Video Production
Video is becoming increasingly cost-effective. Video shops with twenty thousand dollars worth of equipment are able to do what shops required well over one hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment to do just a few years ago - and what required perhaps a half million dollars worth of equipment ten or fifteen years earlier than that. The rule of thumb prior to the early nineties was roughly $1,000-plus per minute and up for video production. These days, only $1,200 per minute could buy a decent five to seven minute corporate or product video production in its entirety, for use digitally on the web and on CD as well as for VHS tape distribution.
As I’ve said, if you have good video, use it. You may want to modify your video slightly for the web, as suggested below. If you are doing new video, use the following tips and techniques to optimize your video for distribution and play in both traditional-video and web-video formats.
First, save raw footage. You’ll want to edit differently for the web than you might for tape. For example, written bullet points on a corporate video (called character generation) works well in a traditional format, but not on the web. Web streaming isn’t perfect. If titles “freeze” or the presentation skips, titles are easily made difficult to read if not lost entirely. Moreover, the video presentation window on the web is normally rather small, and is played at a lower resolution than yielded by traditional tape. For the web, run the character generation in a separate text area, adjacent to the video presentation window.
Sound is critical to any video presentation. The difference between a mediocre video and a good one is often the sound quality and content. Want to test that statement? Watch a few minutes of shark scenes from Jaws with the sound off. You’ll wonder what all the ex- citement is about – the video is almost laughable. But add that familiar va-voomp, va-voomp, va-voomp heartbeat sound and you’ll find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat with a matching heartbeat.
One of my favorite corporate product video scenes is about a minute-and-a-half into the RamFlat.com RamFlat product video. Ram- Flat is a product that squashes 55-gallon drums like can crushers squash soda cans. When one of these drums rolls on its side and begins to settle like a coin that’s been spun on a table and is beginning to flatten out ... the sound makes the whole thing – it sounds like a ninety-pound quarter making a drum roll as it flattens and settles.
Look for higher contrast shots for the web. Focusing on lots of similar shades can lead to dithering (the look of digital squares used to disguise faces of witnesses or whistle-blowers on television shows). You may want your shots on web video to linger on scenes a bit longer than traditional video so that the scene is played in its entirety despite any buffering problems you might incur.
Finally, when you offer video on your site, consider breaking up longer presentations into more discrete one or two-minute segments. You may still offer longer presentations in their entirety, but consideration for lower-bandwidth users suggests making clips available on an individual feature or benefit basis. These considerations should go into your initial video production.
What We Offer
We offer a wide range of quality, cost effective videography services. Most companies do not have the time or talent to produce professional looking videos. We can do video shoots on site or at our studio.
Our expertise includes:
- Industrial equipment instruction video
- Manufacturing process videos
- Product videography
- Promotional product videos
- Event photography
- Trade show, conference and expo videography
- Sports videography
We can serve your videocracy needs. Our studio is equipped with a portable backdrop and professional lighting.
Capture and Formats
We have the capabilities to capture your video from many sources.
- Convert into web-ready video for streaming
- Convert your old (or new) VHS footage into new media formats.
- Output in the format of your choice, including miniDV, and VHS
- Your footage can be output to DVD or VideoCD (VCD).
All video capture and mastering is done in digital video format, complete with state of the art non-linear video editing capability.
We can make your video available in the following formats:
- Flash (we can also create custom flash players)
- .AVI, .MP4, MPEG and Windows .WMV on-live video
- PSP and DVD formats as well
Streaming
Steaming video allows you to play video before it is even finished downloading! Our fast internet connections, combined with our streaming servers, mean your customer will not need to wait to see your presentation.
We currently offer the following options for streaming video:
- Flash
- Windows Media
- Quicktime
- Real Media
Videography Services We Offer
Our servers are optimized for storage and high bandwidth, exactly what you need for your streaming media. This gives your users a more immediate response keeping them from loosing interest due to waiting for your content to load on there computer.
You have the option of hosting with Videocracy for part or all of your website. Hosting just the streaming video on a sub domain on Videocracy's servers will allow you to monitor the access and usage independently of the rest of your site.
| Service | Hosted Rate | Regular Rate |
| Video Conversion | $89/hour | $109/hour |
| Photography | $89/hour | $109/hour |
| Video Editing | $89/hour | $109/hour |
| Additional Services | $89/hour | $109/hour |
| 3 GB Bandwidth & 100 MB Storage | $45 | $70 |
| Additional 1 GB Bandwidth | $3.00 | $6.00 |
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