode 1 of Cast 4 of the FilmFellas series. (This clip is not full resolution at this point.)

The sentiment that John Goolsby expresses in this clip is pretty inspiring. I've been editing for 20 years and I never thought of what I do for a living in quite this way before. I like the idea that I can provide "time travel" for my clients.

I don't really do Wedding Video Films, but this show has sparked a new respect for it in me.

The final cut of this episode will be released August 5, 2009 here.

I'll be linking to the full episode once it's released.

Post it Notes

Our interview in Screen Magazine touches on some of the issues we are tackling in the post industry here in Chicago. I will be writing more in the coming months about our approach and the ways we are helping our clients leverage the "lower barrier to entry" that the current state of the art offers.

SCREEN: When you started Motion Post, what were your initial thoughts to establishing your niche?

MP: During our conversations in 2006 we realized that - and I think everyone sees this now - the old big post house model was quickly dying. The development of inexpensive and easy to use computer based editorial tools has “commoditized” the process. What had once been an expensive and difficult step in most video production is now neither and the big post services companies were finding themselves competing against small flexible creative individuals with nearly the same technical capabilities using new technology.

We work to leverage the same aspects of the state of the art that have cut so deeply into other campanies’ bottom line. Our first answer to that transition was to create our Mobile Editing System and it was the best investment we ever made.

Your can read more at:
Screen Magazine - Post it Notes

Compression for the Web

I recently received this note from an editor, Mike, who was familiar with some of the web series we've done. More and more, TV and industrial post guys are being asked to deliver for the internet.  My answers sum up some of the techniques I've learned in the last few years, so I thought I would share the conversation.  

I use Elgato's Turbo H.264 for some of my compression work. It's fabulous.  I know a lot of Pro's that carry one in their pocket wherever they go (you know; in case someone has a video compression emergency -- or something...).

Anyway, if you have ever been in Mike's situation, I'd love to hear what your  tips and trick might be.  First, Mikes questions:

Ed,

I've been shooting a number of sporting events recently which end up being between 6 and 12 minutes per event including all editing. This is where the Turbo H.264 comes into play.

I have to create an .mp4 file using AAC for audio (mono 64 kbps, etc...) and H.264 for video. My starting video is a Quicktime DV file exported out of FCP. If I open up each item with Quicktime Player and export as .MP4  (Movie to MPEG-4) you can choose the compressor as H.264 as well as other settings. This is fine and dandy, but it is SLOW!!!! I can gang up several, but it churns on them all at the same time and is even slower.... If I go this route it's obviously much better to do one or two at a time.

I'd rather use [Apple's] Compressor (I don't have Episode or something else) so I can batch 'em up, create multiple sets of default settings and drop 20 videos and walk away or keep working on something else. Compressor is a bit weird with creating an .MP4 file. I don't have it in front of me now, so I'm going from memory. If you choose to create an H.264 compressed file, it uses Quicktime as the container and hence has a .mov extension. If you choose MPEG-4, it creates a file compressed with the old MPEG-4 Part 2 compression but does indeed have an .MP4 container and extension.

Quicktime Player seems to do it right in terms of creating a .MP4 container and allowing you to choose compressors such as H.264. Compressor to say the least is confusing and convoluted with this.

I guess I'm looking to be able to create an H.264 compressed video file with a .MP4 container. Since MPEG-4 uses the Quicktime file format, can I simply create an H.264 file in Compressor and change the extension from .mov to .mp4?

Also... the big one.. does the original Turbo H.624 integrate with Compressor, Quicktime Player and any other Quicktime based app? Do I need to use El Gato's software to encode? Do you have complete control (frame rate, size, audio/video quality, etc...) I know Quicktime Broadcaster can use the device to hardware compress H.264, but not sure about other apps.

Thank you so much for any help you can offer!!!!

Mike

Hi Mike,

I think you indicated this already, but just to be clear; I always export a master file from the timeline using the standard "File -> Export -> Quicktime Movie" dialog using Current Settings:  UNCHECK "Recompressed" and CHECK "Make Self-Contained".  None of the other export options are as efficiant or as flexible for output of a master sequence from Final Cut Pro.  There are much better tools than FCP for compression and advance output manipulation.

Compressor's encoder tab in the inspector allows you to change the ".mov" suffix to basically anything you want -- including ".mp4".  I may be wrong here, but I believe Compressor's H264 module always uses the QT wrapper regardless of the suffix.  The suffix is just a hint to the OS (especially Windows) which application it should use to try to open the file.  I haven't found the QT wrapper to be an issue (by the way you my be interested to find that you can also change the H264 suffix to ".flv" and it will be treated as a native flash movie file in any OS that supports flash).

