Tales from the Cellar » YouTube

Sealed Fates Teaser Now Online

Mitch — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:52:50 +0000

At last the teaser is finished and posted on YouTube. Sealed Fates: A Trilogy of Claustrophobic Terror is Timewarp’s latest feature. The film is currently in post production and should be in the can this summer.

Stay tuned for a post on the making of the trailer. I got to use a lot of fun tools on this one.

tags: filmmaking, sealed fates, trailer, timewarp films

Horrorfind March 2008 Commercial – Extended Cut

Mitch — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:25:18 +0000

Here’s the extended version of the Horrorfind commercial we filmed last month. It’s over 3 minutes, with lots of zombie goodness and eerie music. Enjoy.

tags: george romero, timewarp films, tony todd, commercial, horror, zombie, horrorfind

Murder Unscripted

Mitch — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:33:20 +0000

This has to be the best strike video yet. Some of the best actors on TV, from Law & Order and Homicide, try and figure out what happened to a dead woman in a library–but they don’t have a script. It’s hilarious! Big thumbs up to the famous faces that are standing by the writers.

tags: homicide, law & order, strike, wga

Horror Writers Exorcise Studio Demons

Mitch — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:26:26 +0000

WGA horror writers chime in with a genre-themed video about the strike. It’s cute, and you get to see who wrote some of your favorite horror flicks.

tags: horror, wga, strike

The How-To for YouTube

Mitch — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 21:33:08 +0000

A couple months ago, I started uploading videos to YouTube (you can find my videos here); basically, some of my old shorts and a couple of Timewarp’s trailers.

The first thing I noticed was that the format in which a video is uploaded can make a difference in how it looks and sounds on YouTube. My first attempts had muffled and distorted sound and a pixelated picture–yuck!

So, I did a little research, and here’s what I found:

First, YouTube makes the requirements for the best quality clear in the help center. They are:

We recommend the following settings:

MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
320×240 resolution
MP3 audio
30 frames per second

Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your videos look better on YouTube.

Second, how do we accomplish this? Simple. Here are a few tips and free tools to help improve the quality of your uploaded videos.

Download the Divx codec. There are free versions for PC and Mac.
Download Virtual Dub, a free video editing tool that converts between various video/audio formats. If you already installed Divx, you will see it as an option in the conversion menu.
Now open your video in Virtual Dub (File->open video file).
Next, open the video compression screen (video->compression), and select Divx.
If your video is not 320×240 (or 360×240, which I use) then you need to add a resize filter (video->filters->add) and select resize
Now to audio. To convert to MP3, you must first select “Full Processing Mode” from the audio menu. Then you can open the audio compression menu (audio->compression) and select MP3.
Finally, select Save as AVI from the file menu and you’re good to go.

Of course the quality of your video is subject to the quality of the original version. But with the variety of affordable digital video camcorders out there, that shouldn’t be a problem. However, all bets are off for camera phones.

tags: dv, divx, virtual dub, youtube