Lounge Production Presents: Joint Efforts Project

[Guest]

Since I don't feel it would be right to take over the thread started by Steven, I start a new one. This thread is going to be dedicated to producing a movie as a result of those voluneers' joint efforts, who are members of Adobe Community.

The main objective for this project is to collaboratively create final product from scratch: from defining the project scope to finally publish a movie somewhere, be it a dedicated website or just YouTube or Vimeo, as we'll define later.

This main objective is not the only project's goal. It is assumed, participants will be able to work on a particular tasks so as to improve their own skills in a desired field via sharing creativity, knowledge and skills.

I also hope we'll gain the Forum moderators' support so as to be able to appropriately update this original post so that others, who might arrive here later, will be able to understand at which stage the project is that time.

Now let's try to define the project scope.

By 15 October we reached our first milestone and defined

PRODUCT SCOPE and PROJECT CONSTRAINTS & QUALITY CRITERIA

Product Scope

Item	Specification	Priority
Movie, The	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 60 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps Compulsory Elements: - 3D graphics and VFX (SciFi) incorporated into live shots - Specific consistent look (colour design)	Highest
Dedicated website	Genre: Promotional website Scope: 2 pages Compulsory Elements: - Web animation - Video streaming	High
Official trailer	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 30 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps	Medium
Behind the scene movie	Genre: Documentary Duration: 2 minutes Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps Compulsory Elements: - Short interviews with the project participants - VFX breakdown	Medium
Talk show appearance	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 30 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps	Low
Poster	Genre: 16 x 9 Billboard Quantity: 1 sample Format: 1920 x 1080 pix, PNG Genre: 4 x 3 Affiche Quantity: 1 sample Format: 1080 x 810 pix, PNG	High
Print ads	Genre: Glossy magazine ad, Front cover Quantity: 1 sample Format: Full page, Page-proof PDF Genre: Newspaper ad, Multi-column print Quantity: 1 sample Format: ¼ Page, Page-proof PDF	Medium
Article	Genre: Review Quantity: 1 sample Format: Page-proof PDF, ~500 words	Medium
Brief Report on Collaborative Tools	Genre: Review Quantity: 1 article Format: Page-proof PDF	Highest

Project Constraints & Quality Criteria

- 24 December 2013 is a strict deadline;

- All media used in final product, from sound to 3D model textures, must be created by the project participants. Utilising stock media in final product is not allowed;

- Missing media or incomplete elements must be replaced with placeholders, white noise or subtitles, which explain what is missing (e.g. 'nice music is playing on the background' or 'nice colour grading applied here' etc.);

- The project is accepted as successful in terms of quality control, if no less than 90% of all planned work is complete. The overall progress is calculated as the following ratio:

(SUM OF COMPLETE ELEMENTS MULTIPLIED BY THEIR WEIGHTS) / (SUM OF ALL PLANNED ELEMENTS MULTIPLIED BY THEIR WEIGHTS)

- The project is accepted as successful in terms of attractiveness to external audience, if we reach 1 000 hits within three months after final product release, where

100 hits = 100 website landing page visits = 10 visits of 2nd page = 10 movie views = 1 movie download.

The following hits distribution is expected:

600 hits within 1st month after release;

250 hits within 2nd month after release;

150 hits within 3rd month after release.

Discussion on the next project phase, planning tasks list and obtaining required resources, starts at comment #84.

[Guest]

Keep moving. Here is a brief summary of our final product (I added one important item to the list and arbitrary assigned some priorities) and project constraints & quality criteria:

Product Scope

Item	Specification	Priority
Movie, The	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 60 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps Compulsory Elements: - 3D graphics and VFX (SciFi) incorporated into live shots - Specific consistent look (colour design)	Highest
Dedicated website	Genre: Promotional website Scope: 2 pages Compulsory Elements: - Web animation - Video streaming	High
Official trailer	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 30 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps	Medium
Behind the scene movie	Genre: Documentary Duration: 2 minutes Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps Compulsory Elements: - Short interviews with the project participants - VFX breakdown	Medium
Talk show appearance	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 30 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps	Low
Poster	Genre: 16 x 9 Billboard Quantity: 1 sample Format: 1920 x 1080 pix, PNG Genre: 4 x 3 Affiche Quantity: 1 sample Format: 1080 x 810 pix, PNG	High
Print ads	Genre: Glossy magazine ad, Front cover Quantity: 1 sample Format: Full page, Page-proof PDF Genre: Newspaper ad, Multi-column print Quantity: 1 sample Format: ¼ Page, Page-proof PDF	Medium
Article	Genre: Review Quantity: 1 sample Format: Page-proof PDF, ~500 words	Medium
Brief Report on Collaborative Tools	Genre: Review Quantity: 1 article Format: Page-proof PDF	Highest

