Film or Video? That’s certainly one of the most controversial questions in low budget production. But the very fact that it is so controversial means that the answer might not be all that clear cut. And that the best choice might depend more on your own circumstances than anything else.
DV video makes pretty good pictures, but film still sets the standard. In comparison to film, DV is better than Super 8, but not quite as good as 16mm (if nothing else, the resolution isn’t there). Yet still, DV isn’t too far from 16mm; especially if lit properly, taking into account video’s lower contrast ratio. (Lighting is always critical, no matter what medium you’re shooting in; the book Film Lighting is a fascinating reference.)
And yes, DV video can be successfully transferred to 35mm film for theatrical release. It’s been done - for very large sums of money. Of course, no one is going to mistake the result for something originally shot on 35mm; that’s for sure. But it can still be quite watchable.
If you’re going to shoot on video, it might be best to approach it TV style - concentrating on closeups, where it’s at its best, and avoiding a lot of wide shots. On the other hand, if you want big vistas for your sequel to Lawrence of Arabia, you’d most likely want to shoot on film.
One advantage of DV is that it’s a complete system. From shooting through editing, everything remains digital, at broadcast quality. You can shoot it on your camcorder, input it to an ordinary desktop computer, edit it, and then output again as digital video, all without loss of quality along the way. Direct and simple.
In contrast, film is more like a diva - one with brilliant qualities, but also a bit cranky about getting along with anything else. To edit film on a computer (which is now the usual approach), you have to shoot it, have it developed properly, then transfered to videotape and digitized. At least a couple of extra steps right there. But film doesn’t get along well with sound, either, be it analog or digital - you have to have a synch sound camera and a separate audio recorder, or go through tedious post-production looping or manual synching of wild sound, to finally get picture and dialog back together properly.
Cost of 10 Panasonic 60 minute Mini DV cassettes from B&H Photo, with shipping to Southern California - $82.35.
Or $8.24 per hour of footage.
Cost of 400 ft. roll of 16mm color negative film stock, plus developing, plus the cost of transfering the negative directly to videotape for editing - a minimum of around $250.00 or so. A 400 ft. roll runs for 11 min. 7 sec.
Or around $1350.00 per hour of footage.
Now, in terms of how much actually has to be shot for, say, a 90 min. feature, let’s assume a minimal 3:1 shooting ratio for film; that works out to 4.5 hours of footage. For video, however, we will increase the shooting ratio to 10:1 (to make use of this natural advantage of video). The final result for the cost of shooting stock for our 90 min. feature:
16mm Film: $6075.00
DV Video: $123.53
Plus, the DV camera can also record excellent quality synch sound as part of the package. Whereas for film we would have to shell out yet more.
Of course, if you want your movie shown it theaters, you have to get it on film, sooner or later. And having video transfered to film isn’t cheap. It reportedly cost $58,000 to have the DV footage for The Cruise put on 35mm at the Sony High Definition Center. And currently, this is a real advantage that 16mm has at film festivals; these generally still seem to require that submissions be on film. (Though this is starting is change - with Sundance, no less, apparently about to lead the way at its year 2000 festival.)
Then again, blowing 16mm film up to 35mm for commercial presentation isn’t real cheap either. And a video to 16mm transfer could be made for less money than putting it on 35mm.
Still, all this is really missing the point. Which is simply that, as was pointed out before, any such fantastically expensive transfer doesn’t have to be made until after the feature is completed. In other words, you can make your movie for a modest sum, see how it turns out … and if it’s any good, get investors to finance the transfer later.
And though theatrical exhibition may be the holy grail the movie maker most seeks, there’s always the “direct to video” market, too. It’s an alternative for getting at least some money (and with micro-budget production costs you don’t actually need much to turn a profit). In fact, this was the original idea for El Mariachi - it was intended to be sold to the Mexican home video industry! And got sidetracked to the big screen along the way…
Even El Mariachi cost $7000 for film and processing. Once money is spent on film, it’s just plain gone. And El Mariachi was an exceptional bargain, because all the other projects shot on 16mm that I’ve heard of cost at least double that. After which most have never been heard of again.
On the other hand, if you spend $7000 on a DV camera and a computer for editing, and you make a first feature … well, no matter how it turns out, you can then make a second feature. Or a third. Or even more. For very little more money.
