I went looking for the introduction to the book video and stumbled over this Billy Collins poem illustrated by Juan Delcan:
Category Archives: Video
King Rail at Assateague
Can’t believe it’s been a week since I’ve posted…working on my field-based research project as well as thinking about my final project for adult education. More on that later…meanwhile, I am trying to start a weekly schedule of posting little videos. Here’s one of a King Rail hunting in the marshes at Assateague National Wildlife Refuge. I wanted to play around more with titles so there’s no voice over.
The Saga
So, I created a video in about two hours but have now spent almost that much time trying to get it to show up correctly in YouTube! I thought I had solved the problem before I took a break for dinner with a guest. I figured I hadn’t rendered the title correctly. (In fact, I thought maybe rendering was the issue with the graininess of my early video but that’s another story and it didn’t seem to be since I re-exported it, too, this evening.) Anyway, I tried rendering the title and re-uploading but still just got five seconds of a grey screen where the title should have been. Now, back at it, I have tried saving it as a quicktime movie rather than an mpeg-4. But that seems to be causing trouble for YouTube in terms of doing its own converting. YouTube does suggest using an mpeg-4 format.
So, I just went ahead and put it on my own server. And after another 10 minutes have discovered that WordPress doesn’t allow the embed tag so here’s the link: Whimbrel video.
It DOES allow you to embed video from YouTube and Google, but I’ve already given up on YouTube. Maybe I should try adding my video to Google while we sit and watch election returns since YouTube still has not processed my video! I am NOT impressed.
NB: I put it on Google in the mpeg-4 format and lost my titles again! I am trying the Quicktime version now since Google says it will recognize that. Just going to leave this edit window open. This is the last chance and then I am going to bed. Add another hour worth of time to trying to figure this out!
A few minutes later…good news…in Quicktime format, Google shows the titles. So, here’s the embedded video:
Video Production Time
After doing the update, I actually re-read my learning contract where I said I was going to create a weekly vodcast of videos. In retrospect, I was underestimating the amount of time it takes to create even a short video. The Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary movie must have taken 20 hours or more. Of course, I was learning how to use Final Cut Pro so that explains some of the time. But creating videos that tell a real story takes time: importing, reviewing, choosing, adding audio, adding titles, applying the “Ken Burns” effect.
So, I asked myself, what could you do on a weekly basis? In just about two hours, I was able to create this 30 second video of a whimbrel and upload it to YouTube. It includes a voice over, opening title, and transitions. The footage was already imported so it was just a matter of identifying which clips I wanted. I also had to look up the directions for how to create the fade to black transition. (Basically, you just add a cross-dissolve transition to the end of the clip.) I also spent 10 or 15 minutes fooling around with export options and decided on using m-peg 4 with the pre-set for broadband high.
NB: Add another 15 minutes and who knows how much more time since I uploaded the video to YouTube only to discover that when they converted it, the opening title is gone. So I’ve got some research to do. I did discover that YouTube has a video guide that looks helpful. Unfortunately, it didn’t answer my question about what happened to my title?