Getting web video working on our Squarespace site - Part 2.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we are now using Squarespace for the Bonnie Blink Productions website. Because Squarespace is not currently optimized for video, we are using embedded video from ExposureRoom for our short clips, and hosting our longer videos at our old hosting provider.

I prefer having an "Lightbox" type window with the embedded video to open when the users click a link rather than embedding directly into the page. Squarespace provides an easy way of adding Javascript and CSS code to the site through "code injection" points (CSS can also be added on a template wide basis). The Javascript lightbox utility that I used is MediaBoxAdvanced. It is quite flexible and allows almost any type of image, media player or html page to be displayed as a lightbox. MediaboxAdvanced also has a nice way of creating galleries which the user can select the next or previous image/video/page by clicking the appropriate link.

I decided that since I wanted to add a detailed description of each video, that I would create a plain html page with the embed code for either the ExposureRoom Flash player or the JW FLV player for the longer clips. I call Mediabox from inside the anchor tag like this:

rel="lightbox[med 670 550]" href="/storage/html/Johnston_Trailer.html"

This has Mediabox display the html page containing the embedded video and text. The three parameters inside the brackets are the gallery name (med) and the dimensions of the lightbox. There are several videos that are in the "med" gallery, both ExposureRoom and those served through FLV player.

To see how this looks click on the image on the left side of our homepage.

Getting web video working on our Squarespace site - Part 1.

A couple of weeks ago we moved our Philadelphia wedding videography site, to Squarespace a managed hosting and content management system company. While Squarespace has a lot of advantages, it doesn't provide much support for a video intensive site like Bonnie Blink Productions. They have a 20mb upload limit which effectively prevents us from putting any video over a couple of minutes directly on Squarespace. To work around this I employed two methods. One was to upload our shorter videos (under 10 minutes) to ExposureRoom. ExposureRoom is a site optimized for content creators. The quality of their Flash video is quite good and they transcode each video in three sizes (small, medium, and HD). Code for embedding video on your site is provided as well as thumbnails.

There was still the problem of the longer videos (up to 40 minutes). I would need to put them somewhere. Fortunately I still had my account at Dreamhost where the Bonnie Blink Productions website has been for the past six years. Since they have almost unlimited storage and high bandwidth limits, there would no issue with storing and streaming the content from there. Since the www.bonnie-blink.com domain had be pointed to Squarespace, I couldn't reference any content still at Dreamhost. We also own www.bonnieblink.com and www.bonnieblinkproductions.com. These have always redirected to www.bonnie-blink.com. What I did was to make www.bonnieblinkproductions.com a fully hosted domain. Now all the longer videos will be at that URL.

The next step was to set the video up on the Squarespace site. More on that in the next installment.

Website changes at Bonnie-Blink.com

We have made some major changes to the look of the website for Bonnie Blink Productions, our Philadelphia wedding videography company. Some of these were performance driven. The old design took too long to load and didn't display well on smaller screens. Our redesign is much faster, less resource hungry, and (in my opinion) a lot nicer looking. Another move that we made was to move the site to Squarespace, a managed web hosting company in New York. Not has performance improved, but Squarespace's excellent online content management system allowed us to redesign the site in record time. What is really neat is how you can make formatting changes on the fly. There was still some manual customization to be done, but it was easy to add Javascript and CSS to the site where needed. Using Squarespace doesn't offer as many options to tweak things as self-hosting, but it is much easier to maintain.

Audio Tips For Wedding Videographers

Presented at the Greater Philadelphia Videographers Association, November 18, 2008.

