Producing Films for the Internet
by Billy Schwarz
Hello my name is Billy Schwarz and I am the Executive
Producer for High Tec Productions. Before I get into
producing a film for the internet let me give your some
background on myself and High Tec Productions. When I
started 7 years ago, I didn’t know which end of the camera
to point. My expertise is in computer engineering. My wife
Carol is a writer, she writes educational material. “Spanish
for Mission Trips”, “Spanish for Newcomers”, “El/Civics”,
“English Right Now”. She can spell!
First we started with the audio for “Spanish for Mission
Trips” using an 8 bit sound card and a 486 I recorded the
audio, edited it with a program call sound studio that came
with the sound card. In 1998 we purchased an old seed
warehouse in Mercedes, Texas and built the audio recording
studio. In 1999, purchasing a Canon XL1, we started out
making music videos and mixing them on CD-ROMs that played
on computers.
The first internet web site which is still operational was
“Musictownusa.net”. Video was still not very good because
most people had dialup but we did encode some at 56kbs, they
were blurry and played in a very small screen.
So much for that. Lets get into what it takes to produce a
good video for the internet. Like any movie you make, first
you will need a script, you will need good audio. All the
basics.
Video cameras shoot at 30 frames per second which give a
smooth action. The problem is that when you encode for the
internet your frames per second drop to 20. You have just
lost 1/3 of the frames. It doesn’t matter if you are encoding for streaming video or download.
Lets look at the difference between streaming video and
download. Streaming video requires a streaming server such
as the Real Audio Helix server. This allows your movie to
be shown on the computer screen as it comes in. The speed
of your stream determines the quality of the video. I used
this method at first thinking the stream would allow my
customers a better quality. I soon found that the stream would breakdown and cause buffering as the bandwidth opened and closed.
We now encode all our video for download, using a 3 second
buffer before playing starts. The technology allows
downloading and playing at the same time. We encode at 240
kbs this gives a good quality video and allows the viewer
who has a limited bandwidth, lower DSL to get the quality
without the buffering.
In our “EL/Civics” course the 3 videos are 20 to 30 minutes
in length, they will play on a DSL line with no buffering,
blurring. There is a video on hightecproductions.com, it is
a tour of the City of Brownville Texas, and it was filmed on
location, with real people and no actors. The camera was
our Canon XL1 shooting at 24 fps. Edited with Adobe
Premiere and encoded for download play with the Microsoft
Windows Media Player 9.
Want a good quality movie for the internet?
1. Use good production and directing
2. Make sure that your movie plays smooth when played over
the internet. (encode for max viewers)
3. Shoot your video at 24 frames per second, this way you
only loose 4 fps after encoding.
4. Make sure that your movie starts within 17 seconds from
the time the viewer clicks the start button.
5. You video must start clear and end clear; sometimes
internet videos will start blurry and clear up as they
progress. If your attention-getter is blurry you have lost
the viewer.
The internet is a new media. Internet commercials, movies
and documentaries are just beginning. There are many
internet TV stations now. High Tec Productions is producing
Worship services in Spanish for First Baptist Church Santa
Maria, Texas. These will be used by other churches as
worship services for there Hispanic outreach.
Thank you for your time
Billy Schwarz
Executive Producer High Tec Productions
http://www.hightecproductions.com
mailto:sysop@hightecproductions.com
(956)-565-5589
Copyright (c) 2006 Peter D. Marshall / All Rights Reserved
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