OnlineVideoPublishing.com

Strategies, tips, how to's and best practices for online video publishers

Video Editing on the Cheap

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You don’t need expensive video editing software to tell your story, as Jonathan Wylie of PC World, points out in his recent article, How to Edit Video on the Cheap | PCWorld. Wylie says, “Buying the latest, greatest high-def camcorder or Digital SLR camera can be expensive, but the software you use to edit your footage doesn’t have to be. A number of free or low-cost video editors do a very respectable job of prepping your home movies for sharing with friends, family, or the rest of the world.”

Wylie shared these four options to edit your video on the cheap:
  1. Windows Live Movie Maker – “Microsoft’s Movie Maker has been available at no charge for years, but the latest Windows Live version is a very respectable video editor. In addition to the usual basic editing tools, Microsoft Movie Maker lets you add video themes, music, titles, and credits–and apply a few transitions, some pan and zoom effects, and various visual-effect filters. You can publish finished projects to Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube, or export them to your hard drive in 1080p HD or any of a range of other resolutions. If you’ve invested in a great HD camcorder and you’re editing on a budget, Windows Live Movie Maker is a great tool to start with.”
  2. Video Spin – “Pinnacle’s Video Spin is another smart choice if you’re on a tight budget. You can download it for free and take advantage of Video Spin’s straightforward interface to edit video quickly and efficiently. You can split, trim, or combine movies, and add transitions, text, and even a soundtrack. Not all features are free forever, though. After 15 days, you’ll have to buy different codec packs (for around $15 each) to continue editing certain video formats.”
  3. Serif MoviePlus Starter – “Serif launched MoviePlus Starter as a free version of one of its more advanced video editors. The Starter edition is far from the most full-featured video-editing software you can buy, but it’ll do the job unless you’re looking to edit a blockbuster movie. You can use MoviePlus Starter to insert fades, wipes, and transitions, as well as to fiddle with captions, titles, and credits. You can experiment with a “picture in picture” effect, add three (or fewer) video or audio tracks at once, and edit your video content quickly and easily. Beginners will love the built-in help system and the simple drag-and-drop interface.”
  4. YouTube – “Editing video online might not be an ideal scenario, but if you’re already in the habit of uploading lots of clips to YouTube, you may find it easier to do your editing with YouTube’s own online video editor. The new YouTube editor lets you trim the beginnings and ends of videos, and adjust the brightness, contrast, and color to your taste. The editor includes a video stabilization feature to help reduce the shakiness of handheld footage, and it has 14 style effects like black-and-white and sepia. Once you’ve finished editing, the YouTube editor’s software makes posting your projects to your YouTube account and sharing them with others very easy.”
Wylie left out iMovie, the obvious choice for Mac users video editing application that ships free with all Apple computers. iMovie ’11 has all the same features as the rest of these applications and has an easy learning curve once you get comfortable with the interface.
Is there a cheap video editing software that you can suggest? Let us know in the comment section of this post.

5 Shooting Tips for Streaming

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cameramanAccording to Jan Ozer, streaming media expert, author and Publisher of the Streaming Learning Center, there are a number of things to consider when you are shooting video for streaming. Ozer says, “Anyone who’s ever picked up a camcorder and tried to tap into their inner- Spielberg knows that there’s a lot more to creating a high-quality, impactful movie than turning on the camcorder and pressing the red record button. The same is true with producing video for streaming.” (From Shooting for Streaming – Five Key Tips)