Ceremony Audio

• You should have a microphone on the groom and the officiant. Don't assume that the officiant will be picked up by the groom's mic. Remember that in some denominations (i.e. Catholic) the officiant will often be at a distance from the groom during a large part of the ceremony.
• Find out where the readings will take place a mic the podium.
• String quartets, piano, vocal soloists, any source of music should have its own microphones. Use stereo if possible. Handheld digital music recorders (Edirol, Zoom, H4, Marantz etc) often have very good stereo mics built in. Just set the recorder up on a stand in front of the musicians.
• The organ can be a problem. It is often difficult to get a mic close enough to the pipes or organ speakers. If you can get close, by all means do so. But if not find a quiet part of the church away from the guests (to minimize crowd noise). Fortunately the organ fills the church with sound. If you can't use a dedicated microphone, one of the other mics will most likely get usable audio. Don't count on getting good organ sound from a mic being used for musicians if they will be performing along with the organ. A closely mic'd singer or trumpet player will overwhelm even a loud organ.
• Using the church audio. Many people hook into the church PA system. This way they have both the officiant and podiums taken care of. While this often works very well, there are drawbacks. The PA system may or may not be accessible, there may not be anyone around who knows how it works, and it is hard to test before the ceremony starts. For these reasons it is often better to mic everything separately. The exception is if there is a dedicated audio person at the church. Some churches are very media savvy and not only have good equipment, but people who know how to use it. Take advantage of this if available.
• Before the ceremony test levels on everything. You will not be able to make adjustments once it starts. It is better to set levels a little too low than too high and have clipping. Make sure that your recorders are on and recording. Lock them so the groom, officiant, reader, musician etc. cannot accidentally turn them off. Use the audio level meters if you have them to confirm recording levels. This is one reason not to use an iRiver, no audio level indicators. This is also where multiple wireless microphones are useful. You can set the levels remotely at the camera. Make sure you have fresh batteries. You can't change them in the middle of the ceremony.
• Make sure that your wireless microphones do not interfere with the church PA. While this doesn't happen as much as it used to, it can still occur.

Reception audio

• Microphone in front of speakers vs direct connection to the DJ
  1. An ideal reception audio setup should use both.
• Advantages of a direct connection.
  1. Clean direct audio, not through speakers.
  2. CD quality Stereo output (sometimes).
• Disadvantages of a direct connection
  1. Possible clipping if the DJ turns the levels up too high (particularly if not monitoring).
  2. No guarantee that music and the mic audio levels will be appropriate or that you will even have both.
  3. DJ might not know how his board works or where the connections are, or he may not permit a connection.
  4. Things can get unplugged or a critical channel can be turned off.
• Advantages of speaker audio
  1. You always get the full sound as heard in the room.
  2. No danger of losing all or part of the feed due to the DJ turning off a channel or unplugging something.
  3. No problem (most of the time) if the DJ won't or can't get you hooked up.
  4. You will be able to pick up crowd noise (applause etc)
• Disadvantages of Speaker audio
  1. It never sounds as good as a direct connection.
  2. You always pick up crowd noise (people talking near the mics).

• Use a direct connection to capture the music, DJ dialog and toasts. Use one or two mics positioned near the speakers for CYA, AND if possible another mic pointed towards the guests for applause etc (an on camera mic can be used here in a pinch)

Equipment

• For DJ hookup
  1. Mixer - Useful for connecting various cables, wireless transmitter, recorder, and headphones in one box.
  2. Cables. Make sure that you have cables that terminate on one end with phono plugs (2 for stereo) and ¼ inch plugs. Adaptors are good for this. Also XLRs (although most boards will have photo or 1/4 inch).
  3. Direct Box - Very useful for:
     • Isolating the DJ board to your equipment. Provides ground lift and attenuators.
     • You can plug a plugin type wireless transmitter into the XLR output. Since the transmitter expects a mic level input, use the attenuator on the Direct Box to convert line level to mic level.
  4. Wireless transmitter to camera. Use a plugin type with a Direct Box, and a standard (wearable) transmitter with antenna without. You have to convert the line level output from the board to mic level. Use a Direct Box, an in-line attenuator, or a mixer.
  5. Recorder. Allows recording of stereo feed from the board (if available). Better quality audio than a wireless mic. The recorder should have level indicators to prevent clipping (avoid iRivers if possible) unless connected through a mixer with level indicators. If you have a 4 track recorder, you can use two tracks for the DJ board output and 2 from microphones.
  6. Headphones. Don't trust meters. Listen for yourself. Use sound isolating phones.
  7. Power strip and extension cord - If you have anything that plugs in bring these. The DJ may be using all the plugs and you might have to run an extension from somewhere else.
• Microphone setup
  1. Can be connected to a wireless mic or to a recorder.
  2. Use a dynamic mic. Condenser mics are often overloaded by the high SPLs found at a typical reception. Even better purchase a drum mic. These are designed to be placed in front of a drum where there are very high sound levels.
  3. Use a cardioid mic. This microphone is somewhat directional but not as much as a shotgun. It will minimize crowd noise . Typical vocalist mics are cardioid.
  4. Place the mics on stands close to the speakers and facing them. Not too close as you might end up getting mostly the lows from the woofers or the highs from the tweeters.
  5. Optionally a third mic can be placed facing the guests to pick up crowd noise.