On the other hand I highly recommend the Elgato Turbo.  Yes, you have to use the Turbo application, but if you poke around in it you will find you can edit all of the important attributes you need.   Just start with one of the templates (I usually start with "iPhone" or "Apple TV") and then select "edit" to customize it.  It does batches and it's wicked fast (especially compared to a non-Octo Mac).  Poke around in it a little, it's easy to use.  You should be able to download the app, and edit settings so you can see how that part works, but it won't comprress anything without the dongle.    Fair warning: I have had one (1) editor tell me he didn't think the output was as clean as Compressor's, but I don't believe there is a noticable difference. 

Don't do conversions or compression using Quicktime Pro.     <-------  See the period at the end of that sentance? In any case, if you have the time, for best quality pre-process your FCP export in After Effects to change picture size and framerates.  I also suggest you apply AE's "smart blur"  at half strength to reduce noise.  After Effects does a much better job of image resize, framerate conversion, deinterlace, frame blending and noise reduction than any mere compression tool.  Export using the default "Lossless" output module and "Best" render setting (field render OFF).   Don't forget (but don't change) the audio - you'll have to edit the Lossless module to pass through your audio in the export from AE, then put that through your compression program. Good luck.  Let me know if I covered everything! Regards,

Ed

Why Encore CS4?

Jeff says:

As President of the Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group (CHIFCPUG) I'm responsible for programming the monthly meetings. In March I highlighted one of my recent jobs that used Adobe's DVD authoring software, Encore CS4. Encore is extremely powerful and relatively new. It offers options that really helped us serve the client so I wanted to share some of it's best features with our members.

CHIFCPUG's newsletter caught the eye of Larry Jordan, world renowned Final Cut Pro guru. Larry is in the process of writing a book about using CS4 with Apple's Final Cut Studio and he was looking for real life examples. Here is my response to his inquiry.

Why Encore CS4?

First, some project details.

This was a doctor education project for a major pharmaceutical company. Our goal was to educate anesthesiologists on new anesthetic techniques using the companies' anesthetic agents. The budget was not huge by any stretch of the imagination and we had several hurdles to clear: the Medical Legal department, content experts in three states and doctors on two coasts. The final deliverable would be a DVD that sales people would use to sell doctors on the use of these agents.

We cut the sequences in Final Cut Pro. They consisted of seventeen different modules in various lengths, from 6 to 15 minutes. Graphics were created with Illustrator, After Effects, Motion and Photoshop.

After receiving initial approval from the content experts, we began authoring the DVD. Since this was a standard definition project I really could have done the authoring using DVD Studio Pro, but several factors steered me to Encore CS4:

Disclaimers

Legal disclaimer information is required for this type of sales tool, and it must be precise. We went through a number of rounds of changes as the client and their legal department tweaked the language and composition in these sections. Encore CS4's round-trip integration with Photoshop made this a breeze. They also had us create several other slide shows with prescribing information and references.

Check Project

This is a great feature of Encore CS4. I was able to catch missing end jumps and broken links before I sent it onto the client for approval.

Review and Approval

Encore’s ability to create a flash site from the DVD project made the review and approval process a breeze. Of course this project had a tight deadline and we needed to get approval for the navigation and layout of the menus quickly.

All I had to do was set the pull-down to “flash” and set up the compression. Within 30 minutes Encore had compressed all the movies and menus to complete the flash site. I was able to shave days off the process this way. We made multiple rounds of changes in one day, avoiding the delay and overhead of FedEx’ing a check disc to each of the content experts and Medical Legal teams.

FilmFellas - Webisode 5

Ed says:

Check out our latest episode of FilmFellas produced by Steve Weiss at Zacuto USA, maker of fine camera equipment. I've worked with Steve on and off for many years and was thrilled when he asked me to help him edit this new web series.


FilmFellas - webisode 5 from Steve Weiss, Zacuto USA on Vimeo.

Steve Weiss and Zacuto have been a major force behind the introduction of affordable HD production in Chicago during the last decade. The ESPN "Backstage" feature pieces that Jeff and I have in our portfolio were post-produced at his facility back in "the day". They were all shot using his Panasonic DVCProHD 720P VariCam cameras (then edited and delivered in standard def) even before ESPN had officially adopted an HD standard. Steve is also a long standing supporter of independent filmmakers.

