Hello! I would like to include a "web presenter" on my website, as seen on this webpage:

Web Videos | Website Video | VideoTile (http://www.videotile.co.uk)

My question is, how do I go about doing this myself? I obviously have the tools and skills for filming, chromakey etc, but I've searched everywhere and can't see how to go about it myself technically. Any pointers? It would also be a great service to provide my clients, so if it worked out, it could be a new part of my company.

Hope you can advise. Thanks!

This got me going and better than expected results. don't know if it's exactly what you
wanted but its chromakeying on a budget.

White screen is doable and really works.
Tour of My DIY Low Budget Video Studio Setup (http://www.davecolorado.com/index.php/tour-of-my-diy-low-budget-video-studio-setup/)

Blue or Green works too and he has some good tips.
Mark Apsolon online videos (http://www.markapsolon.com/onlinevids.html)

Thanks for the reply, but the question isnt about achieving the Chromakey effect, but how to technically achieive the results shown on the webpage. eg clear background, flash file that can be placed onto a webpage, with controls etc.

Can anyone else help? Thanks

Have you seen the two other sites already established?

My Web Presenters - Get a Live Website Presenter to Bring Your Site to Life (http://www.mywebpresenters.com/index.php)
Addpeople: Website Presenter, Website Actors, Virtual Presenter - Personalised Video Marketing for your Site (http://www.addpeople.co.uk/?gclid=CNKx45KiqJwCFdYB4wodhil0lg)

Might help you out with how to do this.

Read the source code for the page. The rest is set in the application you use to create the flash file, you can find out the details in the manual.

This is a question more suited to a web designer forum.

You might also want to first read:

Most Hated Advertising Techniques (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20041206.html) - Most Hated Advertising Techniques

Flash: 99% Bad (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html) - Flash: 99% Bad

Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html) - Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings

Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/fancy-formatting.html) - Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored

...and consider if you want to seriously get into a business that is mostly ineffective, and annoys people, causing them to leave sites, possibly including your own. ;-)

-MD

Thanks Mike, useful info!


This is a question more suited to a web designer forum.

Sure, but as its very video based, it kinda spans both topics...was hoping someone here might have some experience/knowledge. Interesting that is has such a negative response in the above links.

...and consider if you want to seriously get into a business that is mostly ineffective, and annoys people, causing them to leave sites, possibly including your own. ;-)


Having scanned the articles, they look a little outdated, and are talking about banners and advertising mostly. Pop ups are a definite no-no, and fortunately most of these seem to have vanished from the web over recent years.

Web video is undeniably a great tool for most websites and businesses, and I think used correctly, online "web presenters" are a good extension of this. But thanks for hew feedback.

I am not so sure about the pop up presenters they look very americanised (no offence intended) and I actually find them very annoying there was one on the 2-pop FCP pro site and it has now been removed.

It just all seems a bit in your face and to have some actor or presenter talking to you when you dont want it is in my opinion not good for sales.

Its like the typical salesman syndrome you want to look at something but may not want to talk or listen to them yet.

Having scanned the articles, they look a little outdated, and are talking about banners and advertising mostly.

They are not outdated, take a close look at who the writer is (one of, if not the, top experts in the world in this area) and how he comes to his conclusions (peer reviewed research, which he regularly rechecks).

Banner blindness applies to anything that even LOOKS like an ad.

Anyway, the real point is this: if you do this sort of advertising work as a business, it is not like making a movie - you don't always get to pick your customers, and some may want to carry this further than you may be comfortable with.

It's kind of on the edge. I couldn't personally sell this, but each to his own. ;-)

-Mike

I am not so sure about the pop up presenters they look very americanised (no offence intended) and I actually find them very annoying there was one on the 2-pop FCP pro site and it has now been removed.

Yes, we Americans do everything to excess.

Here is my reaction to such ads, NOT stated in your polite British way:

I take it as an insult to my intelligence, figure the site is run by morons, and leave immediately. I try not to buy products made by morons. ;-)

Actually, I normally run with both javascript and flash turned off, specifically so I do not see that sort of overused ignorant junk. And to keep from getting the viruses and spyware a significant number of them contain.

The main reason the pop-ups are declining in use is that 60 percent of users now use pop-up blockers.

Hi gents,

Just seen this post, sorry I'm a bit late to the party.