Project Constraints & Quality Criteria

- 24 December 2013 is a strict deadline;

- All media used in final product, from sound to 3D model textures, must be created by the project participants. Utilising stock media in final product is not allowed;

- Missing media or incomplete elements must be replaced with placeholders, white noise or subtitles, which explain what is missing (e.g. 'nice music is playing on the background' or 'nice colour grading applied here' etc.);

- The project is accepted as successful if no less than 90% of all planned work is complete. The overall progress is calculated as the following ratio:

(SUM OF COMPLETE ELEMENTS MULTIPLIED BY THEIR WEIGHTS) / (SUM OF ALL PLANNED ELEMENTS MULTIPLIED BY THEIR WEIGHTS)

Last check before we make an official decision and close this phase: whether everything is included in, whether specification is clear and sufficient, whether priorities need rearranging.

What we haven't discussed yet is whether we are going to worry about 'Movie, The' success among external audience and therefore need to measure such things as amount of website visits, movie views, downloads etc. and set a respective threshold so as to accept the project as successful.

[able123]

nice job Fuzzy.. Yeah, I think we should monitor number of hits to the website, but not the num. of vid views.. just visits to site....and maybe set a number of 1000 as being successful....

[Guest]

Well, if our main component is 'Movie, The', and we are interested in it is watched by external audience, we should monitor number of views...

[able123]

lets monitor both then... cause maybe the website will get more hits then the movie and that would be interesting to track.

[Guest]

Here we can also assign weights, e.g. 100 website hits = 10 visits of 2nd page = 10 movie views = 1 movie download or something like this. And we also need to define a time span, within which we expect reaching targeted amount of hits.

[able123]

well, my own feeling is that we track the hits on the home page and set a goal for that as being a success or not.. and I dont really care about how many people watch the video streams, but if that can be tracked too, fine.  I would think that the website is going to be getting traffic or not within about 3 months ... no matter what promo is used to get the traffic .. so lets say that is the time limit...

In my mind the project as a whole is represented by the marketing ( web site being the main instrument of that ) and the elements within the project either attract people or NOT to the overall project product ( website ).

[able123]

I'm thinking that if there is a forum for dreamweaver we might wanna ask someone there to join us as the developer of the website...and we gotta move on this stuff to get people into the group or we're gonna be screwed with the deadline...

[able123]

left this mssg in dreamweaver ....

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1315028

maybe we can meet some nice people ??

[able123]

left mssg in the 'in design' area...

might meet even MORE nice people ??

[Guest]

Technically it's quite easy to monitor movie views. Especially if we choose using YouTube. I also propose to divide those 3 month into three intervals and expect highest interest within the first month with gradual decline afterwards and hence set 600 / 250 / 150 hits per respective month.

The point for monitoring views is the following: if our product main component is a movie, and we are interested in external audience behaviour towards our immortal creation, we must influence the audience somehow and make it watch namely the movie. What's the use of hitting website without watching the movie? Similarly if a visitor stayed at the website longer and decide to explore 2nd page, we did attract his/her attention. Downloading the file is the clearest sign of their interest.

OK, I'm going to sleep now. Under these circumstances If there are no objections or alternative proposals by tomorrow morning regard to our final product specification and project constraints & quality criteria, I perceive it as officially approved project management team decision for first phase.