Ozer says that high quality production value is important to keep your audience’s attention focused on your message and not your mistakes.
“Sure, you can attach your $600 consumer camcorder to a tripod, connect it to your computer, and produce streaming video, but will the quality enhance or detract from your content? Will it look and sound as good as the streaming video produced by your competitors, or other videos your viewers watch online? Fortunately, you don’t need Spielberg-like skills to produce high-quality streaming video, but to optimize the quality of your training or classroom video, it’s important to follow certain best practices.”
The following is a summary Ozer’s five best practices for producing high-quality video. Read his full article for more details from his website Streaming Learning Center for other helpful streaming media tips and resources.
  1. Choosing a background – “When a video has lots of detail in the background — like bookshelves, a finely patterned wallpaper, or blowing leaves — the codec can’t tell whether you care about the subject’s face or the extraneous stuff in the background. So it tries to preserve the quality of all the content in the frame, which inevitably degrades the quality of what you care most about.”
  2. Lighting the set – “In terms of lighting style, you can use three-point lighting, which produces slight shadows on the face, or flat lighting, with no appreciable shadows. Either way, the most important priority is to provide sufficient lighting for the camcorder to achieve good exposure without injecting gain into the video.”
  3. Camera usage and selection – “If you’re shooting in a controlled environment, like a classroom or conference room, it’s best to move that camera out of automatic mode, and control exposure manually, which fortunately is easier than it sounds. Basically, there are three controls that control how much light gets to the camcorder’s sensing device; shutter speed, gain, and aperture.”
  4. Framing the shot – “The Rule of Thirds is a principle of photographic image composition that can also be applied to shooting video. Imagine the video frame divided into thirds, both horizontally and vertically like tic-tac-toe board. If the subject is facing the camera, the top horizontal line should be at eye level and they should be in the center of the frame.”
  5. Don’t forget about audio – “Don’t skimp on the audio side of the equation. Viewers accept some visual degradation in their streaming media, but not audio-related deficits, since they know that audio can be nearly perfect, even when delivered via streaming.”
Visit Ozer’s site for more Streaming production resources and buy his book, Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices and HTML5, a professional reference for producers seeking to distribute video over the Internet and to mobile devices—particularly Apple iDevices.

Online Video Sets Automotive Trends such as Hellaflush

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Hella_FlushIf you are an automotive enthusiast, you will quickly recognize the phrase “Hellaflush“. It has become synonymous with modified cars and trucks that have aftermarket wheels that are flush with the fender. This might not seem like a big deal to the average Joe, but to the auto enthusiast, especially import enthusiasts, Hellaflush has become a trend that looks like it’s here to stay.

Online Videos posted to YouTube, Vimeo and others, show the trend at work that drives up interest, excitement, and viral videos. Here is an example of a video dedicated to the Hellaflush movement that has been posted to YouTube:

As you can see from the above video, this automotive trend is very popular, and is catching on every day. Online Videos like these give inspiration to average enthusiasts to turn their cars into something special.

Getting your car Hellaflush requires a lot of research to ensure that the wheels and tires you purchase are the correct offset to make it sit just right when lowered. The tires also come in to play as each tire manufacture has different tire designs and this can make or break the stance of your car. The suspension is also very important and needs to give your car proper clearance. Popular suspension setups such as KSport Kontrol Pro Coilovers and Blackworks Coilovers have been used to create optimal stances. Seeing a video of the same car you have that is hellaflush gives you creative ideas on creating that look for your car or truck.

About the author – Alex Polonsky
Alex Polonsky is an automotive enthusiast that blogs over at APtuned (http://www.aptuned.com/blog/) where he talks about the latest trends in automotive high performance. Alex has been in the automotive industry since 1999 and has a passion for online video, technology, and social media. Alex is also co-founder of VidCompare.

Pre-production: 10 Exercises To Consider (before touching a camera) For Best Video Results

