The modern entertainment industry is a confusing mix of technology and creativity. How is one person supposed to absorb all the requisite information? Well of course no one person can, but we all need to have at least enough understanding to prevent other sections of the production team from pulling a fast one on us (Three days to light a green screen? Please.) So how can you absorb the important information without doing a joint degree in engineering and film studies? Talk to the Stickman.

Moviola.com’s new series, “Stickman straightens out…” is designed specifically to deliver the meat of a matter without the unnecessary astrophysics or metaphysics. Hosted by moviola.com’s very own Stickman (featured in the filmmaking fundamentals videos) each show covers a topic of collective haze in the industry.

Have you ever asked questions like: “Can I be sued for using the Coca Cola logo in my film?”, “Why do I need to color correct in linear space?”, “When do I need a model release?”, “Why should I pay more for filmmaking lights when the hardware store sells six for twenty?”, “Where do I buy movie breakaway glass?”, or “Why do alien spacecraft only ever land in the United States?” Well, Stickman is ready to provide mostly true answers to all these questions.

In this first installment Stickman explores the concept of codecs. This is a broad strokes overview of how codecs work, how compression does what it does, and even where the strange name came from. In a future episode we’ll explore how to use this information to inform compression choices when exporting from your favorite NLE.

Do you have some other topic that baffles you? Drop us a line and we’ll be sure to get the Stickman to respond on air. And be sure to watch the other extensive training featuring Stickman on moviola.com