INTRODUCTION

Who This Book Is For

This book is written for those who need to create professional-quality web video or podcasts. We set out to write a book that would offer expert-level advice on all aspects of web video. We realize most of you reading this will have diverse backgrounds, so we will attempt to deliver information at two levels.

The body of the book presents you with the most essential information, richly illustrated, with straightforward advice. Interspersed throughout the book you'll find several tips and sidebars. This information serves two purposes. It either offers advanced information to let you go deeper on a topic or points out additional resources if you lack experience with a topic.

Whether you are a video enthusiast, a multimedia developer, or a communications professional, this guide is written to help you. We wanted to create a book that addressed the diverse requirements of web video. We also wanted to straighten out several misperceptions and bad practices that we have encountered. If you like your books to be based on real-world experience, this is the book for you.

What You'll Learn

We have structured this book to follow the path of professionally produced web video. We highly recommend that you read this book's chapters in order. We will build on the information from one chapter to the next. Here's the journey we'll take together.

The Evolution of Web Video

Chapter 1: Making Great Web Video—Learn how to determine your genre and technical approach. You'll also get a sense on the size of the web video audience and business opportunities.

The Production of Web Video

Chapter 2: Essential Preproduction—This chapter covers important decisions about determining your production needs as well as budgeting your show. Learn practical advice for mapping your production and working with talent.

Chapter 3: Audio Is Half Your Program—Learn how to record great sound for your web video. We also explore options for using music in web productions.

Chapter 4: Great Video Needs Great Lighting—Learn how to achieve professional lighting with an emphasis on value and portability. We also provide setups for different styles of video programs.

Chapter 5: Videography for the Web—Learn the key features you'll need in a video camera. We pay close attention to the evolution of tapeless acquisition and HD video. We also offer a specific packing list to help you bring the most important gear to your web video shoot.

The Postproduction of Web Video

Chapter 6: Telling Your Story with Visuals—This chapter points out useful ways to add visuals to your story. Learn how to work with photos and stock footage as well as practical tips for motion graphics.

Chapter 7: Editing Considerations—Putting all of your pieces together takes skill and experience. We share several lessons learned from having produced thousands of web videos.

Chapter 8: Encoding Video for the Web—Learn how to create compatible digital files that will work for a podcast, in a web browser, or on portable media players. Achieve smaller file sizes and better image clarity with our practical advice on video compression.

The Delivery of Web Video

Chapter 9: Understanding Flash Video—We take an in-depth look at one of the most popular methods for delivering video. Learn about your options when working with the Flash platform.

Chapter 10: Podcasting and RSS Essentials—Learn how to deliver a podcast with an RSS feed to list its contents. Search engines and podcast directories require this information in order to list your show. Learn what goes into the podcast feed and easy ways to create a compatible podcast.

Chapter 11: Hosting Web Video—This chapter explores several options for hosting your web video files. Learn your options for delivering your files and ways to minimize expensive hosting charges.

The Business of Web Video

Chapter 12: Promoting Your Video—We visit with numerous web video producers and share their secrets for successfully attracting (and keeping) an audience.

Chapter 13: Monetizing Your Video—Creating professional web video requires time and effort. In this chapter we explore options for recouping your investment.

Our Approach

Our advice is practical. We don't teach you how to cheat. We don't treat you like you are “dummies.” Our productions vary; we've done work for Fortune 50 companies as well as small nonprofit associations. We have been in front of the camera as well as behind it. We teach you how to produce web videos that look professional while being keenly aware that web videos are a price-sensitive commodity.

We will offer you multiple approaches that address both high-end and budget-conscious workflows. We are fully cross-platform and use Macs and PCs in our daily lives. We also use tools and gear from a variety of manufacturers. We'll offer our opinions but feel that they are well formed. We'll also offer options and differing points of view, as we know that you'll want choices.

Our Qualifications

At the time of this publication, our company, RHED Pixel (www.RHEDPixel.com), will have produced close to 5,000 web videos. We've developed web video for companies like Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and Google. We've also worked with everyone from educators to professional speakers to fundraisers. We've produced web videos on a variety of topics, software training, emerging technology, digital photography, health, parenting, and science.

We have spent five years refining this book. Rather than rush this book out the door, we have refined our workflows and opinions. The material in this book has been thoroughly tested. We have learned from years of video production and from working on so many web videos. We live video and new media production every workday, and the advice you'll find in this book is how we get the job done. We'd like to think you'll find the book useful. We believe in karma. We take the hard lessons we've learned and offer them back to the industry as a whole.

We hope you enjoy and we invite you to become part of the conversation by joining us at www.HyperSyndicate.com.