PureBlogging

This weekend some friends asked me to lend a hand in shooting a web video, and I had the privilege with some truly skilled and fascinating people. When the project is finished, I’ll drop a shameless link to it into one of the link roundups. But for now, I’ll share a few simple tips for making great video blog posts.

1. Have a second camera handy, but don’t feel compelled to use it. If you’re working on a big project, it might be a good idea to have two cameras handy in case you run into problems with one, or if you find yourself wanting to get multiple angles of the same shot. But having several cameras on one project sometimes leads to snap decisions (“Let’s shoot ourselves shooting the subject! It’ll be so meta!“) that create more work than you need to be doing. On small shoots, you’ll rarely need to use a complicated, professional-looking camera report. But having a plan and sticking to it can make the whole shooting process a lot easier.

2. When you’re choosing a camera, universality matters a heck of a lot more than new-fangledness. A few months ago, a friend of mine emailed me in a tizzy — he had just bought a swanky new hard-drive camera, and now he couldn’t import the video files into any of his editing apps. Hard drive cameras often save all their files with bizarre proprietary file extensions in an attempt to confine users to their own software (It’s as if Trader Joe’s encouraged you to use your own grocery bags, but only ones that have the TJ’s logo on them).

As a result, my friend had to go through a Byzantine process of finding, downloading, and learning to use various file converters. In the end, I think he just bought another camera. The lesson? Right now, miniDV is probably the best way to go.

3. Remember that your interviewees are on camera, but you may not be. Don’t lose sight of your purpose when you’re interviewing, but keep editing in mind. It always helps to request that your interviewees include your questions in their answers for ease of editing. You may even want to practice this to get them used to doing it:

Q: What is your name and title?
A: My name is Amanda Simmons, and I’m the executive director of the Breaking Barriers program.
Q: What is the goal of Breaking Barriers?
A: The goal of the Breaking Barriers program is to get free wireless Web accessibility into low-income neighborhoods where people might not be able to afford it.

This way, you can edit yourself out of the interview — leaving the focus on your subject, but eliminating the risk of context loss. Of course, one easy way around this is to always include yourself in the shot. A good example of this is Dr. Kiki Sanford, who regularly interviews scientists about various topics.

Another good idea is to ask your interviewees to try, as much as possible, to speak in a slow and measured tone with plenty of pauses. Again, you’re not looking to alter reality — just to make things easier on yourself in the editing room.

4. If you ever do man-on-the-street work, prepare yourself for rejection. A few years ago I worked on an archival project which involved interviewing residents of a small town, picked at random on the street, about their reactions to a new Wal-Mart opening in their community. We probably got responses from about one in five of the people we approached — and that was a great percentage. Man-on-the-street (or MOS) projects can be rife with rejection. Just don’t take it personally — lots of people just don’t like how they look on camera. I’ve found flattery helps.

5. Have fun with it. Of course, if any of the pointers I’ve given you here — or any of the rules or guidelines or suggestions you find around the web — make the whole process less fun for you, feel free to ignore them. If you’re not having at least a little bit of fun on a shoot, it’ll show in the final project. So have fun. Make that your number one rule.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Last week I put up a link to my DIY Moleskine PDA video. Part of the process, of course, was finding a good site to host the video. Here are the three finalists.

YouTube. Ladies love him, men want to be his friend, give a big Las Vegas welcome to a dear old friend of mine, you all know his name: YouTube. (Wild sustained applause.) Truth be told, I don’t like YouTube much. It’s like Sears — first on the scene, it was a respected powerhouse for many years, and still commands pretty strong name recognition. But at the end of the day, I’d rather stick with its competitors.

What’s great about YouTube is that people spend a lot of time on it, just looking at video after video, so you’re guaranteed some views of your work simply by the law of averages. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into people visiting your site; they may be more likely to simply check out the next suggested video.

YouTube’s performance is also finicky to a degree that’s pretty unacceptable, considering how well its competitors work and the general state of technology today. I’d wager that I’ve had to reload about half of all the YT pages I’ve looked at, simply because the media player refused to load the video all the way. I expect that from some crappy embedded Yahoo! player; I can’t believe the granddaddy of all Web video doesn’t have a better interface. When it comes to posting videos, I’m uncomfortable with the fact that someone might not be able to watch the whole thing.

Metacafe. Metacafe is sort of the opposite of YouTube, with very little name recognition but a much more dependable interface. I feel like users probably associate Metacafe with cheesy, ebaumsworld-esque videos of guys in banana suits setting themselves on fire, and thus don’t give it the propers it deserves.

But MC has a great user interface and relatively quick upload time. The drawback is that it takes a bit longer for your video to show up online than if you use YouTube, where it pretty much shows up moments after it finishes uploading. The wait isn’t terribly long, but if you’re liveblogging and need to get something up NOW, you might run into trouble.

