Long-distance collaboration

[damned_colonial]

Hey, how do people collaborate long-distance on vids? I mean, how do you manage it? Does one person have control of the project and the other just sends clips and ideas? Is it possible to share the project? What techniques have people used in the past, what works, what doesn't?

Comments

[rhoboat]

The way I've done it jagwriter78 is one of us would take control of the project while the other would send high quality vid clips to put in. We make sure we have the same project settings (frame rate, frame size, etc.) so that everything lines up. Then we chat over IM to discuss certain parts of the vid, generally sending back and forth lower quality vid clips as we go along.

[laurashapiro]

It depends on the project and the people involved and, particularly, whether both of us work on the same platform or not.

When I collaborate with a Windows-based vidder, they do the "driving" (clip the source, lay the clips, etc.) because AVIsynth allows the best possible source quality. I review drafts, make comments and suggestions, etc. I have also collaborated through screen-sharing programs like GoToMeeting where you can both talk about and select clips in realtime. I highly recommend this method.

When both of us are on Macs, it's not necessary to have a designated driver, which opens up the workflow to both of us making drafts or bits of drafts and sharing them/building on each other's work in a very organic way. When Killa and I made "Not Only Human", we were able to do that and it was really cool -- to this day I can't tell which bits were hers and which were mine.

When SDWolfpup and I did "Let's Go Crazy", I took the lyrics bits and she took the instrumental bits and we sewed them together like a quilt.

In all cases, I've found it's important to have a storyboard that both collaborators agree on before starting. This can be a mishmash of notes, or a more detailed spreadsheet, or whatever, but you have to have a shared vision of the thing before you begin.

It's also important, I think, for both parties to understand who the vid "owner" is. The only time I've gotten into trouble was when neither of us were willing to take ownership as the creative lead. I feel like somebody has to, or you wind up with neither of you asserting a clear creative vision and the vid will not be as good as it could be. A good rule of thumb is that the vid owner is the person who came up with the idea.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask questions.