Author: Tom (Admin)
-
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 mobile phones and pocket camcorders people are not only sharing photos, they are sharing music…
-
Mi35 Helicopter Sounds
I have been asked for the soundtrack-less sounds from the footage used in this video clip, showing the Afghan Air Corps firing Mi-35 helicopters last year. I wasn’t using anything beyond the built-in mic on my camera, and the firing is from some distance away; but if you can use them, here they are: mi35…
-
A Pair of Articles on Royalty-Free Music
Videomaker’s free online magazine published a couple of great articles which, in combination with my earlier post on where to get royalty-free (and other low-cost or flat-fee) music to make your videos legal, is a great resource for ensuring (a) your videos don’t get yanked from YouTube and (b) you don’t get sued. Check them…
-
Words Matter Too
Finally giving credit to the “lyricist” part of songwriting, an interesting article in today’s New York Times talks about growing interest in charging royalties for song lyrics. The article points out: For decades, printed song lyrics lived in relative obscurity, relegated to album sleeves and sheet music. And until now, they provided no significant source…
-
From the War Zone
In Afghanistan, there’s no beer, and Burger King has gone by the wayside. So bored Soldiers need an outlet – it helps them (us) stay out of trouble. After all, that’s how I got started in this video editing gig! So a group of guys from the 82nd Airborne got together and parodied “Telephone” by…
-
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, most of the entries will be rolling in close to the 30 April deadline. So…
-
Things to do on a Plane
So I spent a couple of days flying around in a plane for no reason (don’t ask). The not-to-be named airline which ferries Dutch troops back and forth to Kandahar go out of their way to spend pretty much all their time handing out food (2 meals in a 6-hour flight, and 2 each…
-
Making Music on a PSP
In spite of the lengthy list of online royalty-free music sources I listed in my previous post, finding the right tune for your images can be a challenging and time-consuming process. So I’ve recently acquired some new gadgets to help make music for my videos myself – one conventional, and another quite unexpected. Not that…
-
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 from Ashton Kutcher – actually, a video he posted in the Nikon Festival contest. If…
-
Why We Create
Sometimes I find myself caught up in the creative process of editing a video to the point where it competes with other responsibilities (and pleasures) in life, and possibly borders on obsession. Sitting at the computer in the late hours of the night manipulating individual frames and effects doesn’t feel like art – especially when…
-
Adventures in our Nation’s Capital
Just returned from a grueling,longer-than-expected trip in Washington, D.C. It wasn’t all for naught – though I had to wait until Friday for a series of grueling job interviews that had been scheduled for Monday, it resulted in a job offer. And while I waited, I snagged some video footage of the DC blizzard –…
-
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, as a kind of “the making of” series. I could have it backward. Other than…
-
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.
-
TimeLapse on Vimeo
I’ve been continuing to research better timelapse video, and found a great channel on Vimeo. I could sit and watch these all day! I’m concluding the best way to do landscape/nature timelapse where you may be operating in low light is (besides expensive gear) to record individual frames at specified time intervals, ratherthan simply recording…
-
Two Contests
Patiently awaiting the results of two video contests I’ve entered: Reel Insights’ monthly contest and a last-minute entry to WordPress.com’s “Give Thanks” contest. In the Reel Insights contest, mine was the only entry for about two weeks. Then there was a second with a couple days ago, and during the last 24 hours of the…
-
Weather Stop-Motion How-to
After seeing the video I put together for the “Going Green” contest, a friend who’s starting down the addicting road of video editing asked me how I did the intro to the video – speeding up the movement of the clouds while retaining the sound. In truth, it’s pretty easy, and a trick I like…
-
Contest Winner!
Imagine my surprise at receiving an email informing me TAZM Pictures’ entry in the video contest, “A Family Struggles with Going Green,” sponsored by Reelinsights.com, was selected as the Grand Prize Winner! This marks my second attempt at the documentary format, which is a challenge to do well – at least I think so. The…
-
Two More Contest Entries
I’ve re-tooled an old video from Washington DC – in fact, this is the video that inspired me to start this site (with some friendly encouragement) – and entered it into Lonely Planet’s video contest. Also, my video joins at least two others in a quest for a $1500 prize in Reel Insights’ monthly contest…
-
eCompliments Contest Winner
Well, the smoke cleared and…the TAZM Pictures entry on the eCompliments video contest ended up in 12th place. Things were going well; just as it looked like we would drop off the bottom (the lowest-ranked video was dropping off the “marquis”, one per day) the work publicizing the video on Twitter started making a difference. …
-
Editing Your Own Videos
People often ask me for recommendations on what to use to edit their own videos. My first suggestion is of course to hire me to do it for you! But here are some other ideas if you want to give it a go on your own.
-
A Video Contest to Support the Troops!
After some recent small successes, we’re taking a shot at the eCompliments video contest offers a grand prize of $10,000 for the highest-rated video (as voted by the public) that compliments any person, place, thing, business, organization…you get the picture. As of this writing we’ve got 90 votes, behind the front-runner with well over 1,000…
-
In search of raw materials…
Those of us who aspire to make video on a budget that is significantly less than, say $100 million have our own challenges. One of these is finding raw materials – legally – to incorporate into our work. Music is the obvious shortcoming- unless you’re also a songwriter and musician, you probably can’t afford to…
-
Another Contest!
TAZM Pictures submitted three entries to the Lowe’s Spring Dream Video contest (http://www.youtube.com/lowes)! Only the first two were accepted – no idea why! Click on the title of this post to see the videos that we submitted and read more details.
-
TAZM Pictures has entered a video contest!
Whether you want to use our services or not, we can sure use your support in a YouTube video contest! TAZM Pictures has entered two videos in a contest for Taxslayer.com that carry a grand prize of $25,000. Winning this contest will help us improve the kinds of services we can offer with our young…