Thanks for the comments, everybody. :) Renat, I shoot "spontaneous" situations as well. When I feel like something cool is going to happen or there's something I feel like people might like to see or hear, I'm liable to turn the camera on and film something.
Recently picking up my run-n-gun camera made me initially apprehensive about the fact that I only had one hour's worth of footage/battery on me. What I found was that the 'moments' that I get are usually less than a minute long. They seem like they're happening for a much longer time, at the time, but when you look at the counter, a three-minute clip of spontaneous 'action' is a loooong time. So I went from a situation of not having enough footage to having so many clips that I wanted to share that I didn't have an efficient way of getting those clips online. I essentially kept my "scarce footage" style for when I had much more, and that wasn't working for me. I also didn't want to stack up a bunch of potentially unrelated clips, because I felt like each part should have its own location and eventually permalink, however, what I ended up with was weeks on end of the exact same event, because I never ran out of footage and I still haven't. I think the solution is similar to what a couple of people have suggested in this thread, which is basically a "clip download area" and then curating from those clips to create actual blog posts. What I was doing before was having every clip have its own post, because that way they would all go to my iTunes feed, instead of having a bunch of enclosures stacked up on the same permalink. By posting the videos to the host separately from posting them to my site, I can accomplish two important goals. 1) I can figure out just which ones I want to use as highlights of the series to go on my blog, and 2) I can efficiently handle "advertising".. Not meaning rev-share advertising, but meaning informing people about my series in a way that's efficient and has, IMO, the most chance of getting the most viewers to watch the most episodes. Again, I used my regular publicizing tactics for this "too much video" situation and ended up with a lot of people seeing the beginning of the series, but not being aware that there's more to come, because they don't get the nature of "episodic" content. They're more in the standalone, one-off mindset of YouTube videos that have nothing to do with each other. Because of this, I ended up informing people several times about the series. In the future, I will already have the series effectively online and ready to be watched in its entirety, if people are interested in doing that, BEFORE letting people know it's there. I've also started to be more selective about what I film, as a couple people mentioned in this thread. Now that I know when I have enough material to cover the least amount of posting I want to do, I look for shots, scenes and situations that are more likely to be worthwhile for me than ending up on the cutting room floor, because I was just shooting them "just in case". ~Bill http://billcammack.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Renat Zarbailov" <innom...@...> wrote: > > I too tend to film more than I can edit with a 60GB HDD camcorder. Since I > only shoot spontaneous situations improv-style interactive comedy > (www.mrthyself.com)I approach filming with a motto, "Shoot first, ask > questions later". Far too many times there were cases when I didn't have my > cam with me but situation was perfect to be captured. The availability of > huge hard drives in consumer cams allow for possibility to shoot more noise > than signal. By signal I mean something interesting - worthwhile. In my cam I > have a way to divide video clips and delete the unwanted before I even plug > the cam to a computer for backup. So on my commute from Manhattan to Brooklyn > I peacefully "edit" out the crap without wasting time when at the PC. > > I am thinking about going away from the resource-hungry, albeit storage > efficient, AVCHD codec to get the newest marvel from JVC - GY-HM100U. Though > it uses dual SD-card approach, the video is pristine, let alone the low-light > filming and 3CCD's... Making this switch will make me more efficient about > "sensing" where worthwhile action is. > > I dream about a day that internet has enough universal hi-speed connectivity > to allow raw footage stored online in a huge video pool from around the > world. This way people can both contribute as well as take from this pool of > footage where video can be searched by keywords. Imagine the possibilities? > :) There would have to be some in-camcorder system for tagging videos, GPS > (Sony's consumer HDR-XR520V), as well as scene/face/motion detection. So the > cam writes its EXIF (still cameras use this for exposure etc) info about what > it recognized in the video scene and tags it into the video file. > > I am very lazy when it comes to editing, I have a huge load of footage > sitting on multiple hard drives waiting to be edited. I am hoping that > camcorder manufacturers will soon add ability to add premade editable titles > and end credits right in-camcorder. This way the filmmaker simply houses the > footage between the title and the end credits while on the road, "glues" the > resulting video, transfers this video file to a computer and, viola, it's > ready for transcoding and publishing. :) It would be nice to have transcoding > ability in camcorder as well but so that it's redundant allowing to be able > to film while this process is taking place. Imagine, you activate "Youtube HD > H.264" transcode and within an hour you get the ready-to-upload file? > > Your thoughts?? > > Renat Zarbailov of Innomind.org > > > > --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Cammack" <billcammack@> wrote: > > > > Hey All! :D Hope everyone's well and in good spirits. I haven't been > > around the email group, but I've been on the scene this whole time. > > Actually, recently, I had the pleasure of running into Jay Dedman > > unexpectedly @ Burp Castle haha, Great bonus to my day. :D > > > > Anyway.. > > > > I recently bought a camera that connects to your computer via USB and fits > > in your pocket. I already had an HD camera, but I wanted something for > > run-n-gun. My goal was to achieve daily video output via filming at least > > 5 upload-worthy segments each week, or at least in one day, so I could > > release them during the week. > > > > What I found was that depending on what your style is, those cameras can > > hold a ton of footage. If your style is to run the camera and hope > > something happens, you won't get much. If your style is to recognize > > potential moments and be prepared, what you end up with is a bunch of > > snippets that amount to more footage than you needed for that week. > > > > Actually, I should back up here. Video is how I express myself. It's my > > hobby as well as what I do for money. When I'm not creating video for a > > client, I'm creating video for myself.. because this is what I do. If this > > were a business application, it wouldn't matter how much I shoot, because > > it would all be funneled into the allocated release date and TRT of the > > production and anything that's "excess" would be discarded... Except, I > > don't shoot video to discard it. I shoot video to express it. I shoot to > > share, because I was already there. I know what happened. I experienced > > it already. I've been putting video online for the last three years > > because I want other people to be able to experience (as much as they're > > able to) what I've experienced, vicariously. So my goal is to release the > > material that I shoot... not shoot enough for coverage so that I can make > > my minimum requirement for my show(s). > > > > The 'problem' is that my run-n-gun camera has made me "too efficient" in > > creating videos that I'd like to release. My goal of having a daily video > > output has been far surpassed, and now I'm considering what I want to do > > with my "excess" footage. > > > > The solution I've arrived at with the help of brainstorming with friends > > that follow my feed(s) is to dump all my footage to a host (in my case, > > blip.tv) and only release special episodes and/or compilation/explanatory > > videos to my blog with links to my blip shows for the people that actually > > feel interested in watching the "raw material". The reason I think this is > > the way to go is that I've become bogged down in releasing episodes of > > video that I shot two weeks (14 days) ago. > > > > The way around this backlog, IMO is to shoot as much video as I want, dump > > it to my host, figure out some sort of representative video that I want to > > create for my blog's RSS feed, give people an idea of what's going on over > > at the host and link them in case they're interested in checking it out. > > > > Does this make sense? :) I'm going to read back through the group and find > > out if people are even still talking about issues like this. Y'all might > > not be, haha In which case, disregard this note. :) > > > > Technology has improved to the point where we can effortlessly output as > > much material as we like or as much as we are able to produce. I think > > we're facing a new issue of "How much SHOULD I output?". I've seen too > > much footage hit the cutting room floor and eventually the tape erasure > > bins from when I used to edit NYC news to throw away footage that I've shot > > that might mean something to myself or someone else. At the same time, I > > don't want to harp on one topic that I filmed two weeks ago for an entire > > month, because I'm trying to output only 1-3 episodes per day. > > > > If anybody has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. I'll read back to see if > > there are any recent threads I can contribute to. > > > > Cheers! :D > > ~ Bill Cammack > > http://billcammack.com/ > > >
