Jamie Warden

You are quite welcome. Good luck!

Ok, as I know this can certainly be daunting for anyone venturing in to web space, here is what I have found to be the best method of compression and subsequent launching to web: - Do NOT encode to H.264 before going to FLV. Pick one or the other, because there is no need to encode to H.264 before going to FLV. What you are concerned with are bitrate and frame size, and both of these codecs handle compression and resizing in a specific way. So take your source .mov, which I imagine is uncompressed, then: - If you decide to go with Quicktime/H.264, here are your settings (bearing in mind that your desired output is 432x207): Name: h264 (432x207, 24fps, 44.1, 96kps, 1500stream) Audio Encoder AAC, Stereo (L R), 44.100 kHz, VARIABLE BIT RATE @ 128 kb OR LOWER Format: QT Width: 432 Height: 207 Pixel aspect ratio: Square Crop: (L: 0, T: 67, R: 0, B: 67) Padding: None Frame rate: 24 <---- YOU DON'T HAVE TO REDUCE THE FRAME RATE (AND SHOULDN'T, IMO, THE TRADE OFF BETWEEN JITTERS AND FILE SIZE IS NOT EQUAL) Frame Controls: Automatically selected: ON Codec Type: H.264 Multi-pass: On, frame reorder: On Pixel depth: 24 Spatial quality: 75 Min. Spatial quality: 25 Temporal quality: 50 Min. temporal quality: 25 Average data rate: 1.536 (Mbps) <----- HERE IS YOUR PROBLEM. FOR THE FRAME SIZE YOU ARE GOING FOR, YOU DON'T NEED NEARLY THIS MUCH DATA. I WOULD REDUCE TO SOMETHING LIKE 400 kbps. THAT WILL BE MORE THAN ENOUGH. ALTERNATIVELY, YOU CAN JUST SET THE CODEC TO ENCODE AT "MEDIUM" QUALITY, IF YOU ARE DOWNCONVERTING YOUR SOURCE MOV TO A SMALLER FRAME SIZE. Fast Start: on <---- COMPRESSED HEADER. FASTEST WAY TO GET A VIEWER TO YOUR VIDEO. Now, if you decide to go with FLV, just set your encoding to 400 - 500 kbps (video), and 96 - 128 kbps audio. This is more than enough for your frame size. You can check out my website for an example of the former (Quicktime) encoding scheme: www.evanjwarden.com One last thing. You mention how you lose saturation/gamma when converting to H.264. While this may appear to be the case, it is not. For some strange reason, H.264 degrades when played back in Quicktime. I don't know why, it just does. Try your H.264 in VLC...notice a difference? There is a way to combat this though. In Compressor, under "Filters" you can modify the Gamma output. I wouldn't suggest going over 1.10. I usually go to this as a default. There is also a tab that says "Color". You want to change that to "Preserve Source". Those two tricks combined should help you greatly with color representation. It's really a matter of taste. Once you see the results, you can tweak the settings 100kbps or more in either direction to achieve what you are going for. This method seems to strike a good balance between quality and file size.

Well, I've been dishing out a little criticism, so I suppose that it is time to get a taste of my own medicine: www.evanjwarden.com Any criticisms will be greatly appreciated! Thanks much.

I think that you should move the project that you have positioned at the end of your reel towards the front. In my opinion, it is the most exemplary work on the reel (though the B&W project you open with is quite strong as well). Also, I'd have to agree that integrating a bit more design into your site will certainly help your cause. Surround your work in a beautiful layout and shorten your reel just a bit, and I think you will be solid!

Hi Andrew, Nice work. You have some really great stuff in your reel. My biggest criticism is the screen time that you give each shot (especially the opening one). Your shots are well lit and nicely composed, but I believe that you should move through them quicker. If that means shortening the reel, so be it. Your work is strong enough that people will still get the point. Again, nice work. Good luck!

Hi Everyone, I'm shooting a short industrial in Manhattan and am investigating rates for small lighting packages. Here's a list of what I'm looking for: Fresnels: (1) 2KT (2) 1KT (3) 650T (2) 300T HMI: (1) 1.2K Misc.: (1-2) XS-S Chimeras I'm also looking for a small list of grip equipment. Budget is modest, but not tiny. Anyone have some solid recommendations for lighting houses? Thanks much!

Thanks for the comments, Jon! I'm thinking about changing that black background...not even so much that it's dark, but just because it's kinda boring :D Also, I think you're right about the length. I haven't shot a whole lot of narrative stuff yet, so I should probably focus on the strong stuff I have shot, rather than stretch it out. Thanks again!

Hi everyone, I would really appreciate it if you had a minute and would be so kind as to critique my new website and the narrative reel I put together on there: www.evanjwarden.com I'm really just getting started, so it can only go up from here. Thanks for the input!!

Thanks for the input guys. After deliberating for a short time, I decided to take Charles' advice. I'll be posting a link to the new site soon, and would greatly appreciate any feedback/criticism. Thanks much! Jamie

In addition to this, where does everyone stand on mixing narrative and doc stuff in the same reel?

Hi Everyone, Just wanted to take a quick opinion poll... When composing a reel, do you like to group clips from the same project together, (meaning :30 of project #1, :30 of project #2, etc.), or inter-cut clips from different projects throughout? If you could explain your preference, that would be much appreciated!