(And at the end, even if it all turns out to be a total catastrophe, you can still sell your DV equipment back and get a fair amount of money for it. Just try to do that with used film! Or maybe you’ll be a big success, and just want to upgrade to better equipment - somehow that sounds better!)
]]>With all these spectacular editing and effects tools at our fingertips, it’s tremendously tempting to pull out all the stops and unleash a torrent of effects that will make your viewers’ heads spin. But most people prefer their heads in a non-spinning mode. How many effects can one person take? The hallmark of a truly professional production is one where it looks like there are no effects at all. Welcome to the strange, sometimes upside-down world of digital video effects, where sometimes the best, most elaborate tricks are undetectable.
I’ll often write in a review that I like the way such-and-such editing system can do certain real time effects, (like wipes, flying boxes, 3D effects or flashing text), but then snarl that I don’t think they should ever be used. After making such a haughty pronouncement, I’ll invariably get email from a few sharp readers asking, “OK, Chazz, if you don’t think we should use any of those effects, which ones should we use?”
In the great Milos Foreman film Amadeus, the emperor tells Mozart that his latest composition has “too many notes.” Mozart snaps back, “But sire, there are neither more nor less than are required.” That’s a great place to start. Get it straight exactly what’s required and what’s not, though. There are basic effects that are extremely handy but don’t seem like effects at all. For example, I always keep the Scale DVE handy, because you never know when there’ll be a stray item in the shot that you don’t want to see. Let’s say there’s a microphone showing in the top of the frame. You can usually zoom in slightly with the scale DVE and lose that mic in the shot, and then all is well. Or, if your horizon is slightly off, you can zoom in slightly and then rotate the shot so that it’s no so far off-kilter. Boom! Instant, invisible special effect.
“But that’s not really a special effect,” you’re saying. Indeed, it’s not flashy, but it’s an effect nonetheless. But what actual obvious effects do I like to use? Well, there’s a lot of sophisticated color correction controls included in just about every pro-level editing package available today, and I think that’s an excellent way to enhance your production. It’s not just for fixing things, either. Try fiddling with your color correction on a few shots where you’re going for a particular mood, and you’ll be hooked. Notice how a blue tint gives a shot a certain cool feel. Try mixing up the tinting in a quick-cut piece, and you’ll see how slight colorations to your shots can establish an overall atmosphere.
Chromakeying is another special effect that I’ve begun to warm up to, now that applications like Ultra Key (now called just “Ultra”) are becoming more prevalent. Where once DV footage was next to impossible to chromakey, now, if you light the background and your subject well, you can snag some near-perfect looking keys, and have a few synchronized camera moves thrown in for good measure. Now there’s a special effect that I think looks convincing and can add a lot to a production. And, as HDTV becomes more prevalent, the chromakeying will become a whole lot easier and significantly more convincing to the extent of being undetectable. And there you have it, the one word that characterizes the holy grail of special effects: Undetectable.
Since this is Web site devoted to editing, I would be remiss if I left out those special effects that are sitting right in front of us every day – the edits themselves. We certainly can’t forget those most ubiquitous of special effects, first, the earthy, straightforward yet sometimes jarring cut and its smooth, slinky eloquent sister, the dissolve. But when to use even those? Therein lies the skill and art of editing. I always refrain from changing shots unless there’s a very good reason for doing so. For example, have you ever been involved in a production that is a single-camera shoot where your talent is talking directly to the camera, and those in charge (or maybe you) have the bright idea of having the talent do a camera turn? This technique grew out of newscasts, where anchorpeople were required to turn to a different camera while the other camera set up on the next shot with a different anchorperson. I’d say, leave the phony camera-changing out of your production, and if you must break up the flow of a talking head, cut away to some footage illustrating what the spokesperson is saying. Another temptation, this one in an interview situation, is to take a cutaway of your interviewer for no good reason at all. Save the cutaways for reactions, and use them only when you have to cover up a cut. Heck, I’m even getting more comfortable with using jump cuts now, without even covering up the edits, especially since audiences are getting more sophisticated.
That brings up my last point – think about how audiences are indeed becoming more astute, and are getting more and more jaded with each new effect foisted upon them by digi-vid jockeys. Remember morphing? Ho hum. Shaky-cam? Yesterday’s news. Now even speed changes and The Matrix-like effects are starting to show their age. I think audiences are growing tired of cheap, obvious effects, and are more likely to warm up to some cleverly-written scripts, or artful-looking shooting and editing. Respect your audience, and they will respect your work. Treat them like they’re watching a sleazy screaming-car spot, and they reach for the remote. Talk up to them rather than talk down to them and they’ll pay you back with their attention. Go easy on the effects, because remember, when you have a brand new hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.
