Friday, September 26, 2008

Welcome to Web Video & Beyond

Chris Meyer | 09/26- 11:01 AM

Opening discussions on alternate forms of distribution.

As we mentioned earlier, we are in the process of launching a series of “themed” channels on PVC. One of the new channels we’re most excited about is Web Video & Beyond.

The advent of cable and satellite television had a big impact on the industry, as they created a demand for more content - content that had to look as good as any “national” feed, but produced at a lower cost. This was fuel to the fire for the desktop video industry, highlighting the economic advantage desktop production brought.

Today, we are still in the early stages of another large explosion in content distribution: web video, and other alternate outlets such as cell phones, PDAs, intelligent multimedia gaming devices, and beyond. Even while the business models are still being built up, the demand for cost-effective content is as strong as ever. (I’ve talked about this before.)

But there are new challenges as well: the technology (Flash has a huge installed base - but it’s not in iPhones), new program formats (an attention span closer to a 5-minute podcast than a 30 or 60 minute network program), the impact of increasing bandwidth (the movement from SWF to FLV means traditional editors and motion graphics artists can use their current skill sets, rather than learn how to animate sprites), and the question of just how much production value is needed in this Web 2.0, user-generated-content, YouTube world. It’s confusing; it’s evolving; it’s exciting. We hope to learn together with you up here.

Speaking of learning together: We are always on the lookout for good writers for PVC, and this new channel is a new opportunity to share what you know. If you already have a blog and want to repost some of your “classic” articles here (as well as new content, of course), or previously wrote for magazines or other web outlets and now want to be part of PVC, let’s talk! I can be reached at cmeyer @ PVC’s web domain above. Writers share in PVC’s ad revenue based on their traffic.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

TED Talk: The Web and TV, a Sibling Rivalry

Chris Meyer | 09/07- 09:37 AM

Peter Hirshberg gives a history lesson on the parallel development of computers and TV over the past 50 years.

A parallel conference to TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is the EG (Entertainment Gathering) conference, whose goal is “making information entertaining & entertainment informative.” This talk from last year’s EG gives a history lesson on the development of both television and computers, which are of roughly the same age. Although it gets bogged down at times (you could skip ahead from the 5 minute mark to 11 minutes, unless early computers gets your geek up), it does contain numerous interesting nuggets, such as the interview with tweeners where they explain why thing think television is “optional” in their lives, parallels between the tech and messianic movements, how TV was supposed to kill radio, how crayons were used to create a proprietary media platform, Microsoft’s initial pooh-poohing of the information superhighway, and other amusing anecdotes as well as important lessons in the different business models between the web and television.

(While blogging on a web site about media creation, I can’t help but note technically that they failed to removed the interlacing from the video reference materials, and that the audio equalization is fatiguing to listen to. Plus not all technologists understand pacing in entertainment. Fortunately, the medium isn’t the entire message.)

Friday, August 29, 2008

Hilarious. Also true.

Jay Rose | 08/29- 09:19 AM

How to interpret ‘crew wanted’ ads

Craigslist is a marvelous institution. There are editions for some 500 different cities, but you can still consider yourself lucky if you live near one. Among (lots of) other things, Craigslist has ads for temporary or permanent film/tv jobs. Some of those listings have more to do with a newbie director’s fantasies than anything real - no budget, no plans, no technique - but you learn to ignore them.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Most Important Piece of Paperwork for Your Projects

Richard Harrington | 07/30- 08:32 AM

I often preach extensively about project management at design and creative conferences around the globe.  The one piece of paperwork that I always emphasize is completing a scoping document for a project then getting the client to sign off and accept it.  This one piece of paperwork can solve all sorts of problems and is really worth the 2-5 hours it takes to write.  The outline is as follows.

Project Scoping Document
( 2 - 1 0 p a g e s )

• Project Name
• Executive Summary
• Background
• Project Scope (High Level)


• Project Objectives
• Deliverables
• Organizations
• Interfaces Required
• Assumptions
• Constraints
• Evaluation Criteria
• Risks
• Rewards
• Budgets
• Schedules (Due Dates)
• Project Team Readiness
• Key Roles


• Executive Sponsor
• Project Manager
• Business Experts
• Technical Experts
• Signature Lines - Sign Off “Charter”

Monday, July 28, 2008

Sour Notes

Jay Rose | 07/28- 12:17 PM

The music revolution will not be televised.

A friend pointed me to an article in the New York Times, about new software that claims to change the pitch of just one string in a guitar chord. This isn’t a trivial task, since plucked strings don’t have just one frequency. There are harmonics extending up the band, mixing with harmonics of other notes. Anything that wants to adjust a single string has to sort them all out, first. 

Monday, July 28, 2008

Mobile Animation for Comics

Chris Meyer | 07/28- 12:58 PM

Is this the next big flash in the pan?

We wake up most mornings listening to the new on NPR (National Public Radio). This morning, after a story on Comic-con (the huge annual comic book convention), there was a piece on the boom in “mobile animation” in Japan. Japan is a big market for comic books (”manga”), as well as a big market for mobile phones and new trends in mobile media. The story indicated that distributing comics through mobile phones had become The Next Big Thing over there. Some advancements include touch-interface phones such as the iPhone, which allows a tactile turning-the-page experience. But also of interest is animating the comics for delivery over cell phones and other mobile players.

If you’re looking for new niches or market opportunities, it may be time to brush up on the subjects of converting drawn art to vectors (time to crack open that copy of Adobe Illustrator which came free with your After Effects or Photoshop bundle), creating vector artwork (especially comics), and - most important of all - animating that artwork. This last skill is what can set you, a motion graphics artist, apart from other more conventional illustrators in the field, or make yourself an important partner for them. Adobe Flash is obviously the big dog in this field, but there are also a couple of other solutions out there worth exploring, such as Anime Studio Pro which allows you to add “bones” to vector or even hand-drawn artwork, and the Puppet Tools in Adobe After Effects CS3 and later.

By the way, another news item this morning concerned a new search engine called Cuil ("an old Irish word for knowledge") started by a bunch of ex-Googlites. A search for “mobile animation” on Cuil returned a subjectively more useful result (arranged in a far more visually useful fashion) than a standard Google search. Keep an eye on them.

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