I have a video presenter on every page of my website -

Leeds Computer Repairs - Home - Here to help the computer user. (http://www.leedscomputerrepairs.co.uk)

I did the whole thing in house, and it's working very well.

Thanks,
Dave.

Well, I have to admit that it isn't as bad as many I've seen. Actually even a bit engaging the first time I saw it, probably due to the low key style

At least it wasn't too bad until the second or third time. At which point I sort of wanted to throw up!

It violates the first, second, third, and maybe even fourth law of presentation technique, to wit:

1) Never just read the text.

2) NEVER just read the text.

3) ABSOLUTELY NEVER just read the text.

4) Just what part of "NEVER READ THE TEXT" don't you get, idiot!

A million years ago I worked at IBM marketing HQ and had the "opportunity" to go to NYC for a course in presentation technique where they taped the student presentations and then sliced and diced the presenters in front of the whole class. It was not a pleasant experience! Can you guess what they told us?

Seriously, people read faster than they talk so most people have finished reading the page before the presenter gets off the first line and if he's just reading what's written, he's adding no value and becomes irrelevant, and then annoying pretty quickly.

Having said all this, I don't necessarily think this kind of thing can't be done well, but it has to be done very very well indeed (= costly to produce)

And in fairness, the chap doing the talking does come across pretty well and is minimally annoying - until you realize he's just READING THE TEXT.

the simple technique to do what you ask is:
1) shoot over uniform background
prefferably the same color as the webpage, so if keying is not perfect, color will not be too noticeable.
2) clean background using your nle, until you can key the subject properly.
3) cut video to the size of the subject , to make it smaller.
If the subject is walking, it is better for the cam to follow to get subject in the middle of the screen, it will be easier to cut.
4) encode with the On2 codec VP6 , the only one allowing flash movie with transparent background. On2 is selling a little utility to do that, you just need to activate the transparency feature and set the color.
5) edit your webapge to add a flash player without skin(interface). that is easy if you choose a customizable player like the FWplayer (flow player)

Yeah have to agree with Jim, while the video is well produced, well presented and looks good - you have ultimately overlooked the much important 'just because you can, doesn’t mean you should' rule.

Your presenter simply does not add anything of value to the site, reading text on the page word for word is a complete insult to your visitors intelligence. If that’s all the presenter is there for then seriously GET RID OF IT!

A much better idea would be to have a short, sharp, PUNCHY 30 second graphics / effects based intro and perhaps the presenter can come on at the end and deliver a closing line. But not on every page, less is more remember.

Following up on what Paul said, I frankly wouldn't mind at all if the presenter showed up on the first page to say something like "Welcome to our web site- we're glad you could stop by. We offer lots of great services so please look around"

I think you could even go so far as to leave a little picture of the presenter on each page and let the viewer click it for a bit of a humorous (humourous???) low-key summary of or expansion on what the text said - ie added value.

By the way, we're definitely not trying to "pile on" here - just trying to offer comments and ideas that we think would improve the site.

Thanks for the comments Gents.

Just to clarfiy some points -

The presenter happens to be myself.

The website has a specific target audience in mind and it's working very well, it has significantly lifed conversion rates, in term of customers contacting me for work.

Your observation that I am just reading the text is correct, but what happens when someone visits with flash turned off, if the text wasn't there either how would they get the information, also what would happen in terms of SEO?

Most people on the web don't read pages fully, they scan read for the information they require.

No rules were breach regarding just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

I did it because I wanted to and I thought it would be more engaging to my target audience, the feedback I have been given has proved this to be correct, and the website is working as I want it to work.

Thanks,
Dave.

I call these presenters view limiters because most click off the site when they pop up instead of closeing the video. That said, you can find cheap drops for chroma keying on ebay or make one yourself using a roll of cheap lenolium with the backside painted with ultimatte green (or blue). You can roll it up to protect the paint when storing and roll it out & hang it with C stands when shooting. Makes a great lil cyc without spending much. I using proper ultimatte paint, you can flood it with just one or two lights (because the paint is reflactive) and then just 3-point light your talent (you in this case) as ya normally would.

Hey David,

I kind of gathered it was you as the presenter - again great job on a very professional, well executed key / flash video.

In relation to you reading the text I think what most were suggesting is that you not get rid of the text, rather you instead give a summery in the video thus making it a lot shorter and punchier.