]]>PARENTS might reconsider telling their kids to quit playing video games.
The industry has been one of the bright spots in the local job market, with the bigger companies in the midst of hiring hundreds of people, mostly for creative and technical positions.
Besides tapping into the ready supply of dot-com castaways, larger game makers like Activision Inc., THQ Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. are raiding the creative staffs of Hollywood’s film studios.
The hiring binge has been focused almost exclusively on graphic artists, animation experts and computer programmers, as well as movie industry employees such as lighting personnel, music composers, screenwriters and actors.
“They are looking for a mix of 3D art and animation and programming and engineering,” said John Baldrica, a graphic design instructor at the UCLA Extension. “The skills are very specialized and if you’re experienced, you’re in demand.”
Salaries reflect that demand. An experienced art director at a video game company now makes well over $100,000, significantly more than a few years ago when art budgets were 25 percent of what they are now.
The average salary of a technical director with six or more years’ experience jumped to $104,000 in 2002, up from $84,000 the previous year, according to Gamasutra, a game industry publication. Average salaries for programmers ran $66,000.
Redwood City-based Electronic Arts, looking to accommodate 500 employees at its local operations within the next two years, up from the current 300, will move its studio in December from Bel-Air to a larger facility in Playa Del Rey.
“We’re looking for game designers that have game experience or those that come from non-traditional industries,” said Carol Brickner, director of human resources at EA Los Angeles.
EA recently landed an art director who had worked at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Walt Disney Co., a special effects designer who operated a nuclear submarine in the Navy and artist Mark Lasoff, who won an Academy Award for the visual effects on “Titanic.”
Over the past six months, Santa Monica-based Activision has added 100 employees, mostly game production staff with programming, art or animation skills, and plans to add 50 more before April.
“We’ve hired more people in the first six months than all of last year. We wanted people on board before our peak holiday season,” said Mike Rowe, its executive vice president of human resources.
“Creative positions like art or animation, not corporate or overhead jobs, give the biggest bang for the buck,” said Rowe, who estimated that 80 percent of new hires would be in those fields.
The competition for jobs has been fierce, and those without entertainment or creative experience looking to break into the video game industry are having a tough time.
Rowe estimated that each job Activision posts on its Web site generates 4,000 resumes. One was from Ron Quezon, a 30-year-old with a degree from USC’s Marshall School of Business who has vainly been looking for a spot in the local video game industry since he graduated in May. “Like the entertainment industry, there are a lot of people who want to get into this business,” said Quezon.
He has applied, to no avail, for creative and operational positions at THQ, Activision and EA, each time told he lacked the entertainment, consumer goods and games experience they were looking for.
Smaller companies seeking those for programming, art and animation spots are looking for new ways to compete for talent.
Sammy Studios Inc., a Carlsbad-based video game maker, started sponsoring game design classes at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena last month. It is looking to fill more than 70 creative positions over the next year and sees academic alliances as a key to competing for talent.
]]>It’s that time of year when many of you are heading back to school, saying goodbye to the laid-back rhythms of summer and returning to academic pursuits. It reminds me of the time when I first headed off to college, and with my nose pressed against the glass of the airplane window (yes, they did have aircraft back then — circa 1974), I wondered if this pursuit was even worth it. I wondered what would become of me. At the time, I wished there was some way I could receive a message from myself decades in my future, packed with helpful hints that would steer me in the right direction. What would I need to do to prepare myself to be a better video editor, and a better video production person in general? Since there is indeed no way to receive such a letter from the future, dear reader, the next best thing is for me to offer a few tips for you budding digital video editors now, noses pressed up against airplane (or bus, car or train) windows, wondering what will become of you. So if you’re venturing forth into the world of digital content creation, here are a few helpful hints.
