Monthly Archives: June 2011

1 Week of Video Blogging

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I’ve been fascinated by video blogging for a long time. It combines a number of things I enjoy with at least one I’m less comfortable with. By video blogging, I don’t mean making little artsy fartsy videos, like the experiments I usually do, but classic webcam style of sitting down and talking to the camera.

But I was nervous.

What if I ended up looking like an idiot? What if I made a fool of myself? What if nobody gave a shit? And after thinking thoughts like that for a while, I got tired of it. So Sunday night I decided that Monday was a good day to start and when Monday morning came around, I announced my self-challenge on Twitter: shoot and upload 1 video every day for 1 week.

I had no idea what to talk about. Just a want to try it. So I rambled for about 10 minutes and cut it down to just over 1. That would be my first post. The content isn’t going to rock anyone’s world, but it did get me started and as soon as I watched the edited version from start to finish, I immediately had a bunch of ideas of what to do instead, or next time.

Sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone to get that kick of inspiration. Sitting in front of the camera and a bright light is definitely outside my comfort zone, but it’s more fun and inspiring than expected.

Go ahead and place your bets now, on whether I’ll last the week and whether or not that includes the weekend.

Update: I’ve made a YouTube playlist of the videos from this experiment. Check it out!

Relevant links: my YouTube channel and my Facebook page. I’m not going to write a post with each clip (but I will write a follow-up when the week is over), so if you want to follow the videos as they appear those are the links to use.

My First HDDSLR Production

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At the start of this month I put out the first “real” video shot with my new HDDSLR setup. Real, as in something more than a casual dabble. It was shot over two days, with no script or real story at first – only a want to document and celebrate my wife’s work, and try the new gear. Every month, Kelly Cline designs a new recipe for Blue Moon Burgers to use as their Burger of the Month. I like burgers, so this is already a great deal for me, but it got even sweeter when they let me film her working on the Bomb-Mi Burger, featured throughout the month of June.

About half-way through the first day, I realized focus was going to be on Kelly herself and her powerful presence in the kitchen and restaurant. She develops the recipe at home and only comes in to teach it, tweak it and let the others taste it. This forces her to take control when she comes in, and when she does that her passion for food really shines. Also, here was a rare opportunity to show her recipe development alongside her work as a photographer.

Secondary, and this was really cemented during the second day of filming, there was a pattern of reactions I noticed. Everyone who tasted it reacted with either an “Oh, wow!” or an “Oh, yeah!”. I thought that was funny and not a bad way to convey the flavor through video. So I emphasized this in editing.

Finally, the owner Charlie Olson is a bit of a goofball (I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying that, either), always good for a silly remark or a dirty joke. So I picked 3 short clips of him being silly, and put those in there as well.

Part of this test was to see how much goes into even a small production like this. I definitely see producing promotional videos for busines as a potential market, but it comes down to quality vs. price. I wanted to see how good I can make it without an assistant or budget, how long the editing would take and so on. This particular video ended up taking about 12 hours to make. Basic pre-production, like a shot list and a loose script would have probably added another couple of hours and would have streamlined the final result some.

I am working on the pre-production of a second video featuring a local business right now, as a second practice run. This time, I am going a little slower and paying more attention to detail, to see how much time that adds. Learning by doing, while hopefully building a useful portfolio.