In the next phase we should define, which tasks we need accomplish so as to deliver our final product, and which resources and when to allocate so as to accomplish those tasks (preferably in time), e.g.:
- invent a story (currently we have several story line proposals: delivering pizza worldwide, eggs) -> requires some story tellers;
- convert the story into storyboard -> ...;
- shoot appropriate scenes -> requires some cameras and people behind;
- share source footages -> requires convenient tool for sharing files and keeping clear folder structure;
- cut the story -> requires a bit of Joe Bloe Premiere;
- create 3D elements and those fancy SciFi VFX -> ...;
- do some compositing to integrate 3D elements and SciFi VFX into live shots etc. -> requires some more of Joe Bloe Premiere;
- do colour grading -> ...;
- do some audio work -> ...
and so on for every single element from final product list.

It is desireable to complete this second phase as soon as possible so that we can have at least one month to actually accomplish all those tasks. It is not forbidden to start some tasks in parallel with planning. However, some tasks just can't be started prior to some other tasks finish.

P.S. Well done Rod! We definitely need some HTML5 experts (remember, I wanted to learn some HTML5 and Java?)

[able123]

good going Fuzzy.. I think we've got the parameters of the project definition down pat pretty much...

I have to say right off the bat that I've spent a week ( 12 hour days ) on some movies shooting stuff that ends up being like less than 5 minutes on screen... so we better get our butts in gear pretty soon for the story and shot list and all that cool stuff...

the website and page design stuff is just as important as the video 'product'.. maybe even more so ...as it SELLS the product ( called distribution in real world of movies ).. so I hope some of those guys in dreamweaver and in design help us out here..

I am an idiot when it comes to that stuff...

[Guest]

the website and page design stuff is just as important as the video 'product'.. maybe even more so ...as it SELLS the product ( called distribution in real world of movies )..

That's why it is important to measure movie views and 2nd page visits, which would mean we did somehow manage to attract the website visitors to the movie and they didn't leave the website landing page immediately after arrival.

[Nancy OShea]

When you get your video  finished, you'll need to output it to MP4, OGV and WebM file types.  This will reach the widest possible mobile/tablet/desktop audience.

Open Dreamweaver.  Define your site -- Site > New Site.  See Screenshot.

File > New > Blank page > HTML > No Layout.  Hit Create button.

Open this new page in Code View and delete everything. 

Paste the following HTML5 code into your new, blank document.  Replace YourVideo with your actual video file names and upload them to your server's site root folder (the same location as your index.html page).

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>HTML5 with Video</title>
<!--[if lt IE 9]><script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script><![endif]-->
<style>
video {max-width:100%;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<!--begin video-->
<video controls>
<source src="YourVideo.mp4" type='video/mp4' />
<source src="YourVideo.webm" type='video/webm' />
<source src="YourVideo.ogv" type='video/ogg' />
</video>
<!--end video-->
</body>
</html>

Good with your project!

Nancy O.

Alt-Web Design & Publishing

Web | Graphics | Print | Media  Specialists 

http://alt-web.com

[able123]

Nancy, THANKS SO MUCH !

I just tried to install my old macromedia DW onto this new win7 OS.. and it aint happenin....

It was dated 2000... so I guess 13 years is asking a bit much..., so if I want to do anything with my own website anymore I either have to edit txt html or get adobe DW. I don't want to get hooked into the CC stuff, so in your opinion is DW cs6 good for doing the kind of stuff you mentioned in your post above ???  maybe I'll buy the cs6 version...

????

thanks

[Nancy OShea]

Forget about Macromedia.  It's too old and too outdated for modern web.

I'm still using CS6 Cloud version because I don't have 64-bit computers & OS yet.  When I upgrade equipment in a few months, I will definitely get DW CC because it has better support for HTML5 and CSS3.  Either way though, DW CS6 is light years ahead of Macromedia.

Nancy O.

[Guest]

WOW, Nancy! Welcome aboard and thanks for your input!

I hope you will be able to assist us with that part of the project, 'cos we need a bit more complex website. Personally I planned to develop something like YouTube or Vimeo player skin and embed it into the website. I know how to to that in ActionScript, but have no the slightest idea how to do that with JavaScript and HTML5. I guess that it has something to do with JSON, but can be completely wrong - I fell behind from modern life...

Rod, I created a simple template, with which we can calculate how much storage space we need for source footages and intermadiates as well as monitor who is responsible for a particular shot and what is the progress so far.

