Tweet

Post Production Studios Like the Pros Without the Big Budget

Written by: Andy Marken

Article Overview: Start your video production business without a big budget.

Post Production Studios Like the Pros Without the Big Budget

Project Snapshot: Put together a home video post production suite based on the
networked model used in Hollywood

Difficulty Rating: Surprisingly easy (but don't expect George Lucas results first
time out)

Estimated time: 2-4 hours
You're getting content from everywhere -- video, photos, music, the web, school,
work. Reality TV rules and this is the stuff it is made from. It begs to be turned
into entertaining home videos and slide shows. However, the dark side of content
quickly raises its head: You are constantly out of disk space to store and retrieve
everything.

You have four options - delete stuff, rip open your PC and add yet another drive,
buy an expensive external drive solution, or ignore the great new stuff.
Delete? Never, because the minute you do, you know you'll immediately need it!

Crack the lid? That's only for techies -- real people don't do that.

Expensive external storage? Smart, frugal people don't do that.
Ignore? Hey it's good stuff. You can't do that, either!

The solution is what Hollywood does: create a video post production suite of
your own that uses an affordable powerful software-based editing system, such
as Sonic Solutions' DVDit! or Apple's Final Cut Pro, a good LCD flat-screen monitor,
a pair of stereo speakers, and the real secret: an array of drives (of the hard
and disc varieties) configured in a sort of "apartment house" that allows you,
the digital landlord, to move new tenants (faster drives and more data) into
a stack of ready-made housing that cuts down on cabling, allows you to pull video
and other content from a variety of sources instantly, bypass the morass of interformat
OS compatibility, and put out new family blockbusters faster than the Three Stooges
churned out shorts for Columbia Pictures.

The Basics
We're not going to spend a lot of time on the editing software or video or audio
monitors; there are plenty of reviews of DVDit! and Final Cut Pro you can base
your decision on, and you can set up your editing station on any desktop computer.

But a quick word about ergonomics. Set up the computer monitor and speakers on
a flat surface, such as a desk, with the screen and the speakers within easy
reach. Keep the video monitor a bit lower than the top of your head, so you're
looking slightly downward at it, and the speakers on either side of the screen.

As many film and television post editors will tell you, cobbling together a finished
product requires a critical monitoring environment - one in which you'll be comfortable
for long stretches of time as you get into the editing process. The screen should
be at a comfortable viewing angle and the speakers positioned so that you can
hear without having to have the volume up high, which causes ear fatigue.
The Apartment Building

We used the ADS Tech Dual-Link Drive enclosures because there's no point in reinventing
the wheel. The ADS enclosures are stackable, can hold any of the types of drives
commonly used (hard drives, DVD and CD drives, recordable media drives), have
their own internal universal power supply, and come preconfigured for both FireWire
and USB cabling.

The main source for content for home family videos will likely be the video camera
itself. If it's running the DV format, you can post it into the computer via
USB and take the data in directly, using the camera as an external drive. But
less than 20 minutes of digital footage will create a file as large as 4-GB,
so it makes sense to transfer the footage to a recordable disc (DVD-R) or an
external hard drive.

People often want to include content from other sources, some of which reside
on VHS tape. A converter, like ADS's Pyro AV Link, will convert analog information
to the DV format. There's a myriad of other sources for content, including CDs.
(See sidebar on content protection.) This is part of what makes the apartment
house model so useful: you can draw content out of an array of sources without
constantly fiddling with changing out disc or hooking up external drives. FireWire
connections theoretically allow as many as 16 drive devices to be daisy-chained
sequentially with no device ID conflicts, though you likely won't need more than
three to six at the most to make great home movies.

USB connections can't be daisy-chained, but a USB hub, such as the ADS Ultra Hub 4, will allow between five and seven drive devices to be accessed instantly (theoretically you could
do up to 127 devices but that's a little overkill). Also, with FireWire and USB,
unlike SCSI, you don't have to worry about terminators or device IDs. ADS's FireWire
enclosure has ports for both FW 800 and 400, so it's backwards compatible with
older computers that only have FW400 ports. FireWire or USB - it's your call.
Either works wonderfully, and anyone who has ever tried to troubleshoot SCSI
conflicts and termination errors will appreciate their ease of use.

Furthermore, most new drives enter the market as internal versions. Having homes
waiting for them in the form of format-agnostic drive housings gives you an edge
on accommodating new technology.

