I've moved to my own domain!

I've finally moved my blog to a self hosted Wordpress site. I'm still in the process of transferring my earlier posts, but from now on it's home. Eventually I'll set up redirect so you won't even end up here when you're looking for me.

In the meantime, all these posts will remain, but I won't be updating this page any more.

The home page on the main site is static and there are menu links to view just podcasts and their show notes or a separate blog. As time goes on I'll be adding more menus organized by categories.

I'll see you there.

Video StudentGuy

Screencasting 101.2 Podcamp CT - Slides

Podcamp Ct was a great success. Not a glitch as far as I could see. The facility was fantastic and several times I heard people say they had never had wireless access that was so good. I agree, it was rock solid and fast.

For myself I had mixed feelings about the presentation I gave on Screencasting. As before I have converted the slides to PDF and you download them here.

My goal has always been to get through the presentation slides all the way to the end. I so far I have not.

The presentation goes too deep. Even the demo I used to introduce the presentation was too involved. Well, real learning involves making mistakes, and embracing those mistakes is the path to success. As Mary Pickford said,

"If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down".

So not failure. I got some valuable feedback from the people who attended, thank you all and I'll give it some more thought through the next week as I prepare this presentation for Podcamp NH. I'll comment on those changes when I post the recording I made of the presentation in, hopefully in a couple days.

As always there were many fascinating presentations, more than any one person could see - 4 tracks running at the same time. I particularly enjoyed one late in the day on the international implications of being online.

I met a lot of fun and generous people. There was a two hour lunch, time for lots of talk and lots of great restaurants within a couple blocks of the facility we were in. Afterward there was more time to talk at nearby bar. A really good event. It was big, but on a human scale and it gave me weeks of things to think about.

#169 Screencasting 101.1 at PCB5

In the last post I attached a PDF of the slides I used for a presentation on Screencasting I delivered a few weeks ago at Podcamp Boston. In this episode I've embedded a screencast that I made from the slides and the audio I recorded during that session. I've also included just the audio, which is part of the Video StudentGuy feed and will show up on iTunes if you're a subscriber.



Chapters & Timecode:

00:00 Preface
03:50 Introduction
13:53 What is Screencasting
15:45 How to do it
21:20 Workflow
29:00 Tools
31:35 Screencast Demo
41:30 Screenflow and Captivate
44:25 Online Screencasting Software
49:10 Other Editing Tools
55:08 Suggestions from the audience
57:20 Closing thoughts

The screencast was just too large to host on my Libsyn.com account. I don't know if I'll be doing enough of these to justify upgrading my account, so in the short term I'm going to look at TubeMogul and Blip.tv as a no cost solution. I'll let you know how that turns out.

You can view the source video and also download a copy of the file here at Vimeo.

I'm going to upload an updated version of this screecast in a week's time following a presentation I'll be making in New Haven at Podcamp Connecticut. And again, a week later following a third presentation at Podcamp New Hampshire.

If your interested in screencasting I promise to make it worth your while to watch the next two screencasts because I plan to include some, maybe lots of new material. I'll note in the Chapters & Timecode section if there's new material.

Not a Podcast Episode

Last weekend I attended Podcamp Boston 5. It was a great experience meeting new people invovled in new media. You should really attend a podcamp, or any unconference that caters to your particular profession or interest. Why isn't there a videocamp?

Yes, there were some video presentations, but only on a basic, video blogger level. I myself presented a session on screencasting, the first time I've ever done that. It was presentation rough and somewhat chaotic, which is what I expected and overall I had a great time.

I recorded that session, but I'm still editing it. I want to combine it with the the slides I used and insert a brief screencasting demo. I hope to have that completed and posted here in the coming week.

My main reason for getting this post out without a show is so I could include a download to the slides for the benefit of those attending the session and anyone else who is interested in screencasting. If you do download it, I hope you'll check this site again for the screencast, I'm sure you'll get more out of the slides that way. At least you can use the links I've included in the slides.

I've converted the slide presentation into PDF format so everyone can view it. You can download it either by clicking on the title of this post, or click here. This file will appear in the iTunes feed.

Thanks for being patient, I'll talk to you later.

Paul

#168 Summer Vacation

Here's a short explanation of the past three months

Projects

• I finished a corporate promotional video for an integrated circuit manufacturer in Massachusetts. I partnered with Lou Goodman and we worked together shooting and editing the video. And I completed a 30 second commercial for the living history museum, Plimoth Plantation.
• Even as I continue to look for a full time video gig I'm still volunteering my time to shoot and edit video for my former school, Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts

Plans
Everything always takes more time that you think

• but I'm committed to learning how to maximize Worpress so I can transfer the Video StudentGuy site over to a self hosted Wordpress site with it's own domain. I want to develop a daily blog, add a number of interactive features and introduce video and still images.
• Once I've got that nailed, I'll move on to producing a portfolio site
• I continue to do audio production for another Podcast - The Post Movie Show
• I'm working on a series of screencasts demonstrating how to edit in FCP using mostly keyboard commands.
• I hope to turn my experiences into a presentation at some of the podcamps I've listed below.

Events

• PAB10 Ottawa - great show and great people. What can you say about those Canadians except they're so nice!
• DSLR video events through Avid, Rule and FCPUG. Lots of buzz about that I need to spend a show talking about that.

Podcamps Boston, NH, CT and Montreal in September and October

• Montreal - Sept 11 & 12

• Boston - Sept 25 & 26

• Connecticut - October 16

• New Hampshire - October 23 & 24

I'll be attending an introduction to Wordpress workshop at the Microsoft NERD Center in Boston Monday August 30.

• It's closed, but there's a presentation later that evening also at the NERD, courtesy of the Boston Wordpress Meetup Group on how to insert video into Wordpress

#167 Marketing for the Creative

Here are some thoughts I had following a business workshop for artists in the spring.

#166 Editing Pt1

Organizing your media

• Keep it simple, keep it lean

Consistent, uncluttered, organization of media that would allow you to return to the project 3 years later and find everything even though you've completely forgotten everything about the job. Although I didn't refer to organization of files on the desktop level, I strongly suggest that you organize all your media in the same hierarchical fashion both in your editing software and your computer's hard drive.

Something else I didn't mention it in the show which I will have to discuss it at length in a later show is that a very important part of organization occurs on the other end of of production, when you're done: consolidation.

Consolidation is the process of saving out the project and all the pieces of media that was used in the projects - in one folder. This is done once you are finished and you're preparing to archive everything and take it offline.

Someday you're going to want to re-edit this video, include it in your reel, or a compilation, or just find a piece of footage that you used and consolidation is a critical, time saving process you can use to do that.