Revver. The best thing about Revver is that allows you to monetize your video based on the number of views it gets. I’ve never used Revver, so I’d be interested to hear about anyone’s experience with it.

Revver’s page seems a little light on details as to how exactly its users get paid. And the hardest part of Revver — speaking from a creator’s standpoint — is that Revver’s panel of admins has to approve your video… and approval can take a few days. I found this out a little too late; last week’s video was my first foray into Revver territory, and my deadline would have approached faster than the admins’ approval. This is a great security measure from Revver’s point of view, and I have no arguments with it, but it does require the artist to do a little creative planning.

Oh, and embedding any of these on your blog will require a plug-in based on your blogging platform and video host… just a reminder.

In the end, I went with Metacafe, simply because of the great interface. I also posted to YouTube, since I already had an account there, but overall I think Metacafe will be my #1 choice for future videoblogs.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Last week Michael wrote a great post on methods of getting your ideas down. I’ve found that Moleskine notebooks are the best portable notebooks around; with sites like Moleskinerie and DIY Planner around, I think most Web mavens tend to agree.

It got me to thinking about how I could use my Moleskine to its greatest advantage. So I came up with this little tutorial. Enjoy.

How To Make A Moleskine PDA

Popularity: 14% [?]

Everybody’s doing video, and you’ve decided you want to, as well. Video blogging is going to be hot in 2008. How do you get started? What do you need to know? I’m going to tell you what you need to get started.

What You Need to Begin Video Blogging

• A video camera or a webcam
• Software or online service to edit video
• Software or online service to distribute your video

The Camera

You can use a camcorder and put the video on your computer, or, in some cases, you can record the video right to your harddrive, depending on your setup (you will need a FireWire cable and ports or a video card on your computer with an S-video jack). Personally, I use a decent webcam. I don’t go for fancy videos that need separate sound. I just use the webcam’s built-in microphone.

I might get a more decent setup later, but if you’re starting out, stick with the basics or you’ll be overwhelmed. One of the issues with video blogging is that it’s time-consuming. For that reason, webcams are easy: no tape, no transfer. On the downside, unless you’re using a laptop (and even then, depending on the camera) webcams aren’t very portable or maneuverable.

Video Editing

You have two choices: online video editing, or software video editing on your computer. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Online video editing is still relatively new, but will get better and more powerful. You can use services like Jumpcut to upload the raw video and then edit it online.

For computer software, there is Windows Movie Maker and Apple’s iMovie for free software. I don’t have a Mac and I don’t know a thing about iMovie. I’ve been using Windows Movie Maker and it’s getting a little old. I’m starting to not like it, but it’s easy to learn and is great for an absolute beginner.

Sure, you can just record a video and never edit it at all, but it probably won’t turn out very good if you do it that way. Video editing in software involves cutting, rearranging, and adding titles or effects to your video. You can add music or other sound to your video, such as narration.

There is also special video blogging software you can use, such as Adobe Vlog It. Vlog It is not expensive, at only $29 USD. It has a built in teleprompter (so you can read what you’re saying like a newscaster does) and other great features (I will probably get this for myself in the near future).

Distribute Video

How will you get your video to others so they can watch it? There are basically two ways to do this: use an online distributor, such as YouTube, or put the video on your own web server (if you have one). YouTube is just plain easy. And, it has bandwidth, reach, and longevity (YouTube ain’t going out of business any time soon, but you never know with smaller companies).

There are over a hundred different online video tools and services to choose from. Right now, I just stick with big ol’ YouTube. Again, it’s just ridiculously easy. I like easy. Once your video is uploaded to YouTube, you can embed it in your own blog posts easily. Just copy the embed code and paste into the code view of your blog’s post writing form.

You can upload videos directly to Blogger blogs and WordPress blogs, but WordPress needs a plugin to be able to display the video, such as PodPress. PodPress will also help distribute your videos on iTunes. I use PodPress for audio, but not video. I’d rather have my videos be embeddable by other blogger who want to share my videos, so I use YouTube.

Stay Tuned

Next week, in part 2, I’m going to tell you how to get set up, and how to make your first video blog post.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be a teacher, in charge of explaining to alcohol- and sex-crazed first-year college students what it means to write a decent essay? (Your answer: “Gosh, Kevin! Only every day!!!”)

I know what it’s like. You have to make use of every possible resource to keep their attention, ranging from the simple (rewarding correct answers with miniature Snickers bars) to the complex (in-class games of musical chairs and duck-duck-goose). Every day is a challenge.

The same goes for blogging — and aside from podcasts, one of the most valuable pieces of multimedia you can add to your blog is video. Whether it’s a series of instructional movies like this excellent tutorial on replacing iPod batteries, or the daily and humorous videocasts at TV Squad (starring the uber-crushworthy Brigitte Dale), short movies are always a pleasure to the web-going public, and, if they’re done well, are a sure bet for bringing in the numbers.

