To me there is no end to blogging. As long as the Internet is around blogging will be there. However the future of blogging, to me, seems to be going in a visual direction.
More and more people are taking their camcorders and recording events in their day, and posting them as a video diary or blog. YouTube is filled with video blogs and journals, daily updates and even specific channels devoted to an entire year of your life, doing one video every day.
This is why for my last two posts I’ve been experimenting with the video blogging idea. So far it’s been decent, I try to treat it like it’s a stand up routine and play off an invisible crowd. It’s not as easy as I thought it was. To be able to hear laughter after telling a joke is how a comedian can tell if it’s funny or not, but while I record myself talking and ad-libbing there is no one laughing.
I love making people laugh and can do so very easily, but trying to write or perform a blog that you want to be funny is a completely different animal.
Back to video blogging though, it’s a completely different game than writing. In some ways it’s more involved, you can be more creative and for me (if I’m being honest) it’s less work, but only because I’ve been shooting and editing video for so long now.
The steps to shoot a video blog are as follows.
1. Writing a point form script.
-This is so that I can remember on the fly what I want to talk about, I can also create breathing room to improve a different joke into a certain take. This way I’m not bogging myself down with a script I must follow.
2. Shoot supporting footage/ Find supporting footage (Optional)
-Now it’s not 100% necessary to have supporting footage, but I’m a big proprietor or “Don’t tell me, show me” I want to see what you’re talking about, not look at you talking about it.
3. Film Monologue
-Really the backbone of the video blog, this is where you set up the camera (in this case my webcam) and start reading your script. It usually takes me 30 minutes to an hour to get the right read that I want to use. Of course changing up the background scenery is a good idea so that when the camera does cut back to you it’s not the same ugly location. (You can also just record your voice if you have enough supporting footage to go the entire time)
4. Editing
-For me editing is the fun part. It’s where you get to be the most creative. Importing video into your choice of editing software. (I recommend iMovie or Windows Movie Maker for first timers) and start filling in the blanks. I always think that it’s better to see video of what you’re talking about than your face, however some people are really good at speaking and having no video reinforcement which is also fine.
YouTube is the best place to post your videos and then just hyperlink or embed them into a blog post on blogger. That way you can easily track all of your views, comments and ratings. Plus YouTube has a great feature called “Insight” where it lets you know some very specific demographics about your audience so you can then cater to them more in your videos.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Making of Torches of Freedom
So since Jeremy, Jordan and myself did our presentation in Tuesday's PR class a lot of people have been coming up to use and asking, how long it took, how did we put it together and so forth.
I figured I should probably blog the events and answer the questions people have been asking.
So we got our assignment in last Thursday's PR class and were given the hour to think about how to present. We didn't want to do a power point thing because we didn't really know how to use the program so we immediately defaulted to doing a skit. That in turn led to us asking Melanie if we could do a video instead which she said was fine.
After brainstorming we decided that it would be a better idea for a slideshow/video type of thing after remembering how funny those old skits on Conan O'Brien where he tells a story with pictures he took that go over the nights events. They were hilarious but unfortunately I can't find a video of it.
So Jordan and I met up at J Jack's house on Sunday and we started got out our story boards and started setting up all the Edward Bernays and George Hill scenes, we used his dinning room
We also had to "carefully" draw on Bernays mustache with a smelly marker.
After getting the scene set up we took pictures of each other with different facial expressions and different physical expressions. We had Jordan dress up as Phillip Vogelman and hold Jeremy's dog "chicken". Oh and the "phone" is actually just a lamp and it's glass shade that was on the coffee table.
After all of the guy scenes were finished we then looted Jeremy's moms closet for all her old dresses, Jordan got the nicest one but let's not get into that.
The dress I wore went on quite easily, unfortunately It was a pain to get off, I was about to ask Jeremy to cut me out of it and I actually think I ripped it a little getting it off.
Here are some pictures that really should never see the light of day.
So after that we went down to the edit suites on Monday after school and recorded the voice over you heard. Everyone did their best 30's mobster impersonation and we decided that mine was the best one. My throat was really sore after all that recording, we spent roughly 3 hours in that edit suite writing and laying down tracks.
Now the song Jeremy sang was actually recorded the day before and we were going to make a video montage of Bernays with the song playing in the background, unfortunately I don't know how to use Pro Tools to save my life and lost that file along with some others. Jeremy sang it live instead which I think was a better choice, but we're going to record the song soon just because it was awesome.
We have plans to possibly start writing an entire series on Bernays and profile his life, depending on how much spare time we have.
Anyway I think the last thing I should mention is the picture of Bernays is ACTUALLY him, yes he does look a lot like Jeremy but that was just pure luck on our part. After the mustache and the tie Jeremy looked so similar some people have asked me if I photoshopped one of the pictures. I didn't that's just how lucky we got.
Well that's it, it was a fun project and I hope we got a good mark on it. We probably put too much effort into it but I think it was worth it to make people laugh.
Follow me on Twitter
- JW
I figured I should probably blog the events and answer the questions people have been asking.
So we got our assignment in last Thursday's PR class and were given the hour to think about how to present. We didn't want to do a power point thing because we didn't really know how to use the program so we immediately defaulted to doing a skit. That in turn led to us asking Melanie if we could do a video instead which she said was fine.