First of all, there are two big editing packages that have found themselves in the enviable position of being the industry standard, and you must learn them as soon as you can. They are Final Cut Pro and any flavor of the Avid interface. These are the two most widely-used nonlinear editing products, and if you learn these inside and out (and have talent as an editor) you’ll have a much better chance of getting a job somewhere. Working in your favor is the fact that the two companies making these programs, Apple (Final Cut Pro) and Avid (Media Composer, Xpress DV, Symphony, etc.) are practically giving them away in crippled, but still usable and learnable versions. In fact, Avid is set to release its free version of its famed user interface any day now, maybe even by the time you read this. Check the Avid site for details. By the way, I really like the Final Cut Pro user interface, better than the Avid one. But if you have to choose between the two, pick the one that’s most heavily used in production facilities, newsrooms and film editing houses around the world: Avid. It’s really not the best user interface, in my opinion, but it’s the number one editing software, so you need to know everything there is to know about it if you plan to work in the top echelons of this business for real money. Now that’s not to say you can’t venture out on your own with any old software — you can. Heck, you can cut an Oscar-winning motion picture on iMovie if you have the talent, writing, footage, schmoozing powers and distribution infrastructure in place. As an aside, you also might want to take a long look at the upcoming Adobe Premiere Pro, which I think has the best learning-curve-to-power ratio you can get. That is, it’s not too hard to learn and it’s packed with great and powerful features. And, don’t forget the excellent Vegas 4, available as a free demo, which is bit more difficult to learn than Premiere Pro but every bit as powerful. Overall, to me it’s a toss-up between Vegas, Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro for top dog status in the NLE (nonlinear editing) field. See which one you like best, but be sure to have Final Cut Pro and Avid skills under your belt regardless.
Another thing to know: To make it in the TV or movie biz, you’re going to have to be good not only at your chosen discipline, but you must be a super-salesman/woman, too — and your biggest product will be yourself. Become an expert at updating your resume, telling prospective employers about all your unique talents without sounding too stuck-up, and put all your heart and soul into the most important production you’ll ever edit: Your resume reel. This will be an ongoing process. Early in my career, when someone would ask me if I was looking for a job, I would reply that I was always looking for a job. And I was. And keep in mind, all it takes is one job, and then you’re in. Don’t give up. Never, never give up.
Here’s another skill you might not have thought was crucial, but I’ve found it valuable: Knowledge of typography. You’d be surprised at how important this is, especially in the video field. As I made my way into the comfort zone in my first TV gig, I was surprised at how the whole shooting match at the TV station revolved around the character generator (CG). I learned everything I could about that old Chyron. At first I doubted how important that now-ancient character generator was, but then one day the thing crashed and I suddenly realized how hard it was to edit a car commercial without a CG. I also saw how silly weather and sports reports were without any text or numbers. As the years passed, personal computers began to insinuate themselves into the festivities, and I spent a lot of time learning about typefaces, which ones were which, which ones looked good on TV and which ones didn’t, and so forth. That was time well-spent.
Another skill that is well worth your time to learn is how to create 2D graphics (over-the-shoulder boxes), because the ability to fill up a frame with easy-to-read, colorful and interesting imagery is a skill that blends in well with many other disciplines. Whether you’re working on the Web, at a TV station, or even creating family videos, your final results will be tremendously improved if your graphics are well-composed, easy to read and professional.
While we’re on the subject of computers, it’s important to be able to keep your machine in good running order. Think of yourself as a soldier entering boot camp, where one of the first things they teach you is how to take care of your gun — how to disassemble and assemble it quickly, how to clean it and above all, how to shoot it. Well, your computer is your gun on this battlefield, soldier, so learn how to keep it policed. Whether your weapon of choice is a Mac or a PC, if you know how to keep your drives de-fragged, keep your registry clean and know how to make moderately advanced hardware changes, you’ll be a much more valuable member of any production team. There’s not always an engineer waiting around for your computer to break, so knowing a thing or two about the innards of that compu-box might just turn you into a hero someday.
Speaking of another kind of shooting, learn how to frame up shots, even if you picture yourself as a pure editor. Part of your job in that edit bay is to evaluate shots, and how will you do that if you don’t even know what a good shot is or what it takes to get that shot out in the field? If you can get out there and get comfortable with the field production process, you’ll have a much better feel for the shooter’s plight — to get great shots in less-than-great conditions. You’ll get a keen sense of framing, too, if you actually shoot some footage yourself and then bring it back to your edit suite, seeing what you might have done here and there to improve that framing. Observe your own framing and that of the masters, too, in major motion pictures and in TV shows you admire. Give yourself some basis from which to evaluate shots and sequences.