Tips

• When working with the DJ:
  1. If possible examine the outputs on the board. The Master Out jacks are usually your best bet. It is important that whatever output you use that the audio contains a mix of all channels (vocal and music). If you can't find an output that does have both, but you have a mixer, you may be able to mix vocal and music tracks in the mixer.
  2. Test Everything! Have the DJ play music and test his microphone. Make sure that he also tests any other mics that will be in use (i.e. for the toasts). Have him turn the volume up to the loudest level that he anticipates using. Set your levels so there is no clipping going into your wireless or recorder. In fact set it a bit lower. DJs have a tendency to really crank it up. Make sure that you listen with headphones. Just because the levels are OK, doesn't mean that the audio isn't distorted or noisy.
  3. Periodically check your setup. Check the levels and listen with your headphones. DJs have been known to accidently (or on purpose) turn off the output to your equipment or unplug cables. Also monitor camera audio if you have sound going to that. Use headphones as well as the audio level meters in the camera.
  4. Put fresh batteries into anything that needs them.
  5. If using a digital recorder, be aware of how much space is left to record. Change flash memory cards before you run out.
  6. CYA. Always have a backup source of audio. If you are getting your audio from the DJ board but have a microphone in front of the speakers, you are covered. Camera audio can be used, but the quality depends on where you are in the room and which direction you are facing.
• When Working with a live band
  1. Most bands have someone running a mixer. Use the mixer like the DJ board. Get a Master out if possible. Remember however that the mix is optimized for the speakers, not for recording. Typically it is not optimal for our use. Therefore you should also set up mics if possible. It may not be practical to do anything more than place a couple of microphones on stands near the speakers, but you should have a second source of audio. Since most bands are using electrified instruments, the speakers are the best place to pick up audio. An exception would be if the musicians are using non-amplified acoustic instruments. In a complex situation multi track recording may be necessary for optimal sound. For example you may want a couple of mics on the instruments, a feed from the board for the vocalists and any electric instruments, and another mic on the drums. This is often not practical without a dedicated audio person so keep it simple if you don't have the resources.

Camera presets - updated

Originally published July 14, 2008

In this earlier article, I mentioned trying out Paolo Ciconne's Trucolor preset. I am pleased to say that I have used Trucolor on my XH-A1s for the last three weddings with great success. The colors and flexibility of this preset are amazing.

Success with Soundtrack Pro

Originally published July 9, 2008

About a year ago, I tried using Apple's Soundtrack Pro to do sound design on a wedding that I was editing. Unfortunately when I exported my mix back into Final Cut Pro, I found that the levels were all over the place and not what I had set during the aduio edit. Since then I have done all audio editing inside Final Cut Pro.

I am pleased to say that Apple has fixed these problems. I just completed sound design on a 25 minute highlight video with no problems. I will now be using Soundtrack Pro on a regluar basis.

Notes on using Apple's Color

Originally published July 9, 2008

Color, Apple's color grading program included with Final Cut Studio 2, brings the ability to do professional (i.e. Hollywood level) color grading to video. It isn't the best solution for every editing situation though.

When is Color better than color correcting in Final Cut Pro? If you have to do nothing more than simple levels adjustments or correcting a slight color cast, you are usually better off staying in FCP. But if more extensive color corrections need to be made, or if you are trying to achieve a certain look through grading (a term used for making multiple corrections on a clip), then Color is a good tool to use.

For the event videographer, there is one major limitation. Color doesn't like FCP Multiclips. If you try exporting a sequence containing Multiclips, you might find clips out of place, or even footage that wasn't even included in your sequence in the Color timeline. Sometimes the graded timeline cannot be sent back to FCP. The only workaround that I have found is to substitute clips from the orginal media for the Multiclips. This unfortunately makes grading multiclips, or even clips that originated as multiclips difficult and time consuming.

As a result, I am not using Color at this time. Until Apple solves the multiclip issue, color correcting in Final Cut Pro is the only viable option. I do a lot of multiclip work, and can't afford to take the time to work around this limitation.