Getting Started
My Account
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What is Giant Fin
Giant Fin is a subscription based website that helps people in the film industry manage and display their work in a professional online presentation.
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Who is Giant Fin
Giant Fin's core concept stems from our frustration with the limited options available for getting your work out there in a professional and efficient manner in the film industry.
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We decided to create a site that would specifically accommodate all film industry creatives. The two founding members have strong backgrounds in both web and film, an ideal combination for bringing web based tools to film. -
Why use Giant Fin
Giant Fin IS an easy to use professional platform. You have complete control over your account where you can make changes to content, allowing you to keep your site dynamic and up to date at all times.
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Can I edit my pages
You can edit all of your pages, we have designed a simple wizard interface to make the process quick and easy. Your reel's page can be edited once SMV Complete Media has uploaded your videos to your account.
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There is no job title for my profession
If your job title is not listed in the job title drop down, select "other" from the list. Once you have created your account, send us an email through our support page and we will update your professional title for you.
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Can I change my payment plan
If you have an account with a monthly payment plan, you can change to a yearly plan by clicking My Account | Upgrade Package.
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Can I upgrade my package
You can upgrade your package by clicking on My Account | Upgrade Package. If you already have a yearly plan, your new package payment will be prorated for the differance based on your starting and ending period of your last yearly payment plan.
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Why can't I upload video
We believe in producing high quality video for our clients. There are many technical variables that come into play when displaying video online, which can be a deciding factor in the end quality of your video. The most important variable is the file size of your original video source. In order to get high quality online video compression, you need to start with a high quality source video. The original source video is quite large in file size for it to be uploaded to a server and for the server to run the compression process. This is why we teamed up with SMV Complete Media. SMV takes your original source video and compresses it before it is uploaded to the server allowing for greater compression control from a professional team of production artists. SMV also takes all video formats and creates a digital copy in order to compress for online display, since not every client will have their video source in digital format.
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Crop Images
Images uploaded to your account are automatically cropped from the top left corner point of your image. To achieve a more precise crop you will need to use a thrid party program. There are many programs on the market that can be used for cropping images. The most professional of these would be photoshop. For Mac users you can use Iphoto which comes pre loaded on your Mac machine. There are many other free programs you can downloaded from online for both Mac and PC. Watch our tutorial video below on how to custom crop your image with Iphoto.
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Where do I send my reels to
SMV COMPLETE MEDIA formats, compresses, and uploads all video clips to your account. This allows for consistent high quality video for all clients. When you send your video source to SMV, be sure to print and enclose the Account Slip along with your content so SMV can track your account information. Otherwise, SMV will be unable to locate your account with Giant Fin. To print the Account Slip and to find the mailing address for SMV, click on My Account | Account Settings | Send Reels.
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What is home page quick notes
Quick notes allows you to add notes to your home page. For example you have a show coming up and you want to let your viewers know the details. Quick notes works similar to a blog except viewers can not make comments to your entries. These entries can be edited or deleted from your account.
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Flash Player
Flash Player is the most widely deployed player online. We chose Flash as our default player because of its popularity in the market and its ease of integration into the Giant Fin design. The user may have to update the flash player from time to time, as the technology is an ever changing process. Our aim is to bring the latest technology to our viewers and clients. For older Mac computers we give the option to launch your video in Quicktime format. Click the quicktime icon on the flash video players control unit to launch a Quicktime version.
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H.264 Codec
H.264 Codec is the latest codec from Apple. H.264 allows us to deliver the highest quality video at the lowest possible data rates. Some older computers will have to download the latest version of QuickTime 7, which supports H.264. We understand that this can be a inconvenience, but we also feel our clients want us to push the envelope of web technology. To read more about h.264 you can go to:
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Why won't my video play
If your video is not playing you may need to download the latest Flash Player. Your old Flash Player may not support the new H.264 codec. If you can hear your video but there is no picture, then you have an older flash player installed. You will need to update your player.
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Why is my video playing choppy
Older computers with slower processors may play your video choppy. This is because the processor is not able to decode the video codec fast enough, so it skips frames to keep up. If this is happening to you, then you can try clicking on the Quicktime icon to watch the videos in the Quicktime player. Our testing shows that Quicktime plays a little smoother on older Mac machines.
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Quicktime is not playing video
You may have an older version of Quicktime, and may need to download the latest Quicktime player.
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