Category Archives: Video Editing

New Project: Mini-Documentaries on Madagascar’s Informal Sector

I’m excited to be working on a new and admittedly somewhat ambitious project:  a series of short documentaries examining some jobs in Madagascar’s informal sector.  I plan to describe the work itself, but also spend some time thinking about why … Continue reading

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It’s always hardest cutting your own video…

Why, other than a few hardcore fans, is a film’s director the only one who likes the “Director’s Cut” better than the movie that was released to the public? It’s hard to delete the footage you worked so hard to … Continue reading

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Driving in Chennai: Timelapse

In time-lapse photography, it’s common to keep the camera pretty still and let the subject do the moving – or if at all, to move the camera very slowly.  But it can also be fun to do a moving camera … Continue reading

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What is it with computer company customer service these days? (I’m talking about you, Toshiba and Dell!)

I’m seeing a lot of reports these days lamenting lagging computer sales, and theorizing why that might be.  I’m of the opinion that a big part of the reason is customer service.  These days, it seems that more and more, … Continue reading

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How to Get #CNN iReport to Feature Your Video

It’s kind of an ego thing when CNN – or any other real news outlet, chooses your video as its daily feature, from what are probably thousands of videos they receive every day.  This creative videographer decided to enlist the … Continue reading

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Underwater Videography: Things I’ve Learned

If you’ve ever managed to take along a camera snorkeling, you probably had the same reaction I did when you got your finished footage home to the computer:  “It looks nothing like it did when I was actually snorkeling.”  Colors … Continue reading

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21 Sunsets – a timelapse project

I love doing timelapses – especially of natural phenomena.  But I admit it can be a lot harder than it first appears – if you want to do it right.  But moving to Namibia and finding housing on a westward-facing … Continue reading

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iPad for video and music creation

Although you can’t beat the price for video and music editing software when it comes to iFilm and GarageBand for the iPad, trying to create a video from top to bottom using nothing but an iPad 2 still leaves a … Continue reading

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Sandboarding. Swakopmund. Sony Vegas

For years, I’ve been editing with versions of Adobe Premiere and Premiere Elements, and the one complaint I’ve always had is its tendency to lock up on most computers.  The exception has been my old desktop running XP with 512 … Continue reading

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iPad 2 Stop-Motion: Windhoek Sunset

Here’s another attempt at using the iPad 2 and the TimeLapse HD app to create a timelapse video.  This one consists of stills taken every 5 seconds from a rooftop in Windhoek, Namibia.  There is a bit of flicker toward … Continue reading

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Review: iPad App Timelapse Camera HD

As I continue to look for ways to make my iPad useful beyond being a lightweight web browser / game console, I came across a handy app for creating timelapse videos:  the aptly named Timelapse Camera HD.  This elegant and … Continue reading

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Chroma Keying Made Easy Part 3 of 3

So in part 1 I talked about the basics and how you can “green screen” for very little money…and then in part 2, a couple of ways you could superimpose multiple “green screen” or “chroma key” elements on top of … Continue reading

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Chroma-Keying Made Easy, part 2 of 3

The previous post talked about how to use chroma keying (blue-screen/green-screen) techniques in home video, relatively inexpensively.  The question is, so now what can you do with that?  Really, it’s up to you and your imagination.  The most obvious use … Continue reading

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“Green Screen” Cheap and Easy

Most people who dabble in home video editing know about “blue-screening” or “green-screening.”  What they may not realize is that it doesn’t take a whole lot of money – or a great deal of know-how – to apply the technique … Continue reading

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Sky and Sea Videos – Pitfalls to Avoid

The other day I was working on a home video of a recent vacation to Egypt, and I invited my 12-year-old to a pre-screening of my near-final draft (a shorter version here), and she told me it was all wrong.  … Continue reading

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The Blackbirds Came Back – Wildlife Videography

I was pretty excited about the opportunity to do a little more “wildlife photography” in my back yard. The blackbird pair that I featured in the video “Learning to Fly” came back for another brood. I saw one of them … Continue reading

Posted in Random Thoughts, Observations and Weird Stuff, Tips and Tricks, Video Editing, Wildlife and Nature | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Underwater Videography

I posted a few weeks ago about having to “make do” with a still camera to do underwater “video-“graphy – and then using photoshop and effects to make it look less like a slideshow.  Well this time I made it … Continue reading

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Underwater Videography

Last Christmas, I ordered my daughter a last-minute Christmas gift, paying for “guaranteed” delivery by Christmas.  It was a waterproof cover for her Flip HD camera – and the timing was important because we were headed to Hurghada, Egypt, for … Continue reading

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Videomaker offering Webinars

Videomaker has a helpful web site and magazine chock full of video editing tips and new product reviews; they are nice enough to condense all the latest news into a handy weekly email – one of the few “marketing” emails I … Continue reading

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Telling a story in video

The cool thing about all this technology is that now anyone can create just about anything and share it with everyone else.  Most of it goes unnoticed by the vast majority, but that’s not why most of us create.  Most … Continue reading

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Recording Live Concert Footage

When I was a kid, often you couldn’t take a camera into a music concert – probably they wanted to make sure they had the market cornered on posters and publicity photos back then. Now, in the days of ubiquitous … Continue reading

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Army Peer-to-Peer Safety Video Contest

Good news and bad news – my entry to the US Army Combat Readiness / Safety Center’s video contest was approved, but so were a load of others!  The contest has been running since October, but like most video contests, … Continue reading

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The Parallax Experiment

Given that the current hot topic in home videography is “home 3-D movies” (both camcorders and screens to view them) I thought it would be appropriate to attempt making some 3-D on the “cheap.”  Really cheap. I got the idea … Continue reading

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Animation How-To Videos

One of my discoveries this week on Vimeo was an excellent series of how-to videos by Carleton Torbin.  I’m guessing he made a short film with lots of different kinds of animation, and followed up with the series of how-tos, … Continue reading

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Washington DC meets Bonanza

Sharing how I created a bonanza-like “unburning” credit, overlaid over several other images, with multiple chroma key or “green screen” effects – using basic home editing software and materials you can find around the house. Continue reading

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