Vision Web Trailer Production Page

"Vision" is the movie that we've been generating from our ski footage from the 2002-2003 ski season. Although this page is specific to production of the web trailer, more general information on how we produce our movies can be found at J.Spin's Digital Movie Making Page.

Once again, I've used Quicktime for this trailer, because I really like the way that Quicktime web trailers look and feel (take a look at some of the professional Quicktime movie trailers out there, and you'll see what I mean).

For video compression, I used the Sorenson Video 3 Codec. I've found that this is just about the best codec there is for Quicktime movie compression. I also tried the new MPEG-4 (MP4) codec under the same conditions. Although the file size was a bit smaller, the quality didn't seem to be quite as good. Still, the MP4 codec was great and I'd say it was a close second to Sorenson Video 3.

Up to this point, I've not compressed the audio on my movies, because frankly, the audio codecs that I've had (supplied with Adobe Premiere) really don't do a great job. I'd always wished there was something along the lines of MP3 compression for QuickTime, something that made small audio files with GREAT, CD-quality sound. Now they've come out with a new audio compression scheme that goes along with MP4, called the Advanced Audio Coding (ACC) Codec. It provides even more efficient compression than MP3, with a quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio. All I know is that the audio for this trailer is higher quality than any I've done in the past, and it saved a lot on the size of the file.

To give the trailer a more professional look (and also just to do something a little different for fun), I generated the video in a 2.2:1 aspect ratio widescreen format. Normal NTSC digital video is 720 pixels wide by 480 pixels high, which gives you an aspect ratio of about 1.5:1 (this is much like what you see on your average TV). Most movies you see at the theater, and now more commonly even movies you can watch at home, are in a widescreen format like 1.85:1, or 2.35:1. The wider field of view gives a more immersive feel, especially on a big screen. The aspect ration of 2.2:1 that I've used is not very common, but things just sort of worked out that way so I went with it. I don't actually have to do anything special with shooting to make my material widescreen. I simply crop out areas at the top and bottom of the screen, and there is still plenty of material in the middle to provide more than enough pixels (especially on the web) for a quality picture. I do have to use a bit of a vertical "Pan and Scan" approach by moving the video up and down to ensure that all the action stays in the visible portion of the picture.

So, putting everything together in Premiere with the usual techniques found on J.Spin's Digital Movie Making Page, I exported the audio and video together as a QuickTime file at the highest possible quality.

File Type - Quicktime
Compressor - none
Frame Size - 360 x 240 (half the resolution of normal DV)
Frame Rate - 29.97 frames/sec (normal NTSC video rate)
Fields - none
Deinterlace - on
Cropping - Top: 38, Bottom: 38

File type - Windows waveform (.wav)
Compressor - none
Audio Rate - 48,000 hz
Audio Format - 16 bit stereo

I then took the exported QuickTime file (a very large file of approximately 1 gigabyte in size) and opened it up in Quicktime 6.4 Pro. Here I used the compression tools available in the program to output the Quicktime video trailer that is available on the web. As you'll see, compressing the audio and video does wonders, and I was able to shrink the file down to around 25 megabytes, about 1/40th the size of the original file.

File Type - Quicktime
Compressor - Sorenson Video 3
Quality - medium (50%)
Frame Rate - 15 frames/sec (~1/2 the normal NTSC video rate)

Compressor - MPEG-4 Audio (ACC 96 kbits/sec)
Audio Rate - 48,000 hz
Audio Format - 16 bit stereo

So, aside from some other details that I won't go into, that's about it. I'm pretty sure that QuickTime 6.0 will play the trailer, although Quicktime version 6.4 is also out now so upgrade if you have the chance (it's free as usual). Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer should just pop open the Quicktime Plug-in when you click on the link, then the trailer will download. I assume that as long as you have your browser configured to open movies in this way, it will do the same for you. If you can, I recommend simply downloading the file (right click in Windows, or hold click in Mac), saving it to your hard drive, and opening it in Quicktime yourself.

Let me know if you have any questions about the process of making the movie, or any complications with playing it. You can contact me at:

If you don't have the Quicktime program, you can get a free copy here by supplying a couple lines of information.

Finally, here's the link to the trailer. It's 3 min. 10 sec. long with accompanying music by Authority Zero, so turn up your speakers if you have them. I hope it works for you and you enjoy it.