Oct 10
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Greenscreen in studio

General Rules and Guidelines for Corporate Video Productions

By Tips/Techniques

Caveat– all rules are made to be broken from time to time.  But to break a rule in art, I believe you need to know what the rule is, versus it being an accident.  So here are some random thoughts about corporate video: Easiest way to price a corporate video is by the “finished minute.”  This means that if you want a five minute marketing piece for the web, the simplest way to quote it is $x times 5 minutes.  Standards for simple video might be in the $1K range.  I’ve had some videos in the $7K and $8K range.  Usually the shorter the video is, the higher the price per finished minute will creep up.  For example, if you price a video out at $2K per finished minute for a 5 minute video, and then decide to just cut…

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Oct 08
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Importance of Depth of Field

By Tips/Techniques

A quick way to make immediate impact on the quality of your picture taking or video making is to narrow your depth of field.  In this part 1 we talk about what DOF is and why it’s important.  In part two, we’ll discuss how to implement it. Depth of Field is the difference many times between something that looks cinematic and something that looks amateur.  There are times to have a large depth of field, but better production value often means a narrower depth of field.

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Oct 07
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Dallas Video Production

Dallas Video Production

By Tips/Techniques

Serendipitous Films is a full service film and video production company, specializing in corporate video, commercials, music videos and other production services like shooting and editing. There was a time when Dallas claimed the moniker of “the third coast.”  Obviously, LA and NYC are first two, and in the 80’s, movies and tv shows were coming to Dallas. The allure is clear– Dallas has a strong national commercial production industry, which provides top quality crew and equipment.  So bringing the entertainment work in is a great compliment to the corporate and commercial video and film work.  Since the 80’s, Dallas has been on a  roller coaster of a ride– seeing the heights of Walker, Texas Ranger shoot week to week providing much in the way of jobs and rentals.  And seeing the lows, like when the SAG Commercial actor strike…

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Oct 06
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DP Ron Gonzalez and Director Dan Millican

Cost of Video Productions

By Tips/Techniques

“How long is a piece of string?”  One of the most common question we get from potential clients is “how much would a video cost?”  As you can imagine, there are so many variables that go into this answer.  So what we do is ask a series of questions to figure out the elements, time frame, use, etc., that can help us give an accurate estimate. Here are some factors that greatly impact cost of a corporate/commercial video: Talent — Using a professional spokesperson, or a handful of actors, or even a voice talent can be expensive.  We use both union and non-union talent and have relationships built with the talent agencies. Days of Shooting — A big cost for us is a day of shooting.  So if the video requires two days of shooting, that line in the budget…

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Oct 03
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Slow Motion

Slow Motion (Slomo, Slo-mo, overcranked or whatever you call it)

By Tips/Techniques

Most of us know what Slow motion is– it’s the slowing down of the movement in a video or film shot. There’s several ways to accomplish this– by just slowing down the shot in editing, or “over cranking” the shot when you are shooting. Shooting takes place at 24 frames a second, or 30 frames (or 25 for you PAL users) and some other variations as well. We won’t even get into fields. If I take 24 frames that were meant to display all in one second and I tell the clip to display those 24 frames in 2 seconds, what you’ll basically get is slo-mo that doubles up every frame. It will appear jittery or jerky. Not really ideal. I watched a movie recently and this is the slo-mo they had– it meant they didn’t shoot it for slo-mo…

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Sep 29
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Basics – Composition

By Tips/Techniques

One of the most frequent questions I get from friends and family not in the film business is “how can I take better pictures and video?” One free thing to instantly have a big impact on the quality of your picture taking and video shooting is to have better composition. In this installment of tips/techniques, we talk about the “rule of thirds.”

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Sep 27
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Delivering Your Project

By Tips/Techniques

In the 90’s, when we finished the edit, we would lay off the final to tape and make a VHS client approval dub.  Then when they were happy with it, we would duplicate how many ever VHS copies the client needed. Ten years later, it’s DVD.  In 2005, we purchased a DVD duplicator, that printed right on the face.  Our clients wanted discs, so that’s what we gave them.  Now seven years later, it’s changing again. We almost made a decision even earlier this year to invest in another DVD duplicator.  But out of the last ten projects, the primary means of delivering to the client was not DVD for nine of them.  Clients want files. We learned the best settings for YouTube and Vimeo so that the videos are high def and yet load and play quickly.  We’ve added…

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Sep 26
Love1
Shooting Greenscreen with Prompter

Corporate Video Productions

By Info

Video Production for training, sales, marketing and more!. Serendipitous Films has an award-winning track record for producing high quality videos.  We’ve produced national commercials, training programs, marketing videos, viral videos for web SEO, sales training, recruiting, and many others.  Whatever your corporate communication need is, we deliver results. We’re deadline oriented and know how to work fast.  Usually, companies will ask you if you want it good, cheap or fast, because you can pick two.  Here at Serendipitous Films, we pride ourselves on our ability to deliver all three.

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Sep 26
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Seminars for Directors and Producers this Saturday!

By Seminars

  DIRECTOR SEMINAR *** PRODUCER SEMINAR Saturday, October 1, only $29 (reg. $49) for each class   We’re going to have a Director and Producer Seminar on Saturday October 1.  Director class is 9 to 11:30.  We’ve dropped the price to only $29.  Producer class at 1:30 to 4pm.  Same price. Director Class 9am-11:30 [buy_now_button product_id=’132′] Producer Class 1:30pm to 4pm [buy_now_button product_id=’128′] For Directors, we’ll go over what to look for in auditions, how to approach the shoot, shot lists, vector lines, and the psychology of working with actors and head strong crew members.   For Producers, we’ll talk about nuts and bolts of getting the project started, paperwork needed, how to raise money, how to pitch, pulling a team together all the way through to distribution.   If you sign up for both, bring your lunch and we’ll…

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Sep 25
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Lighting Interviews

Lighting Interviews

By Tips/Techniques

There are two main styles for approaching interview lighting.  What we’re talking about here is a single person talking head– where the interviewer is off camera.  The two styles are Documentary and News. News is quick.  You’ve got a deadline and no time for pretty.  You’ve got to get the content and get it fast.  Or, you purposely want it to have the feel of news, although you have all the time in the world.  Or you need to get a bunch of interviews in a very short time.  This style is usually one light, probably on the camera.  There are a bunch of lights made for this.  My DP Ron Gonzalez has just gotten a ring light.  It’s like a circle flo.  What this does is give the person a circle instead of a dot reflection in their eyes. …

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