While you’re watching that framing, take special note of the editing, too. Get a feel for how long the editor stayed on a particular shot instead of cutting to the next one, listen to the way the audio comes in before the video, and get into the rhythm and overall pacing of the segment, too. You might want to even take notes as you go, writing down what you like and don’t like and compile a “personal favorites” list. Save up that list for your most important production, and you might come up with a winner that expresses your very essence as an editor.
Open your ears, too. I’ve always thought that a lame production is always given away by its low-quality audio. Don’t forget the audio, and remember to pay special attention to the music, too. Today, with all the excellent music creation software that’s available and the stock music libraries on the market, there’s a wealth of choices out there for the discriminating producer. Try out a variety of music cuts dropped into various parts of your production, and sometimes you’ll be surprised at how perfectly the music will fit. Other times, it’ll be terribly out of place. It’s difficult to predict, but with NLE software it’s a simple matter to drag-and-drop an audio file on a track and try it out.
Finally, become aware of the physical world around you, and you’ll become a better content creator. Look at how objects move in space, how light plays off water, how reflections look in glass, how people move. Then re-create that in your work. Determine what catches your eye, and remember what that is, so you can bring it to the screen and catch the eyes of your viewers. Live this business, internalize it, and you’ll find a niche in it. The competition is fierce, and the plum spots will go to those whose second nature is bringing compelling imagery in front of the eyes of the people, on time and under budget. Now get out there, do your best work, and have a great school year!
]]>In the midst of the often exhilarating chaos that is the creative process, even seasoned editors and designers get off track occasionally. Wild brainstorming and daring experimentation play a role in the creative process, but they must take their place within the framework of a disciplined approach.Most of us think of brainstorming as something done solely at the beginning of the creative process. Once we have a design concept, the rest is execution. If only it was that simple. Video postproduction is a series of creative processes-a series of creative cycles-not a single process. We have to be careful to leave enough room for experimentation throughout the post process while being mindful not to avoid situations where backtracking causes unacceptable delays. Over the years, I’ve worked on and observed dozens of productions from small student projects to multihour documentary series and movies of the week. The successful productions have all shared two factors-organization and discipline. The teams that made these productions successes reconciled the seemingly irreconcilable by bringing organization to the creative process.The challenge is made more difficult by the trend to rely on multidisciplinary post professionals; that is, editors who handle motion graphics, animation, color-correction, and sound design.Although there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, I’ve found a fairly straightforward approach to video postproduction that serves quite well on the majority of projects I oversee. I call my process “The Three E’s”: editing, essence, and emphasis. Attack them in order and there should be enough time for experimentation at the beginning of each part.
As in building construction, the foundation and structural elements should be sound before cosmetic improvements are made. In video, that means getting the editing right. The timeline acts as the foundation. Individual shots are the supporting trusses. Before getting hung up on effects work, make sure the story is clear. I don’t say this because I’m an editor, but because I’m a storyteller. It sounds so simple. Yet I frequently see experienced teams putting themselves in a difficult position by ignoring this basic tenet of visual storytelling. Here are a few of the traps I’ve stepped into myself.A nifty new effect is available to me. How can I use it? Countless times, FedEx has delivered a plug-in at 10:30 A.M. and by 2:30 P.M., my rough cut has at least half a dozen examples of the new effect in action. Whether or not the effect is appropriate isn’t the point. The fact is, at the rough cut stage, I don’t even know for sure if the shot is going to remain in subsequent cuts. If the shot is eventually put aside, my effects work was for naught.Simplify transitions. During the first two or three passes on a sequence, stick to straight cuts, L-cuts, and the occasional dissolve. Don’t get too fancy. These early edits will probably be trimmed and trimmed again. Any transition that requires rendering or uses elements beyond the outgoing and incoming shots should be put off until your sequence is to time. If a complex transition is absolutely crucial to the story, use a dissolve as a proxy for as long into the process as you can.Watch your layers. Before jumping in, cutting masks, and building multiple video layers, make certain the baseline images say what you need them to say. It takes more than twice as long to cut a two-layer video sequence as it does to cut a single-layer sequence, and the difficulty level grows exponentially with each additional layer. Again, if the layered sequence is necessary to advance the story, use a proxy. Fading in and out of a simple picture-in-picture effect usually makes the point well enough for the rough cut.Use static stills as placeholders. Animating or shooting stills should wait until you’re certain of the still’s duration within the sequence. The exception to this rule is a historical documentary that relies on stills to tell the bulk of the story. In such cases, there may be no avoiding an early trip to the animation stand. It’s often imperative to see how various moves work juxtaposed against each other.
