Video Studentguy

Review of a couple Wordpress books Jennifer Navarrette Using Wordpress by Tris Hussey Headfirst Wordpress by Jeff Siarto Essential ActionScript 3.0 by Colin Moock

Phonetically based audio search tool. Works with Final Cut Pro. Check out the site for video tutorials.

Reflections on a recent job interview on the need to keep my portfolio up-to-date and relevant to my career goals.

My first attempt at summarizing the podcast for new listeners.

At Podcamp New Hampshire I attended several interesting sessions and one of them was Walter Elly's talk on Foursquare, a location based social media tool. It opened my eyes to the amazing opportunities that phones with GPS provide to both businesses and the average person. I think it's another remarkable enabling, leveling technology. I don't know if there's a video opportunity here, but I'm betting there has to be. Do you know of any ways that video fits in this new media space?

Last night I attended a combined Final Cut Pro user group and Avid user group meeting at WGBH in Boston. There were many great presenters as is usually the case, but here I present a brief presentation by Wes Plate of Automatic Duck. He's giving a demo of a couple of his company's FCP plugins that allow the editor to transfer whole sequences flawlessly between FCP & Avid. If you want to see more go to the Automatic Duck Site and in particular, check out this demo of the products in action. Great stuff, Thanks for making the trip out from Seattle Wes.

At Podcamp New hampshire a few weeks ago I spoke with Sarah Cortes, a creative Technology Consultant in Boston, about her recent experience at Givecamp held earlier this at the MS NERD Center in Cambridge Massachusetts. I had never heard of this unconference and if you're unfamiliar with it as well she does a great job distilling it down to it's essential value.

My computer has serious illnesses and while it's in good hands at the Apple clinic I thought this was a good opportunity to talk about ways of preparing for the inevitable separation between you and your data.

Election day at last.   The long national nightmare of political campaign commercials can finally end. For now....

The first day in a month of daily episodes, all ad hoc and little editing. Well, somewhere between a little and a lot. The goal here, for me at least, is to get out of my rut and be as spontaneous as possible. Let's just say that my goal is to end the month producing shows along the lines of Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, cleaning out the jewelry displays and tossing everything in a bag. Let me know.

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 Preface03:50 Introduction13:53 What is Screencasting15:45 How to do it21:20 Workflow29:00 Tools31:35 Screencast Demo41:30 Screenflow and Captivate44:25 Online Screencasting Software49:10 Other Editing Tools55:08 Suggestions from the audience57:20 Closing thoughtsThe 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 V

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 s

Here are some thoughts I had following a business workshop for artists a month ago. There are links to come, be patient.

Organizing your media 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 us

At the time I recorded this show there were two great new media events taking place in the middle of June. That has changed. Podcamp New Hampshire 2010 was scheduled to take place the weekend of June 20, Father's day weekend, but it has now rescheduled to a yet to be determined date in October. What a pain that decision must have been to the promoters. It's still a great event to keep on your radar and you should seriously consider this once the new date is finalized. That leaves Podcast's Across Borders 2010, formerly held in Kingston Ontario, now relocated to Ottawa Ontario, June 18, 19 and 20. Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis are the promoters of this even and you can find out more about them at Canadian Podcast Buffet. You can check out shows I've done in the past for both Podcamp NH 2009 and PAB 2009. By the way, Podcamps take place throughout America and around the world and they're great places to meet helpful, knowledgeable creative people interested in media, social networking and online

In a recent episode of Spark, the CBC Radio and podcast show, Nora Young talked with Anand Giridharadas (14:59-24:25) about the nature and perils of personal branding. It's part of a larger show about about online identities and as always the people at Spark do a great job bringing insight into the way technology is effecting our busy lives daily. As is often the case, the segment on personal branding made me think about my own difficulties realizing my online brand and the difficulties that content producers have being their own marketers. Because of the "always on", "global nature" of online branding the burden of time to position yourself for success is greater than in the physical world. Or maybe it's just a perceived burden. That's the question I have. Now that a lot of the content we produce, whether it's books, illustrations, animations, video or music, podcasts and other audio, is online, how much additional time can we, as producers afford to devote to marketing ourselves? I'm trying, but I still

A Day in the Life of Plimoth Plantations Hey, it's been a while. I should have gotten this out a few weeks ago but I"ve been running flat out. I think that's a sign of success of some kind. I'm not certain.I'm working on a number of different video projects in various stages of production, doing the video production internship at CDIA and producing another podcast each week, The Post-Movie Podcast. On Monday January 25, from 10:30am to 8:00pm I started and finished a short video of a day in the life of Plimoth Plantation. I believe the real lessons I've gained from this experience are the things the director and I did right. Creating a finished video in one day is not an ideal job by any stretch of the imagination, although I had a lot of fun - you can't approach a project like this without a sense of adventure and a come-what-may attitude. Producing this video does force you to focus on the bare essentials and requires that you be very prepared before you begin. Storyboard or shot list was essential. Script

I thought I would give you an update on my busy schedule. In last weeks, last year's show I give you a list of things that I learned last year that were important to me, to my work and my career in digital video. How busy I currently am is directly related to degree to which I'm engaged with other people. In other words networking. I don't have time to go into great detail, but I try to make the point that you won't get very far in meeting your goals if you don't say yes to people who ask for help, even if means getting little or no money in return. Also, I want to plug a podcast I started producing - recording and editing, back in late November. The Post Movie Show is a conversation among Boston film critics about movies. I like it, not so much because I want to know about the movies, though they do cover a wide range of films, because I appreciate their insights into what makes a movie a good movie to watch. This isn't a show about the latest coolest movie - opinions run high and are often hotly debated,

I've got some end of the year reflections in this show. I've had a busy year, full of a variety of different jobs. I've learneda number of things that are important to keep in mind for anyone who is looking to enter the video production playground. Even if you're already looking, as I am, I hope you can use some of these personal insights to keep yourself moving ahead. Here's a list as a reminder, but listen to the show:     •    Let time do the heaving lifting    •    Work for free, but not for nothing    •    Life is not a zero sum game    •    Be bold    •    Surround yourself with motivated people    •    Network, a lot     •    Say yes first    •    Persevere    •    Be positive about things you can't control    •    Know your value    •    Learning is cumulative    •    Share your goals with others    •    Ask for help     •    Learn to trust yourself    •    Don't compare yourself to other people    •    Define success for yourself

I've got a lot on my plate in December. But I enjoy the work.