In fact you yourself have hit the nail on the head - most people DONT read pages fully! Most people DO scan so ultimately the goal of any well constructed website is to cater to this accepted behavior and make it as easy as possible for visitors to get exactly the information they want as quickly as possible. This is where a medium paced word for word read flies in the face of this accepted requirement - it just slows the process down.

Its very interesting though the feedback you're giving us - honestly I would never dream of doing it the way you have - yet as you say it seems to be working well and has been well received. I guess as long as you monitor your weblogs and make sure you arent loosing traffic (ie have a high % of people leaving after a short period) then dont change a thing.

I do think punchier summary videos would still get you the 'wow' factor but in a more user friendly, quicker to digest format, but thats just me. In the end maybe its non of these things - maybe the success you've had is that YOU ultimately present well and in a typically faceless industry, people are choosing the nice guy with the face they can trust? ;-)

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your constructive comments and I fully understand where you are coming from.

The idea was to absolutely strip down the website so that it would be as easy to use as possible, people could get on, get the info and get off again.

They can then make their decision.

The videos were all shot on a Sony Z7 in HD progressive using the Datavideo Chromakey system.

The post was done in After Effects.

As I work in the web industry (I'm not on this forum for my video skills!) I also understand there is room for improvement and there are some things I would / will do differently the next time.

But as a first effort I am very pleased with it.

Its well done David but like others I am just not very keen on these pop up presenters.

Now if you had a fluffy talking cat or pig that would be more effective???

NOT!

I am also looking into video content for web sites but from a broadcast angle, we feel that an infomercial or pearl and dean type informative ad will be more acceptable than a hard sell.

In general I agree with some of the other posters in regard to Presenters on web sites. Mostly I hate them and go elsewhere. However one thing that David's video did do was give a personality to his services.

Here's a couple of suggestions:
1. I would have liked to know who it was that was talking, knowing that it's the person who I will be dealing with and that he can present himself well does count.

1. As suggested don't just read the text, summarise or add value in some way.

2. Do you want people to read the text or watch the video, they can't do both at the same time. So perhaps the text is redundant. Maybe the keypoints could have been included in the video, not verbatim but lines such as - We can help you: with repairs - too set up for the internet - etc etc.

2. The default for showing the video should be stop, let the user decide to watch (think about return visitors to your site, after a while they will get sick of hearing the speel, regardless of how good it is.

The latest statistics in from my brain say that this type of thing is only effective if it's a hot chick in a bikini.
She doesn't even have to say anything.

The latest statistics in from my brain say that this type of thing is only effective if it's a hot chick in a bikini.
She doesn't even have to say anything.

Borat in his mankini would be even more of a marketing puller NIIIICE!

I'll vote for the hot chick WITHOUT the bikini! Of course then nobody needs text - in fact nobody would need sound either.

Maybe a good test bed (!) for stereoscopic video

Guys we had the chick in the bikini all lined up and she pulled out the night before, something about washing her hair, hence I had to put my imense acting talents to the test and step up to the plate.

The best comment I have had so far was "wooden", but the customer was happy with the service and paid in full and that's good enough for me!

wow, i didnt realise this thread was up and running! I think the video, in principle, looks good, but agree with the comments about the content, but thats by-the-by.

I have shot chromakey footage before, my question is more about the technical aspect...is there anything else I need to know? I PERSONALLY think a short video, introducing myself, giving the visitor a personal introduction would be good, and would like to experiment with the idea at least.

there are tons of web companies selling such feature like livefaceonweb.
unfortunately , since the concept is simple, they tend to make it locked to some secret component, so you need to pay for their special player, models, etc... and makes the thing hard or expensive to use. Some offers very complex scripts allowing to fully control the player (position on page, delay to start, link to follow ,context sensitive etc...,
basically it is nothing than a flash player with no skin (visible controls) playing a video encoded with the On2 VP6 codec.
This part is mandatory since this is the only codec able to use alpha transparency in flash.
This feature is great if you have web presentation (like powerpoint slides or web application) and want some presenter walking thru the sceen to explain some parts of the slide or showing how to do tings with a menu, filling forms etc...
unfortunately to master all the parts (having a good script and model, making nice keyed video, editing into PC, fitting into web pages etc...) requires skills and facilities above average.
another solution that is also "Hi-tech" looking is using avatars (2D or 3D) that can looks very close to human presenters. The advantage of it is you can control speech and behaviour like a puppet, so possibilites are endless. (see Haptek product for example).
Microsoft got something nice like the "Agent". these are pre-programmed piece of animation you can use over application in windows (including web pages).
You can imagine to produce an Agent from video of yourself. It is a huge work, but since you can reuse it "ad-infinitum", it could worth the pain.

