My First Vlog Post (2nd & 3rd)

(I've been wanting to do audio and video for a long time, but it wasn't until my blogher experience that I actually got moving and picked up the knowledge to try my first one.

Lisa Williams showed her vlog from Blogher at the Berkman Thursday night blogging group and during the walk to dinner, I got to ask her how she did it.  Before blogher, I had been reading and watching Andy Carvin's dispatches from Africa and feeling that I wanted to do that too ... but didn't know where to start..  Then I came home and made the mistake of checking the RSS reader and found this post from Ponzi and called into the show and talked to Chris and Ponzi about my geek toy collection.   Anina, who vlogged me at blogher, left a comment and so did Village Girl, a khmer vlogger, who told me on the phone last week that vlogging was easy.  And Viola -- a vlog post.

 

Video How I did it:

1.) Identified a very short and simple flim:  Show my geek toy collection
2.) Jotted down a story board (introduce each toy in collection)
3.) Use the video setting on my new Cannon PowerShot SD300 to do the flim clip
4.) Use a video editing program (Windows Movie Maker because it was free and on my computer)
5.) Identified simple editing process:  Titles Video Credits
6.) Saved and uploaded it (choose a lower setting so it wouldn't take long to download)
7.) Made a cover graphic in photoshop

I'm not happy with the aesthetics yet ... need to learn
how to:

• Cut and splice the movie clip to edit stuff I don't want or stitch together seperate clips
• Use contrast/levels to make the visual clearer or think about lighting before I shoot (no back lights)
• Learn how to insert titles and stills into the video clip
• Learn how to lay a new audio track over the one that I did originally, perhaps with some music and a cleaner narrative.
• Think about what you are going to say before you hit the record button

Next project will be montage of stills with titles ... are there any good how-to sites that are easy to read and understand?

Looks like I'm not the only blogher inspired to vlog.  Lisa Canter posted her first vlog too!  What I liked about Lisa's video is that she put herself in front of the camera and just spoke so eloquently.   I also like the titles that appear while the video was playing to insert thoughts she didn't vocalize.   I'll have to put that on my to-do list.

Okay, enough about technique.  Another question I have to ask is:  How might nonprofits use vlogging, if at all?   

Update: Village Girl posted her vlog of the vloggers birds of a feather session.  A great resource site - free vlog was mentioned.  And, I just had to experiment with some more and made my first Khmer language vlog ... and then I did my second one.  Onto figuring out syndication and storage ...

Now, I'm ready to read the instructions ....

Technorati Tags: blogher

Comments

[anina.net]

try castpost.com it's a lot easier!

[Eath]

Very very well Beth, wow!! this is so cool!!

Now i have anther friend who knows what i'm talking about!!

welcome to the vlogger land Beht::)))))

[Eath]

Now all you need is RSS, so other people and readers can get to your videos easyer, here is the link to get one for your vlog, https://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/create;jsessionid=CC82430FBF99AA3609082DC9C8469C39.app2

[Nancy White]

ROck on!

[Sian]

I must say it turned out really well! Now, I've got to learn how to do a Podcast!

[mary hodder]

Hi Beth.. great vlogging.. i actually caught it from here: http://www.blogtelevision.net/p/Watch-Video-My-First-Vlog-Post-2nd--3rd___1,2,,51337.html at blog television.

But I really liked it.

mary

[Andy Carvin]

Nice work, Beth! And thanks for the plug in the end credits - please feel free to blame me if any more of you time is wasted. :-)

I wish I knew more about the software you used. I'm a Mac guy and do all my video editing with Final Cut Pro, so I don't know the specific tricks in your software for editing, overlaying text, etc. The best thing I can suggest is to keep playing with the software, experiment, and see what happens. You may also want to join the VIDEOBLOGGING list or check out the FreeVlog tutorial for ideas.

But I'm really glad to see you experimenting with vlogging. Not too many of us in the nonprofit world are doing this, and I think it has a lot of potential. Perhaps we may need to start a "nonprofit vloggers" group or "vloggers for human rights and global development," or something with a catchier title than that....

I also want to reiterate what was said about having a vlog-friendly RSS feed. Right now I see you have an RDF rss feed. Unfortunately, it won't allow people to subscribe to your vlog, as it can only process text, not video. As Eath suggested, go to feedburner.com, set up a free account, and create a new feed for your old RDF feed. Be sure to select the "smartcast" option that will make it podcast (and vlog) friendly. Then edit your blog's template so it will link to your new RSS feed, labeling it as your video blog feed or something like that (or replace your old feed entirely, if you want).

ac

ps - I plan to be at the Lowell Water Festival in a couple of weeks, so hopefully I can vlog some of the Khmer cultural activities taking place there...

[Ponzi]

OMG! You are a natural! Woot! I'm so glad you started- it's always the first step that's the hardest.I'm glued to my seat for the next installment. :)