Once your piece is close to time and all of the main segments are in place, it’s time to polish the overall look and feel by creating a palette of effects. These can include the color tones for certain scenes. For example, the interior of the protagonist’s home may be warmed up a bit while his office may use cooler tones. Specific moments in the piece may be given a slightly overexposed look or a bleach pass. Testing glows and similar effects may be appropriate here as well. Slow-motion and time-lapse effects should be fine-tuned at this stage. Adding strobes and frame blends are possibilities to consider. Just recently, I worked on a documentary where the producer insisted on seeing the strobe effects before the rough cut was complete. Valuable time was wasted tweaking and rendering dozens of shots before we’d even completed a first pass through the script. Everyone knows what a strobe effect looks like. We should have used standard slow-motion effects that render in realtime as placeholders until we were to time. It was my job to explain that the effects process should wait until the cut is in reasonably good shape. Instead, the job became a torturous combination of late nights and overused effects.
I save text and motion graphics for the very end. I like to watch the edited piece in its entirety before making decisions on the amount and placement of text and motion graphics. Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable to have a motion graphics artist involved prior to this stage. His or her suggestions can help shape the style and essence of the piece. But be careful. Creating motion graphics elements too early is often wasteful. It’s been my experience that four out of five times, my motion graphics requirements shrink as the editing process goes on. As a producer paying top dollar for a designer or motion graphics artist, I want to make sure every dollar spent shows up on the screen. I wait until the last reasonable moment to order the motion graphics and animated stills. But all rules are made to be broken. A few times, I have built a sequence around a really neat effect and have gotten away with it. Yet more often than not, when I’ve strayed from my Three E’s approach, I’ve ended up squandering time on effects that should have been spent on the editing. And we all know that if the underlying editing isn’t any good, all of the wonderful effects and dazzling motion graphics in the world won’t save the piece. All you’re really doing is putting lipstick on a pig.
]]>Audio manufacturers have started a buzz about 192 kHz sample rates, which theoretically pass signals up to 96 kHz-a couple of octaves above what’s normally considered the top of human hearing. This may be fine if you’re recording hymns for hummingbirds, but tossing all these high-frequency numbers around has fooled some filmmakers into thinking sounds are higher-pitched than they really are. And that can lead to bad decisions when choosing equipment or equalizer settings that hurt a track more than help. Fortunately, you don’t need golden ears to understand which frequency ranges are important. In fact, you hardly need ears at all-just your eyes and brain, and a few screenshots.
But first, you’ll need to understand a tiny bit of math. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz), the number of times per second a wave vibrates. Hearing is logarithmic: At low frequencies, a shift of only a few hertz can sound the same as many hundreds of hertz higher up. For example, C and D on the bottom of the piano are at 32.7 Hz and 36.7 Hz, just 4 Hz difference. That same interval at the top of the keyboard has a difference of more than 500 Hz. Our hearing extends between roughly 20 Hz and 20 kHz, which might lead you to think the middle of the band-the dividing point between bass and treble-is around 10 kHz. But that’s a very high pitch indeed, and only a few orchestral instruments even reach it. Actually the middle of the audio band is around 1 kHz. What’s the point of all this? Low frequencies pack more information per hertz than higher ones, and the bottom 5 kHz of a soundtrack is more important than the 15 kHz above.
For the screenshots, I cut together some soundtrack elements: female and male announcers, synthesized and orchestral library music, and female and male pop singers with their groups. I made copies and filtered them so that each carried only a narrow band of sound. You can download audio clips of the results at my Web site, www.dplay.com/dv. Listen with good headphones and you’ll learn a lot. But even without listening, you can start to understand frequency bands by using a spectral analysis program such as SpectraFoo (www.mhlabs.com). SpectraFoo graphs volume at different frequencies over time, allowing you to see exactly what’s going on in each band for each of my example tracks’ sources. The results will probably surprise you. If not, at least the graphs are pretty.
Figure 1 is the extreme bass, between 10 Hz and 100 Hz. I’ve added callouts so you can see how SpectraFoo displays an ongoing sound: time marches from left to right, frequency ranges from bottom to top, and power is displayed as changing colors. The labels on top identify the sources. Most of this bottom band is filtered out during dialog recording, to avoid noise. But it hardly matters. As you can see, none of the female voice and only a tiny bit of the male extends that low. What’s also interesting is that very little of the scoring music-well-recorded library cues with no additional filtering-goes below 60 Hz.
