Hi! Welcome to Verde Smoke

Today, I led part 2 of a webinar on social media messaging for digital literacy efforts, hosted by One Community’s Connect Your Community BTOP project in OH.  Below are my presentation…recording of the full webinar coming soon on http://vimeo.com/channels/connectcommunity.

PS – Go to my older post for part 1, including a recording of the webinar! http://verdesmoke.com/2011/09/storytelling-social-media-a-webinar/

[Reposted from ConnectorsClub.org, January 6, 2011 at 11:20]

Since many of you have received your FlipCam video cameras and are hitting media literacy and video production concepts in your programs, I’ve been thinking about the hints I always try to convey to instructors, youth and staff when they head out into the world with the camera in hand. While I love the FlipCam’s ease of use and happy lil USB arm, as a film-maker I know it has it’s limitations.  The good news is, that there’s some easy ways to get some very good quality raw footage from the Flips, if you keep a few key hints in mind:

1. Be Steady – Invest in a small tripod or use a wall, doorway or your own body as a stabilizing device, by leaning on elbows, knees, or anything that won’t move. Check out this photographer’s blog for more hints & demo’s.  Also, avoid sudden movements – quick zooming and panning is never good with digital video, but Flips don’t have any stabilizing features like many of the point-and-shoot still cameras these days.
2. Get Uncomfortably Close – frame your shot, especially headshots during interviews, so close that you’re almost feeling you’re too close.  This will account for the mic but also create a really up-close-and-personal feel to interviews.
3. Police your Sound – The microphone on the Flip is not particularly strong, especially at extended distances. Find a good spot to shoot interviews or speeches, thinking about background noise like voices in the next room, air vents, or big loud machines like refrigerators.  Offices with doors that close make good makeshift sound studios.  Also, when you’re interviewing, remember the camera will not only pickup your subject, but also an interviewer behind the camera, including “uhuhs”, snorts, giggles, or squirming in the chair.
4. Don’t Delete Videos Accidentally but Stay Clean – The FlipCam interface has lots of steps to help you prevent accidently deleting off footage off the camera, but then the FlipShare software will prompt you to delete the videos after downloading, which you might not want to do.  I prefer treating the FlipCam like an external flash drive, getting to the footage through Windows Explorer or Mac Finder.  But also be respectful of your fellow Connectors if you’re sharing cameras across different projects: delete your footage when you’re done with it.
5. Invest in Re-chargeable AA batteries – the newer Flips don’t come with in-camera rechargeable batteries, and you’ll start going through AA batteries pretty quickly.  Think about the environment and invest in some rechargable AAs.  Also, have a backup pair of batteries when you head out into the field.
6. Avoid Backlighting – If your subject is standing in front of an open, sunny window, or a projection screen with a PowerPoint presentation lit behind them, the Flip will adjust the lighting dramatically, sometimes making people look very yellow and alien-like.  Find a shot where the main light source pointing in the same direction as your camera lens.
7. Use in-camera editing – start and stop often during interviewing, to avoid having to review, log, and cut-up longer interviews.  Nobody, human editors and software on older computers included, likes reviewing hour-long clips to find that one golden 30 secs of footage.  Also, it never hurts to take a practice shot, including some movement and voice, and play it back on the Flip camera just to make sure all looks ok.
8. Make Time for the Download & Invest in an External HD – USB is easy but it’s not quick for transferring large files.  If you have a camera full of two hours of footage, especially if it’s HD, it will take a while to download.  It will also start to quickly take up space on your harddrive, so it may be time to invest in a portable external hard-drive for backing up your footage, especially in you’re in a public computer lab.
9. Find a good video file converter – If you have an older Flip, it records AVI’s (which you’ll need to install codecs on a PC) that sometimes don’t import into MovieMaker or iMovie easily.  If you have a newer Flip, it’ll record in MP4s, which open well in newer versions of MovieMaker/iMovie, but not the older versions (Windows VISTA and older).  If you’re using a PC with an older version of Moviemaker, you might need to find some video conversion software like FreeMake Video Converterto convert to WMVs.  If your’e on a Mac, you can use Quicktime Player to save as MOV.OH and one more simple but often forgotten hint:

    

10. Make sure the camera is ACTUALLY recording – In over 10 years of teaching video production, I can’t tell you how many awful, disappointing moments have come up when folks realize that they forgot to press the Record button right before an interviewee pours her heart out or says the most profound thing ever.

    
    

    And one final question to leave you with: if a video is shot on a FlipCam and no one uploads it to ConnectorsClub.org, does it make a sound?  ;)

    Top 10 FlipCam Video Hints.pdf