Ive just been doing some experiments with my financial advisor Stuart Miles, the video is here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGVYE7nit-A

Stuart is usually a bit more boring than this so it has been a challenge to get him to present his company to the world, he is a bit anti tech as well as you can see from the basic web site design.

The main point was to let him express things unscripted in his own words and to keep it as simple as possible.

Try not to fall asleep and any comments will be appreciated, we could have got the chick in the bikini but Stuart was drooling too much and my main ideas are to get the people who own their businesses to see the videos as training in how to present themselves to clients on the web.

P.S The budget for this would be £250 but as Stuart is my test victim he bought me lunch.

Rather nice I thought. Low key is good! I think it works quite well as a stand-alone spot.

Now the $64 (or maybe GBP64) question - how would it work on a web page? I'm not so sure. I think if there were text content scattered about people would start to read and then get frustrated when the speaker kept talking while they were reading.

By the way - I did get the impression that he was rather looking down at the camera instead of straight on. Not sure if he was or not, just an impression.

any comments will be appreciated

It's a brave and honest attempt. From an accountant, such a performance is to be lauded.

I'll throw this into the mix (as virtually all my work is done for the web, and centres around presentations):

Presenter looking directly into camera can be quite confrontational. The presenter needs to be good enough to 'make virtual eye contact' and hide any fleeting panics caused by trying to remember lines as it looks like fear, trepidation or contempt. So autocue systems can have a presenter looking like a startled rabbit doing an eye test.

So with non-presenter types I often go with an off-screen interviewer and really work at building up a rapport. It's not just for the presenter - I've collected anecdotal evidence that web viewers don't like being stared at, and a presenter looking off screen makes the viewer feel they're overhearing a conversation rather than being asked to participate in it.

As for the discussion about using 'web presenters' - we DVinfo types are a funny old lot. When it comes to these items, we've been there done that and got the stretch marks. For communicating a personality brand, it's great. But your audience is asked to focus on the person - who either has to be a stunningly compelling or totally 'puppeted' human sign post. Nothing wrong with human signposts/information boards in many cultures.

So IMHO you need a charismatic presenter who can almost instantly build trust with an audience, or a totally bland clip-presenter who is just part of the furniture. And, for everyone else, we need an intermediary 'third person' so we can observe the presenter from the other side of a secret mirror.

What gets my goat is websites that start up at you with video or audio, usually at an inappropriate volume and announcing to all and sundry what you're doing that 'ctl-W' is such an easy reflexive move. So a mute, looping 'click me!' presenter is fine so I can fish out the cans before the inevitable lecture.

But back on topic, I've always faked web presenters, but I guess I'd use Flix from On2 which has the option to include an alpha channel, either an extra channel or a chromakey. I'd make an alpha channel from the key done in my NLE (in my case, DVmatte Pro in FCP). Will try that out.

Found this - http://digitalproducer.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=70171, and separately created a movie in FCP with an Alpha, but it's a little trickier than I hoped to get it encoded as an Alpha FLV. Will report back later.

Well, I have to say that I rather liked Dave's appearance on the original post - until I realized he was reading the text. I think without the text it would have been super

Also, really liked the you tube clip

I think because it was clearly someone who was talking about something he knew (as was Dave, of course)

I think low key, friendly, and knowledgeable trumps flash and professionalism if the intent is to show the real people behind the company name

I just wonder if it wouldn't be better to have the talking head all by itself without surrounding it with text - maybe click the face and get a spiel. Somehw I think mixing dialogue and text creates a tension between the two. Just a thought FWIW

Thanks for your comments, Stuart kept looking up at me and I told him he looked like a puppy dog wanting praise so that it why he is looking down to the lens.

I think you are right that an off camera eye line is more appealing and less intense so I will do the next one like this. It will work better in an interview type situation with just the answers being used as the sound bites.

You are also right that at the moment web pages do not suit video content but as it develops I think this will have to change, I was at a crossover media conference two weeks ago and the main point for web integration into IPTV and delivery via the TV system was that we need to get away from the static web page design and integrate video and networking tools into sites better.