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videoiconfullGuest Post by Seth Kenvin, Market7
Working with video as a medium is cool. Professionals take pride in mastering crafts of shooting, editing, imparting effects. People from outside the field who occasionally participate by commissioning production, appearing on-screen or weighing in on direction of projects also get gratified as rich content comes together. This blog is full of enticing advice about picking cameras, achieving right light and sound levels, and transcoding. But some of the most important work for making great video can happen before any of those considerations. Like stretching before sports, like taking vitamins before breakfast: aspects of careful pre-production may be dull but are often essential for great video results.
In fact, without the right sort of pre-production in advance, a fun project with cool content seeming to be heading towards a hit deliverable can become suddenly derailed with realization of some oversight: the most important decision maker was never consulted about what to emphasize, getting verbose content to fit within allotted running time necessitates an editing hack job, the featured product does not appear because nobody had responsibility to bring it to the set.
Some aspects of pre-production can be as fun as working with video gear and video content, some can be drudgery, but all can be essential for a production’s success, so consider the following list (appropriate as lists are constants during pre-production) and which exercises are vital for your project.
1) Review, discuss, revise, approve: Not a singular step, these are0 constants throughout pre-production, and post-production too for that matter. Video projects are multi-handed, multi-staged, and multimedia and it’s rare that some single perspective on how to do something can’t benefit from someone else’s viewpoint. So, for each of the nine following steps, remember to circulate to stakeholders, consider their inputs, resolve differences, and continuously improve for best outcome.
2) Treatments: Video production is ultimately a creative process, even though aspects of pre-production are much more logistical, but a creative step up front provides great foundation. Treatments are brainstorming exercises: come up with a handful of ideas, expressed very briefly (a couple sentences &/or a quick sketch) for what’s to be produced and have a team conversation building off of those to get project oriented.
3) Brief: As the high-level concept gels, it’s time to start breaking down details to assure nothing essential is overlooked. What is the key message? When is this due? Who will be in the audience? A creative brief is a question & answer exercise for consensus on these considerations as guidelines to abide throughout production.

budget

4) Schedule, Budget: Knowing constraints up front helps make best decisions and helps stay grounded within realm of possible. The most fundamental constraints are time and money. A good brief may establish when delivery of video is due and how much overall funding is available, then diligent scheduling and budgeting seeks to best pursue priorities while allocating within those factors. How many iterations of script writing can be accomplished before a shoot has to happen? What sort of set can be afforded?
5) Script: On top of the math in scheduling and budgeting, if the production is scripted, writing is required too. Those who like the sizzle of capturing and seeing video may find this part of the process the most dreary. It can be important to have someone involved who thrives on writing. This is another activity to abide by constraints that may be established in the brief: write a script that fits within planned running time (but perhaps long enough to allow for some optimizing edits later). Also, scripts are for video – in addition to dialog, they can describe visuals such as appearances of people, props and sets and the on-camera movements and changes of those.
6) Storyboard: This can be where the process starts to get fun again for those stimulated by visual artistry. Storyboards don’t have to be fancy or time consuming to create. They’re basic depictions of the anticipated look of the video vital for a couple reasons: to assure consistency with the appearance that’s sought, and to guide selection of what to use and how it all should be situated.
37) Cast, crew, location scouting, equipping: Well developed notions of themes, constraints and what a viewer will see and hear, all of which can be established in the steps described above, provides great guidance for final selection of who, what and where are involved in the project. As concepts mature clarity is gained on questions such as what particular specialized skills may be required, whether to source talent through an agency, and if shooting is best in-studio or on-location. Making these decisions at the right time, neither too early nor late, best assures the right people and things to be both in front of and behind camera (including what camera to use) to meet project’s objectives and abide by its constraints.
8) Assign tasks: As the team comes together and the shoot approaches, the volume of details to be addressed can skyrocket and assuring coverage of them can be vital. Video productions are distinctive versus other kinds of creative projects by the shoot representing something of a deadline in the middle of the project – it’s when costs are highest and timing is tightest. If some important preparatory step is overlooked the whole project can be substantially compromised like wrong content being captured or another shooting day having to be scheduled. It isvital to assure, and often to double-check, that all of myriad requirements are being addressed by capable people.
9) Rehearse: This is another case of deference to the time and cost sensitivity during the actual shoot. Too frequently, rent and wages are paid for idle locations, equipment and crew people while the on-screen talent becomes familiar with the lines on the set. Professional actors tend to prepare, although it may be important to establish timing and chemistry if there are several of them. Non-actors appearing on-screen, like a company’s executive spokespeople, are frequently the real problems and in addition to knowing what they’re going to say, they need preparation to speak at compelling pace, volume, pronunciation and inflection, and to appear with good posture and looking in right direction, and to be relaxed. Time coaching and practicing with them in advance can reduce one of the biggest variability factors of the shoot.
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10) Call sheet: The highly logistical processes of pre-production can kick off with the stylistic exercise of treatments, and likewise the highly stylistic processes of capturing and editing content can be best prepared for with the highly logistical step of circulating a call sheet as culmination of pre-production. Call sheets are in a time-tested (as in decades, probably close to a century) format that condenses the final assurance that people know where to show up, when, how, with what, and answers all the other key question words. For those who haven’t been having fun yet (and I hope this list indicates at least a few cool opportunities along the way of pre-production even to such people), circulation of the call sheet should signal that the really cool stuff’s about to start.
 