Position the drive stack near the editing station, but not necessarily on top
of it. You can place on the desktop or off to the side. Either the FireWire or
USB hub options will result in only a single cable to the computer. (Which can
also be off the desk for nice clean look. But leave space between it and the
drive stack on the floor to avoid thermal buildup.)

In a typical "apartment house," you'll have two hard drives, a CD-R player/burner
and two DVD-R player/burners - one as a content storage device and one as the
"final mix" platform. This approach to drive management allows you to keep your
drives at the leading edge in terms of performance and capacity. It also has
another benefit: you can run multiple OS - Windows, Mac or Linux - without having
to reformat/partition the computer's internal drive.

With your drive array in place, you can begin to edit in the "A/B roll" style:
previewing content from various drives before assembling them in the workstation.
Hollywood film and video editors do this from TB-sized drives networked throughout
their post facilities. You've now achieved the home version of that. You're ready
for your closeup. Mr. DeMille!
# # #

Sidebar: Content Protection
There's been a lot of controversy about content and intellectual property (IP)
protection in recent years. Most content that you don't create yourself is copyrighted
in some way or another, and the law carries significant penalties for commercial
misuse of IP.

However, the law is also on your side. Thanks to the Digital Millennium Act of
1998, you are allowed to use copyrighted material that you have acquired legitimately
for personal use. The license to do so is implicit in the act of purchasing the
content, in the form of DVDs, CDs, still photos or other graphics. So get creative!
--Dan Daley

For more information:
www.adstech.com
www.howstuffworks.com

Related Articles
  How to Use PR to Launch Your Independent Film
  Film Finances Canada – Monetizing Your Film Tax Credits in Canada Today Via our Secret Strategy!
  Film Financing via Tax Credits - Two Critical Necessities for Independent Film Financing
  Home-based Business Idea: Yoga Instructor
  Are There Canadian film financing banks For My Tax Credits?

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Video Production - Does anyone know a good company in Video Production? We are looking to create a short commercial for our website. thanks, B
Re: Twiiter an sales - Twitter is very useful for sales and marketing specially for the promotion of products and services. Do the following while active on Twitter:- 1. Follow the people having same interest 2. Post Unique and eye catching content 3. Post Images 4. Take your user name as your favorite product name or brand name. 5. Re tweet, replies and make favorite the posts 6. Create list of people interacting with you 7. Try to active at least 5 day a week.
Re: Social Media Marketing - For B2B Products & Services - Great Post!! I also agreed that because now days you can increase traffic through social media site Facebook and twitter. When you are creating a Facebook fan page, create attractive welcome page and add as many friends as you can then communicate with your friends. Post comment for your friends post like their status etc and just improve your communication and ask them to like your fan page. Run Facebook Applications like network blog and connect it to twitter.
More Info - Julie, a little more info on what you are dioing presently will pobably put into context your query. JV's or partnerships can be of various kinds depending upon what your forte is and which is your deficiency area. Ideally this is the basis for any JV/partnership idea. Ofcourse I have put it too simply but the crux would remain the same. You could have a JV in the follwing areas : * Finance * Marketing * Production * Product Research etc. Given a little detail one could give specific ideas. Best of Luck
Seek Venture Capital & Funding - Hello, Greetings from India. I am Seeking Venture Capital for Offshore Software Company Start-up. Need advise along with Business Model Sample. I have a basic outline for an offshore company. 1. Technology - like Microsoft Dot Net, Java, LAMP 2. Talent Team - Found Good Technology Developers. 3. Where I can get the leads/potential customers - Leads have been identified who are willing to move forward offshore projects. 4. I do not have resources like funding. It is a very critical factor to me Industries: Manufacturing, Real Estate, Retail, Insurance, Distribution & Logistics, Healthcare, Industry Associations and Software Product Development, Agricultural Industries and Etc. Services: Offshore Software Development Company. Offices to be located: Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India and USA. Products/Services/Applications in areas like POS & Billing, Sales & Distribution, Production Planning, Material Management, Inventory Control, Plant Maintenance, Purchasing, Accounting and Logistics. Dynamic Web Programming with Database Driven Content Management Systems, Online Stores for E-Commerce, B2B Solutions, Community Portals, Website Redesign and Development, Custom ERP with Enterprise Wide Functional Modules such as Marketing, CRM, Accounting, Inventory Control, Sales & Distribution, Production Planning, Purchase & Stores, Logistics and Supply Chain. Seek your further questions and help. Thank you, Best Regards, Jayapratap.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Ten Reasons to take Notes during Sales Meetings

Attracting Passionate Employees

Convening a focus group for a niche product

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.