After brainstorming we decided that it would be a better idea for a slideshow/video type of thing after remembering how funny those old skits on Conan O'Brien where he tells a story with pictures he took that go over the nights events. They were hilarious but unfortunately I can't find a video of it.
So Jordan and I met up at J Jack's house on Sunday and we started got out our story boards and started setting up all the Edward Bernays and George Hill scenes, we used his dinning room
We also had to "carefully" draw on Bernays mustache with a smelly marker.
After getting the scene set up we took pictures of each other with different facial expressions and different physical expressions. We had Jordan dress up as Phillip Vogelman and hold Jeremy's dog "chicken". Oh and the "phone" is actually just a lamp and it's glass shade that was on the coffee table.
After all of the guy scenes were finished we then looted Jeremy's moms closet for all her old dresses, Jordan got the nicest one but let's not get into that.
The dress I wore went on quite easily, unfortunately It was a pain to get off, I was about to ask Jeremy to cut me out of it and I actually think I ripped it a little getting it off.
Here are some pictures that really should never see the light of day.
So after that we went down to the edit suites on Monday after school and recorded the voice over you heard. Everyone did their best 30's mobster impersonation and we decided that mine was the best one. My throat was really sore after all that recording, we spent roughly 3 hours in that edit suite writing and laying down tracks.
Now the song Jeremy sang was actually recorded the day before and we were going to make a video montage of Bernays with the song playing in the background, unfortunately I don't know how to use Pro Tools to save my life and lost that file along with some others. Jeremy sang it live instead which I think was a better choice, but we're going to record the song soon just because it was awesome.
We have plans to possibly start writing an entire series on Bernays and profile his life, depending on how much spare time we have.
Anyway I think the last thing I should mention is the picture of Bernays is ACTUALLY him, yes he does look a lot like Jeremy but that was just pure luck on our part. After the mustache and the tie Jeremy looked so similar some people have asked me if I photoshopped one of the pictures. I didn't that's just how lucky we got.
Well that's it, it was a fun project and I hope we got a good mark on it. We probably put too much effort into it but I think it was worth it to make people laugh.
Follow me on Twitter
- JW
Thursday, October 1, 2009
When I grow up I want to be............A 12 year old Tony Royster Jr.
I started playing drums when I was 13.
I had no intention or even desire to play, the reason I got into it was my High School Concert Band at GP.
I had played the Clarinet until midway through Grade 8 and after getting braces I couldn't play it anymore.
I still wanted to be in band because I loved the class so the teacher stuck me in the Percussion section.
That move has had a big change on my life.
For my 14th birthday my Dad bought my my first drum kit, which is the one I still play on to this day.
It was(is) a Pearl Export 5 piece drum kit with flecked metallic grey wrappings.
It was literally the first time I fell in love.
I have since bought better hardware and drums skins, different pedal, beaters, cymbal stand and even some high end cymbals
(I have a big crush on my 14" Zildjian A Custom
That cymbal cost me $300!
In short I love playing drums, it's really the biggest stress reliever I can think of. Just sitting behind a big shiny drum kit and beating the hell out stuff that makes noise? Yeah awesome!
When I first got into drums my influences we Neal Peart from RUSH (Obviously) because of how amazing he is, that man can play anything. Then I came upon this video of 12 year old Tony Royster Junior who is now 25 playing one of the most amazing drum solo's I've ever seen, and I'm not even taking into account that he is 12!
Phenomenal!
One day I hope to play as good as he can.
Just one final video because this is my favourite drum battle of all time.
It's Buddy Rich, one of greatest drummers whoever lived and Animal from The Muppets.
The puppeteer on Animal is very impressive.
Follow me on Twitter
JW
I had no intention or even desire to play, the reason I got into it was my High School Concert Band at GP.
I had played the Clarinet until midway through Grade 8 and after getting braces I couldn't play it anymore.
I still wanted to be in band because I loved the class so the teacher stuck me in the Percussion section.
That move has had a big change on my life.
For my 14th birthday my Dad bought my my first drum kit, which is the one I still play on to this day.
It was(is) a Pearl Export 5 piece drum kit with flecked metallic grey wrappings.
It was literally the first time I fell in love.
I have since bought better hardware and drums skins, different pedal, beaters, cymbal stand and even some high end cymbals
(I have a big crush on my 14" Zildjian A Custom
That cymbal cost me $300!
In short I love playing drums, it's really the biggest stress reliever I can think of. Just sitting behind a big shiny drum kit and beating the hell out stuff that makes noise? Yeah awesome!
When I first got into drums my influences we Neal Peart from RUSH (Obviously) because of how amazing he is, that man can play anything. Then I came upon this video of 12 year old Tony Royster Junior who is now 25 playing one of the most amazing drum solo's I've ever seen, and I'm not even taking into account that he is 12!
Phenomenal!
One day I hope to play as good as he can.
Just one final video because this is my favourite drum battle of all time.
It's Buddy Rich, one of greatest drummers whoever lived and Animal from The Muppets.
The puppeteer on Animal is very impressive.
Follow me on Twitter
JW
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