Images courtesy of Videomaker.com
About the Author – Seth Kenvin
seth-kenvinSeth Kenvin is CEO and founder of Market7, a provider of web-based software for collaboration in the development and management of creative content. He was previously was VP strategic marketing and corporate development for BigBand Networks from founding through profitability and more than $200 million of revenues. While there, he managed financial transactions, customer and partner relationships, and marketing of the company’s network infrastructure platforms for rising quality, variety and volume of video services. Earlier, Seth was a principal for the VC firm Cedar Funds since its founding as well. Prior experience includes being an associate for the VC firm Venrock Associates, consultant to the software company Check Point Technologies, senior editor for The Red Herring magazine and corporate finance analyst for the high tech group of Bear Stearns. Seth is a dedicated writer who has been a monthly columnist, blogger, by-line contributor to multiple magazines, and author of more than a dozen white papers published and presented at conferences. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Cornell and an MBA from Stanford. Seth occasionally quotes Elvis Costello lyrics and scribbles notes about what’s going on in his life at http://twitter.com/sethkenvin.

3 Tips When Shooting Your First Promotional Video

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Guest post by Marian LaSalle, Painted Path Designs

If you’re a small business owner or want to communicate with an online audience, you should consider video marketing. I proudly present my Top 3 Tips for Producing Your First Online Marketing Video

1. My first tip is to pay attention to sound.

If you’re using a flip cam or a similar video camera, make sure you’re in a quiet location so the background noise doesn’t bother the viewer. Unless you are shooting a music video, it should be quiet around you. Before you start filming, make sure that you are not going to be interrupted by cell phones, barking dogs, or people chatting in the background. Also make sure your camera is close enough to the subject that you will be able to hear them clearly.

If you’re using a camera that will allow an external microphone, look into these sound enhancing options. Shotgun mic, Lapel mic, handheld mic or a wireless external mic.

2. Be short and to the point.

Do you know what WIFT means? It means your viewers want to know what’s in it for them so, get to the point right away and then share your information later. Present your message with your audience in mind. Time is valuable and let’s face it, if they get bored they will click you off and be on to the next video with-in the first 20 seconds. They don’t want to waste time watching a hard sales pitch, a boring commercial or a misleading message.

3. Call to Action.

Make sure you include your contact information and give them a good reason to visit your store, call you, like you on your Facebook business page, sign up for your FABULOUS newsletter or visit your informative website. Think of other ways they can connect with you too like: following you on Twitter, reading your blog or asking a question in an email. Encourage your viewers to follow-up with you in a quick and easy way.

Video can be a powerful tool in communicating with your customers and potential customers too. Just this week I received a glowing testimonial from a client who said he’s thrilled about the new clients he’s getting from the video’s we produced for his website. He’s had such an increase in business he’s asked us to record a video every month for him. The first video we shot was an introduction on his front page so people could get to know him. Know, Like and Trust is what your customers want and video is the easiest way to accomplish this.

If you have any questions or would like to see some of the videos I have produced, please visit my website and if you like what you see, contact me so we can talk about your online success.

Marian LaSalle
Painted Path Designs
Web Design & Internet Marketing
Video Introductions for your website and YouTube


Connect with Marian on-line
www.facebook.com/marian.lasalle

This article first appeared on: http://EzineArticles.com/6291203

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