I uploaded the file into Dropbox and shared the folder with you, so please accept my kind invitation.

[able123]

hehe, nancy, I believe you... that dw is now light years ahead of macromedia 2000... its been quite the revolution.. back then it was like 1020 px max I think on monitors...and something like 1200 baud ??? LOL... and that was FAST !

sheesh... well I got my own slight problem here.. namely I just upgraded the mouse to win 7 and lost all my XP programs... including ms office, quark, coreldraw, wordperfect, etc..

I do have psd and audtition cs6.. and the pig has all the creative suite cs6 on it.. ( pig is bigger new computer next to mouse ).

So I dont think I will be able to open your XLS file fuzzy.. I'm like dead in the water here for ms office stuff...not sure I wanna try to load ms office 2000 into this thing...

price on dw cs6 is about 370, and ms office is floating around depending on if its cloud license or hard copy.  It would take me 2 weeks of saving to get that stuff...and the clock is ticking for this project... so I am getting a head ache...

just kidding.. but I am surely THINKING ( smoke coming out of ears )...

[Guest]

You can try OpenOffice instead - it's free and should be able to work with MS Office documents. Other than that we can try Google Docs.

[able123]

okay. .. I got the dropbox account open and thanks for that link fuzzy..

I may just get the license for ms office home edition from
B&H now.. so I can use my doc files on new mouse ..and my XLS files.. as I have a few.

Nancy has convinced me I have to get cs6 DW.. but dont know how soon I can do that.

Okay, thanks for dropbox thing.. its cool !   will get back after I install ms office...

[Nancy OShea]

Fuzzy Barsik wrote:

Personally I planned to develop something like YouTube or Vimeo player skin and embed it into the website.

HTML5 players don't natively support skins because they are not embedded.  The player skin is  controlled by the web browser/device & varies quite a bit by which device you use.

If you want a custom media player skin, you're looking at hand coding with CSS and JavaScript or purchasing a license for a commercial player like Pickle Player.

http://www.pickleplayer.com/

NOTE:  Custom players are NOT responsive to different device widths.  So if you go down this slippery slope, you'll need to build at least 2 player skins -- one for desktops & another for mobile -- then apply them with CSS Media Queries.   Trust me when I tell you this gets complicated.

I did one such project for a commercial video site and it took me 1 month just to build the player skins.   Obviously, time investment vs reward is something to consider here.

Nancy O.

[able123]

==========

Trust me when I tell you this gets complicated.

==========

that made me burst out laughing.. good thing I didnt have beer in mouth at the time or my monitor would be RUINED...

I just bought the ms office home and student program ( 2013)  from BH... will take a week to get it.  Maybe less...they are pretty quick usually.

[able123]

this is edit I did from dailies couple years ago.. prime suspect pilot .. from dvd dailies..with cs3... and mouse ( xp )...and my own web server using a early version of player...

half the people that try to watch this cant see the video...

http://rodneybauer.com/whiteboard9.htm

is why nancy is so cool !  she can make it happen on everything !

[Guest]

Nancy, you may have a look at this YouTube player with custom skin I created some time ago for my own joy. The point is (and it was declared as one of my personal objectives for this project) I want to explore whether there is actually a substitute for Flash and ActionScript these days.

[able123]

I think the gist of it is that it is a combination of html5 and flash if that works.. and the complication is to make things work for whatever device is query to the source(s)... that ogg stuff I think requires separate sound ( wav ? ) .. dont know.. been a while since I read up on it .. way over my head...

you guys are light years ahead of me...

anyway, lets stay on topic and declare BEER THIRTY ! YIPEE ! ....and lets start thinking about content and product of video so I can start shooting something...

[Guest]

Rod, we can obviously continue working on the story: choose which of already proposed story lines we're going to develop and move on. Moreover, elaborating the story in parallel with planning other things is more than welcomed with our quite tough schedule and quite limited resources. However, listing all tasks we need to accomplish, estimating how much time accomplishing every single task might take and whether we have actually resources to finish any of them is more important, to my mind. From where I'm standing it's not quite clear whether I have time to shoot and edit anything or write an article etc., if I really want to explore 3D modelling and HTML5 with Java within the project framework...