Figure 2 shows the mid-level bass, 100 Hz-300 Hz (there’s activity above 300 Hz because even my lab filters aren’t perfect). Now the voices start to come alive. These are the fundamental frequencies for most vowels. But you can’t tell male from female here; that happens at higher harmonics. The music uses these frequencies primarily for accompaniment.
Figure 3 is the low midrange, 300 Hz-600 Hz. These are the lower harmonics of voice frequencies, formed by resonances in the mouth. This is also the first band in which you can discern individual vowels, which you can see gliding as the speakers vary their intonation. This band is critical to mixing because it contains most of the energy of both voices and melodic instruments. These elements have a real potential to compete here, which is why alternate versions of scoring music-without melody lines-are often easier to mix. For the same reason, jingles and other music in which the lyrics are important usually don’t have melodies under the singing.
Figure 4 is the midrange, 600 Hz-1.2 kHz. Note how the female voice, naturally brighter, is stronger in this band. But these frequencies aren’t particularly critical for dialog, and you can mix music hotter here. Note how musical activity seems more organized in this image than in the previous ones: This band contains the harmonics that let you tell one instrument from another.
Figure 5 is the high midrange, 1.2 kHz-2.4 kHz, an important band for dialog. There’s enough harmonic energy to tell most vowels apart, and all of the consonants start around here. Our example singers are particularly strong in this range because they’re trained to sing in the mask, opening resonances in their face to emphasize harmonics. But despite the activity in this range, volumes aren’t as loud as they were an octave below.
By the time you get to the low highs, 2.4 kHz-4.8 kHz (see Figure 6), volumes are definitely falling off. While most vowels have harmonics up here, they’re not important for intelligibility and merely establish presence. (Telephones cut off at 3.5 kHz, yet retain enough of a voice that you can identify who’s speaking.) This band is critical for the brass instruments in the orchestra, which are rich in upper harmonics.
The octave above, 4.8 kHz-9.6 kHz (see Figure 7), is mostly sizzle. You can hear just a little of the female voice and only the friction consonants from the male voice. The synthesized music is almost completely gone. There’s still some strength in the pop pieces, primarily upper harmonics of the strings, the lead guitar, and the percussion. This band is important for adding life and brightness-that’s why most radio music is mixed to emphasize it-but doesn’t convey information.
In Figure 8, the top octave of the audio band (9.6 kHz-20 kHz), there’s hardly anything going on with dialog (remember, the green areas are so soft they’re almost inaudible). Only the orchestral brass and artificial harmonics added to the pop have any energy. If you listened to this track by itself, you’d have absolutely no idea what was going on. The presence of these frequencies may help things sound more live than canned, but NTSC television and FM radio are limited to 15 kHz, and most people are satisfied with this sound. In fact, it takes really good ears to even hear the top of this band.
I chose most of these bands to be an octave wide, so each would contain the same number of musical notes. (The two lowest bands are considerably wider because hearing is less acute down there.) But the frequencies aren’t magic. I chose them to reveal interesting things about voice and music, not because you necessarily should be equalizing at them. However, you can make some general conclusions.
Don’t worry about dialog below 80 Hz. Attempting to boost down here will just make things muddy. Leave this band for music and sound effects.
Feel free to boost music a couple of decibels somewhere around 800 Hz, using a broad curve.
Watch out for music interfering with dialog between 1.5 kHz and 3.5 kHz. This is where the consonants live. Dipping the music a few decibels in this range can make the mix sound smoother.
If you’re boosting above 14 kHz or so to make a track brighter, you’re probably just adding noise. Try the same thing between 7 kHz and 10 kHz for better results. And for heaven’s sake, don’t obsess about 96 kHz or 192 kHz recording in a film. While working up there does present some advantages for critical productions, it’s more important to get the area below 10 kHz sounding right.
Last August’s column on music copyrights (Audio Solutions: “Copy Rites,” Aug. ‘03) generated quite a bit of mail for me and Kevin Koloff, the entertainment attorney who provided the article’s legal expertise. Most was complimentary, but there was also a complaint. “The article was okay as far as it went,” a reader wrote, “and I’d like to obey the law, but there was nothing about whether a small film company can even get the right permissions, let alone how.”