Have a look at this site from some V/O people I use:British voiceover voice over talent voice-overs artists (http://www.voiceover-uk.co.uk/)

I like the way they have integrated the video into the flat pages I personally have just made a sep page for the infomercial demos:http://www.hdproductionsolutions.com/page_1252316946158.html

You know I think this is one of the most important concepts that face non-broadcast videomakers and I'm glad that this thread is still going.

Firstly, one thing I have learnt in the corporate area is that showing a video to anyone but the target audience will create a skewered result. They are not interested in the "story" and they will view it differently. For example, Gary Nattrass's financial adviser. To be honest I stopped listening to his speel and, well just "watched" it. I guess I checked out the background, wondered about the guys age etc. etc. But overall I liked it... I liked the guy, and maybe if I was looking into financial advice I would feel comfortable with him. ...Now isn't that the point.

So, is there a better way of doing this? I'm not sure now. Like others I've done quite a few client presenters and to be honest some were in my opinion, terrible, however, show them to other people and they go "oh well, seemed like a nice guy... didn't like his tie though..."

On another level, I have one client who has said that it does not matter what you say so much, it's more the fact that we are talking to our clients that matters. Now, to me that is a big point... I guess It's how you do it and probably more importantly - who IS your target audience.

So, I did the whole thing in house, and it's working very well. Well then, great, it's doing the trick. I may not like aspects of it, but so what..

Anyway, I guess the main argument is how to do it. Now I agree, You do run a risk of turning off people if the the "talent" is really bad, in fact, that can have really bad consequences, and talking direct to a camera is a skill that not a lot of people have ...but maybe it's up to the Producer/Director to make it happen...

However, my feeling is that maybe an "interview" style could work better in that non-actors tend to appear more natural, but it stills depends on the "Direction" as to how it comes across.

As to how you implement it on a website, please no pop-ups, let the viewer make that decision.

Other thoughts:
Direct to camera - depends on the talent, the audience and the message
Make it visual - more pics/graphics to illustrate the story, show me don't tell me

Thanks for the comment Neil, Stuarts ego has now been restored as he felt his pres was the weakest part of it.

But I want these type of things to be less hard sell advertising and more infomercial along the lines of the Pearl & Dean adverts we used to have in our cinemas here in the UK.

The power of video content could be great and for example I want to show people what their product or service is about rather than make pure commercials.

For example most people who are self employed or own their own business have had to do major things to be successful and it is how you show that and their passion for their business.

My first attempt was my pub promo that I did last year:YouTube - Pub Infomercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXykTW2EOpA)
It was made from just the stills and some old HDV footage I had and I did a local voice over.

Just had an e-mail about the future of web presentation:YouTube - Booking An Audio Session (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVPkm5zE6QI)

Funny for us dubbing guys but you can go to their web site and create your own animatronics from your own script!!!

The power of video content could be great and for example I want to show people what their product or service is about rather than make pure commercials.


Gary, yep you are right. Taking a more creative approach with web video to promote companies is the way to go. However, a lot of people won't have the budget. I would say that in Australia the average budget for non-broadcast video production is about half (or more) of what it was 10 years ago, yes the cost of production is less but I feel that the price people have to pay for creativity is greatly undervalued, why pay 10k for an architect when you and the builder can whack the plans together!

So, I think that cost is often a major factor in the plethora of web presenters using "in-house" talent. Sometimes it's the clients request and sometimes it's the only viable route you can take.

Now my issue is, if you can't persuade the client to pay for a video with better production values then which is the best approach to take. Of late my feeling is that an interview style may work better as people can come across better - more relaxed, maybe more passionate, less hard sell. But then again sometimes direct to camera works better - that "hey this guy is talking to me" idea.

For example, in Australia we had a finance company run a series of ads featuring the owner of the company. He was not great talent in many ways, but, his message got across and he made a fortune (well until the GFC that is..). Now it may have been that his message (we will give you a loan at less cost) may have been the main factor, but obviously the message got across. Maybe it was the perception that here was an ordinary guy that was taking on the the big "nasty" banks. Not my favorite ads by any measure but they worked.

So, I guess it depends; on the budget, on the talent, on the context and on the message as to which is the right approach.

ps Liked the youtube video. I think I might know a few people like that.