Aim for Awesome Video casts are starting soon!
I’ve been wanting to create some videos here for a number of weeks now. I’ve kept it in the back of my mind and gave it some serious thought a few times. I just couldn’t nail it down…
What should I do video about that I couldn’t write about?
What would be better on video than writing?
What kind of format for the video?
Where to shoot?
Shoot what? Me? Scenery? Screenshots?
Then, this morning it all came to me…
When ideas are flowing you gotta get up and record them or they’re lost. At 5:30am after 5 great ideas for videos and books I got up, grabbed the notebook (computer) and went into the back part of the apartment and sat on the floor so I could type without waking my sleeping beauty (wife).
I quickly typed up over 50 topics I could shoot video on and added some of the content areas I thought I might talk about during each video.
I’ve become bored of the typical online video casts I see online – even from the top level bloggers. Darren Rowse at Problogger.net posted a question the other day asking readers about the benefits of using video on their blogs and he got a lot of comments. I left a comment too. I’m don’t like 99% of the videos I see at other personal development sites.
Darren does video on his site and he’s just so knowledgeable that you have to watch out of fear that he’ll say something you’ll miss if you don’t watch it. I’m not particularly excited by his videos – but, no matter. He’s an expert – I watch the experts’ videos whether I like them or not.
Even if you’re not an expert adding video to your blog occasionally can be a positive improvement to your site. For myself I have pretty strong ideas about how to make video look good. Not sure if I can put them into action, but these are some things I want to keep in mind as I shoot my videos here at Aim for Awesome:
1. No hats. Seems that a lot of top bloggers wear baseball caps during their videos and have the wrong exposure on their faces. The face is the most important part of the video – unless you’re shooting at some worldwide tourist destination. Hats block what little light is coming from above to light your face. I want the lighting on my face to be bright and happy, not drab. Lighitng is a major issue for most bloggers as they don’t understand that they need to increase the exposure if they’re sitting in front of a brightly colored wall as video cameras aren’t smart enough to know your face is more important than a wall.
2. I’m not a newscaster. I don’t want to sit in one place and talk. I can’t get myself excited about that kind of video. How are you going to be excited or motivated? You’re not. I just don’t have it in me to sit there with proper clothes on in front of a wall with a photo of a fish and get you excited about some topic – even if the topic is exciting. I like walking around and talking to the camera. I prefer shooting here inside the apartment and walking around in my room – but there’s no excuse not to get outside and show you something as I walk around and talk about whatever subject is the topic of the day. Thai people see a lot of wacky foreigners walking around here, what’s one more talking to himself going to hurt?
I’ll make the effort to get out to somewhere scenic most times so at least you’re looking at palm trees, islands, mountains or beaches behind me and not white wall and my ceiling! I promise, no newscasts at AFA Video.
3. I’m not an actor. I couldn’t read a script and make it seem unscripted if my life depended on it. I can’t act like I’m not regurgitating a written or memorized script. I can’t read it off a wall or have it playing in my earphone as I talk to you about it on video. It’s gotta be unscripted. It will take multiple shoots to do that because I say uhm, and uhhh too much. But, much better to do it that way – more spontaneous and I can get excited about the video which in turn might get you psyched about it.
So, assuming I can follow the guidelines above I’ll be churning out some video over the next few days and posting them along with a written post to go along with them. I’ll post the videos at YouTube I think, maybe the first couple here on site until I get the hang of it. For YouTube you probably know the trick you can use to get the uncompressed version of the videos – but I’ll post it below.
Youtube trick to get the uncompressed video which is higher resolution and nicer to look at:
Add this to the end of the url of the video – no spaces just add: &fmt=18
Now, I need to say something about the quality level of the videos I’ll be posting here. I have a rather slow connection to the internet from my apartment and I’m using my mobile phone to connect. I can do about 1Mb upload per 2 or sometimes 4 minutes. In order to give you even a 150kbps quality video at 320×240 resolution that’s a roughly 13Mb file. At that size the video is NOT high rez and is NOT the clearest video out there. I have the nice 640×480 version that maybe I’ll offer on DVD’s each month or something – but for now I hope you can get accustomed to the small videos at limited kbps.
Video 1: Questioning Your Religion >
Length: 12 minutes. 13MB. .wmv file played with Windows Media Player. Hosted on-site, not at YouTube.
Enjoy them and be sure to comment – positively or negatively, I’d like to know what you think is good or not so good.
Best of Life!
Vern
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