So I went ahead and asked another expert, Cheryl Cooper. Her company, First Light (www.firstlightclearance.com), specializes in securing music clearances for corporate and independent producers. From Cooper’s point of view, securing some kind of usage rights isn’t difficult. “Ninety percent of the time, we find a solution,” she assures. “It’s surprisingly rare to hear ‘No, you can’t use that,’ though there are some artists you know to stay away from, and others who expect Nike-sized payments. And even in those cases, if the producer is flexible, we can almost always clear something similar.”
Budgets don’t have to reach the Nike stratosphere. Cooper has gotten rights to use Bob Dylan’s music in a corporate meeting video for $1500, and U2’s in a hospital fundraiser for much less. “The problem is that there are no set rules. Nonprofits can be easy, but corporate productions may be more expensive or even impossible, if the artist doesn’t want to seem to be endorsing the company. On the other hand, independent features can be surprisingly cheap. You can get a license for between zero and $500 from almost any artist, giving you the right to use their song for a year at film festivals. They want your film to be a success, and for you to become the next Stephen Spielberg. The giant record companies are actually trying-in their own way-to help young filmmakers. They figure you’ll be good for much bigger dollars if the film is released to theaters.”
It all comes down to your negotiating skill, luck at finding the right people, persistence, and understanding of the realities of the business. That’s where a professional such as Cooper and her well-stocked Rolodex can be handy, and many filmmakers find the few hundred dollars she charges per song to be a good investment. First Light’s email is cheryl@firstlightclearance.com.
Speaking of realities, the amounts above are just for the sync license. Master and repro rights are extra, unless you produce your own version of the song. If that’s confusing, re-read Audio Solutions, “Copy Rites.” And of course, even $500 may be unrealistic for some projects. The article also has some strategies for the wedding and noncommercial-event videographer.
]]>To work with the web, you need to know HTTP, writes Nick Langley.
The closest encounter most people have with Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is when they get a “404 not found” message after mistyping a web address or clicking on a dead link. Yet it is the essential web protocol, enabling web browsers and web servers to communicate. Whenever you request a web page, it is HTTP that instructs the server to send it to you.
First defined in 1990, HTTP is under the control of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which works with the Internet Engineering Task Force to develop it. There are two versions in widespread use, HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1.
HTTP is a “stateless” protocol, which means each command sent stands alone, and is unconnected to what has gone before or what follows. There is no concept of a session. Version 1.0 lacks the scalability and performance expected of contemporary web applications, and the W3C says all HTTP applications should follow the HTTP/1.1 specification.
Version 1.1 has some significant improvements. Connections are “persistent”, overcoming the need for multiple connections to be set up when transferring pages with multiple elements. Content negotiation means browsers can request the server to send documents in the format they prefer.
There is also a secure version, HTTPS.
As well as sending web pages, HTTP is also used for distributed object management and in web services technologies such as Simple Object Access Protocol.
HTTP is simple to implement, and ubiquitous.
One web-based tutorial says, “HTTP is simple enough for a beginning sockets programmer.” However, the forthcoming book HTTP: The Definitive Guide by Gourley, Totty et al is more than 600 pages long.
HTTP may have started out simple, but a great deal has been done with it since its inception. This means developers must make themselves familiar with a lot of other technologies that are needed if HTTP applications are going to work.
Developers also need an awareness of how HTTP interacts with other technologies, and how their own application is likely to interact with others - not least in the competition for server and network resources.
Don’t confuse stateless protocol with the government’s recent initiative for dealing with asylum seekers.
The W3C recently unveiled its open source web server Jigsaw, on which HTTP/1.1 compliance can be tested.
When the web was being developed at Cern, the main database was housed in room 404. If a document requested could not be tracked down, the message “Room 404: file not found” was returned. There are plenty of websites devoted to different versions of the 404 error page, ranging from the twee to the obscene. For example, see www.plinko.net/404.
The W3C has been looking at ways of replacing the HTTP/1.x family since the mid-1990s, but HTTP/1.1 is likely to be the standard for a long while yet.
There are free tutorials online (try for example www.jmarshall. com/easy/http) but many have not been updated for years. A good starting point is the World Wide Web Consortium website at www.w3c.org, or you could read HTTP: The Definitive Guide, published by O’Reilly.
Web application developers will need HTTP. Most job adverts assume that anyone applying will have HTTP, so they do not specify it. Salaries offered can be as low as pound sterling14,000.
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