But as with writing, there’s a whole boatload of rules-of-thumb and dos-and-don’ts when it comes to shooting great video. Nobody expects you to be Scorcese, but you should at least shoot somewhere north of Ed Wood. Here are a few tips to keep in mind before you fire up the camcorder.

Don’t shoot video if you don’t need to. Ze Frank does a good deal of talking directly to the camera, but that’s because Ze has great public speaking skills and rarely sounds like he’s reading off a screen. Before you start shooting, ask yourself: Why am I putting this particular piece of information/entertainment/cat-related humor on video as opposed to simply using words? Do you plan on using the versatility of video to its full potential, or are you just going to talk at the camera? If you’re making a tutorial video, will you use visuals to make your instructions more clear to the viewer? If your skills in front of or behind the camera aren’t up to snuff, you may wind up doing more harm than good. Which leads to our second point…

Spontaneity is good, but practice makes perfect. If you’ve got a script, make sure to read it in an audible voice at a measured pace. Speaking too slowly might make your viewers snicker, but speaking too quickly or quietly will lose them entirely (As much as I enjoy the delightful ministrations of Ms. Dale at TV Squad, she occasionally tends to mumble a bit, which detracts from the overall experience). If you’re looking for public speaking advice, you could do a lot worse than Speaking with a Purpose by Arthur Koch.

Lock your frame. Most people doing video on the Web seem to follow this rule pretty well, but it’s an important one and thus bears repeating. Every good piece of filmmaking results from two things: (1) Mounting the camera on a tripod, and (2) Leaving it the heck alone. Remember The Blair Witch Project? With all the screaming and vertigo-inducing camera work? You don’t want your blog looking like that. If the camera is held still, your viewers will forget they’re watching a video, and focus only on what’s going on within the frame.

Sound matters. Possibly more than you think. The microphones on the new Mac desktops seem to have a pretty good pickup range, but sadly, most consumer camcorders don’t pick up sound very well — particularly if it’s coming from multiple sources. You might benefit from picking up a camera-mountable mic with a broad pickup pattern; B&H Camera is a decent online source, but if you want to keep things cheap and simple, a handheld mic from Radio Shack, held out of frame, will do the trick.

I can’t stress enough how much bad sound can ruin a good piece of filmmaking. If your viewers are straining to hear what’s going on, they’re not giving the content their full attention, and they won’t be compelled to return for future videos — even if the content is entertaining overall. And unless you’re shooting documentary footage on the run, subtitling to compensate for bad sound isn’t going to work.

One thing to consider: Since many visitors do their blog-surfing on the sly during work hours, consider making silent videos, that viewers can enjoy without sound. Netting this often-forgotten demographic might set you apart from the pack.

Just because your digital editing app has cool titling effects doesn’t mean you need to use them. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got Morgan Freeman doing your voice-over and Conrad Hall behind the camera. If you use anything other than the most simple and direct titles, your video will look like it was made by Mrs. Himelfarb’s fifth grade civics class. The fact that Conrad Hall has been dead for five years makes this statement no less true.

Also, stick to either black or white titles with a simple font without serifs. If your background is black, use white titles, and vice versa. If you’re placing titles over a shifting background, give them a contrasting outline.

If possible, have a comely raven-haired lass star in your video. Seriously, Brigitte: Call me. My girlfriend will probably be cool with it.

Popularity: 16% [?]

What does 2008 hold in store? Nobody knows for sure, but we can make some pretty educated observations. I’d like to offer mine. Feel free to add yours in the comments.

Here we go:

Video blogging will be bigger than ever

• More bloggers will start doing video.
• Online video sites like YouTube will expand their services.
• New online video services and applications will appear for direct recording and editing.
• Many smaller video sharing sites will die off, consolidation will begin.

Mobile blogging will become super hot

• Mobile blogging and video blogging will continue to converge (Qik is an example).
• More bloggers will be concerned about how their blogs look in a mobile browser.
• Travel blogging and news blogging will see growth.

Blogging itself will continue to spread and transform

• Blogging will continue to transform itself into the new journalism. Old journalists will continue to be bitter about it. More journalists will become bloggers.
• The design of blogs will continue to evolve as aspects of blogging weave their way into “normal” websites. The explosive growth of magazine and news style WordPress themes will continue. 2008 is going to see tremendous experimentation in blog design.
• Bloggers will play a bigger role in the U.S. presidential elections in 2008 than ever before.
• I think there will be rapid growth in business blogs compared to personal blogs as social networking takes over for blogging in some ways.
• The relationship between social networks and blogs will continue to evolve as new tools and services appear. Blogs will become more social, incorporating some of the functions of social networks.

It’ll be interesting to look back at this post at the end of 2008 and see how accurate it is. Care to add your thoughts on the state of blogging for 2008? You know what to do…

Photo credit: squidish under CC license

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