Webisode 5 of FilmFellas:

“Talkin' About Your Film Generation”

In Webisode 5, cast two has arrived for dinner and they are ready to bring what they know about indie filmmaking to the table. Susan Buice joins to discuss what she's learned from directing, Four Eyed Monsters. Kris Williams, Director of Young American Bodies, breaks down her theory of creating something you love whether ice cream or film; you are going to make only flavors you like. Kissing on the Mouth Director, Joe Swanberg lets the table know filmmaking is not always about making money and lastly, Steve Weiss is back to converse about different generations of indie filmmaking.

This cast of FilmFellas is ready to dig into the center of this new film movement. The webisode series explores directing styles, Mumblecore, do Kris, Joe and Susan speak for their generation, many kinds of distribution, making a living as a filmmaker, business models for the internet, what is art vs. marketing, and why they do what they do. You do not want to miss out!

The FedEx Run

Jeff Says:

Years ago, one of my clients thought it would be a great idea to start a reality series called "The Editor." The tails of Joe the everyday editor.

Last night I lived through one of the editor episodes first hand.

Titled: "The FedEx Run"

6:30pm Fade up from black. Starbucks cups and Diet Coke cans are strewn about the console. The client has emailed with a few last minute changes. No big deal, plenty of time to make the overnight ship deadline. Gotta love FedEx.

7:00pm Jimmy John's for dinner, again!

7:15pm Last change rendered out, checked the show, everything is good.

7:20pm Export finished, time to encode.

7:25pm Client wants two data DVDs. No biggey, but since we are moving the DVD label printer is not hooked up.

7:35pm Printer hooked up but the software is not installed (that computer is already packed up). Great. Which box was that software in??

7:45pm After searching the web frantically for the software, I start to look through boxes.

8:00pm Found the disc! Let's install!

8;05pm The installer want me to close all apps but I'm still encoding I'll have to wait a few.

8:10pm Encode finished. Check the movie... all looks good.

8:15pm Install DVD printing app. Reboot.

8:20pm Launch DVD printing app and design face label.

8:25pm Go print the first DVD. Computer says the driver is not installed. What??

8:26pm Reboot. Again. Still no luck. I'm about ready to throw the printer out the window.

8:30pm Starting to get a little worried about time. Last FedEx drop is at 10pm -- at the airport.

8:35pm Just for grins I try a different user account on the computer and it starts to print. Out of ink. Great, which box was the ink in?

8:39pm After changing the cartridge finally a successful label. Yippie! Time to burn.

8:45pm Time getting tight, finalizing the last couple of discs.

8:50pm I realize that I walked to work today. Time to "briskly" walk home.

9:05pm Get the car keys and run to the car.

9:06pm No gas -- great. Stacey (my wife) says I have enough to get to the airport.

9:35pm Corner of Irving Park and Mannheim -- getting very close to 'E' but I have plenty of time.

9:40pm Corner of Irving Park and South Cargo Road... (giant pothole) WHAM!!!

9:40pm My front left tire is completely flat. Great! I open up the trunk and start to get the spare out, but since I'm so close to the airport there is absolutely no light. Even though I know I can change a tire in less than a minute flat, it's dark and I don't have much time to get to FedEx.

9:42pm About a mile and a half to FedEx. Time to start jogging.

9:42:30 Step in a giant mud puddle. I guess I picked a bad day to wear tennis shoes

9:45pm FedEx truck zooms past. I guess I'd fly past some idiot waving a bunch of papers and DVDs too, if I were him.

9:48pm Gasping for breath, questioning my choice of careers.

9:55pm Not much longer, boy am I out of shape -- joining the gym tomorrow. [Ed. Yeah, right Jeff...]

9:59:30pm I made it!

10:15pm A policeman pulled is up to my car wondering what happened to the driver. Stacey has called AAA, they say it will be an hour. Fun, fun!!!

11:00pm O'Hare wrecker finally arrived.

11:05pm Volkswagen has a locked lug nut and you need special tool to loosen the nut -- and of course we can't find it.

11:10pm Call to Stacey and she tells me where it is since she had the same flat tire happen last year. [Ed. Gotta love these Chicago winters...]

11:24pm Finally on the road home.

What a night, at least the disc got out. Hopefully the client will be happy.

Morale of the story: "Never give up!" (or "Next time, send your assistant to the airport!!")

FilmFellas Trailer

Ed says:
I plan to write more about this web series we just started work on. I'm happy to report it's getting lots of buzz. Episode 1 of Cast 2 is due out on Monday. Right now I've got to get back to work...

Deadlines, Deadlines.... (keeps the blood pumping -- hehe)


FilmFellas Cast 2 Trailer from Steve Weiss, Zacuto USA on Vimeo.