Studies in Flash Video: Best Practices from Real-World Producers
X-SCREAM Video Productions
One of the unique beauties of Flash Video is that it exists within an extremely rich visual development environment that supports animated text and graphics, clickable hotspots, and other highly interactive interface elements. Another is that it scales very well from low, web-oriented data rates to high-bit rate videos streamed from DVDs. In a sales presentation developed for Café Gano, Ottawa’s X-SCREAM Video Productions leveraged these advantages to create a compelling and effective sales tool.
I spoke with X-SCREAM’s president, Noel Tarabocchia, who related how the client initially approached him with a request for a vehicle to communicate their message to a large organization of people via the Internet. X-SCREAM created a 5-minute product overview, a 17-minute business presentation, and a 32-minute training video for Café Gano.
All movies were comprised of greenscreen video superimposed over a virtual environment, with a simulated PowerPoint presentation that the speaker "controlled" with a remote control he clicked at appropriate time in the presentation. The product overview starts with a dramatic 3D flyover of a city skyline, which finishes by flying into the penthouse office where the speaker awaits, sitting behind a desk. During the presentation he moves around, gesturing at the bullet points and other objects in the environment, creating a lifelike and compelling presentation.
X-SCREAM shot the video in their own greenscreen theatre, using a 9-year-old Sony VX1000 (the first DV camcorder ever manufactured), shooting DV in interlaced mode. Tarabocchia cautioned his client to keep his movements controlled and steady, to limit artifacts in lower motion videos.
X-SCREAM output the video at 384x288 resolution at 15 frames per second, which looked smooth because there was limited motion in the video. The producers input the edited DV files into Sorenson Squeeze, which performed all scaling, and encoded the videos to a combined data rate of 360Kbps, with 264Kbps video and 96Kbps audio. The web-based video was so well received that the client later ordered 5,000 DVDs for North American distribution, and X-SCREAM bumped both resolution and data rate to improve quality.
Like IQ Interactive, Tarabocchia always queries clients extensively to learn their true needs, and educates them on key technical decisions up front to avoid any surprises. Tarabocchia plans each shoot well in advance to isolate potential problems, and reviews all projects after completion to isolate best practices and those to avoid.
www.xscreamvideo.com
Below: X-SCREAM output the videos for Café Gano at 15fps, but because the video was low-motion, it still looks smooth on playback.
