Tag Archives: video

Judging for SkillsUSA Video Production Competition.

Bryan Doug Jon David sitting at the judges table for the 2008 SkillsUSA video production competition

Today I was a judge for the SkillsUSA regional state competition in Wisconsin. Doug asked me to do it on Monday during video production class. I was quite honored to even be asked. The 4 judges were Doug, myself, Jon, and David. Doug and David being teachers at MATC and Jon being a fellow student who also works in the video field.

I think things went well, I learned more about the world of video and how people start out in it, along with thinking critically about video pieces. I hope I brought a unique perspective to the judging.

View YouTube in H.264 with an Easy Bookmarklet

Rather recently people have figured out some ways to make YouTube display H.246 video on the site. That method is to add “&fmt=18” to the end of the URL. That works well, but wouldn’t it be better if it could be done with a simple click? For all those who don’t use addons like Greasemonkey or the like, a bookmarklet would be ideal.

Drag the following link up to your bookmarks bar:

YouTube H.264

Click on it when ever you are on a YouTube video page and want some H.264 goodness. Thanks go to Beermatt # for the code.

Update 4.18.08: Wow, the code in the script got eaten by my post, it is now fixed and does actually work.

Being Sick is Weird.

Being sick is weird. Weird in the way you forget how normal you feel when not sick. Stuff like breathing becomes annoying when it irritates your throat and sinuses. And drinking stuff is hard. It is amazing how un-appetizing something like soda becomes. Even water can taste horrible.

But, thankfully I am feeling better. I started with a cough on Wednesday, it became nasty on thursday. I was up all night throwing up from an irritated queazy stomach from all the mucus I was swallowing (Ewwww). Started feeling a tiny bit better on Friday and my stomach was no longer irritated. And now today I am almost all better. My chest is still real sore from all the coughing etc. So if I find something amusing it causes a small laugh then a few coughs.

Now that I am feeling better, I have to get my video finished. Being sick caused me to miss 3 or so days of time I could use to edit. I think I will be able to get it done, but I won’t have the extra time I expected to refine it. It should all come out acceptable though. I am still confused on why Doug wants to show it in class. It is going to be quite long (already over 1 hour in a rough unfinished cut missing the last weekend of shooting).

Some Sort of Pun with the Word ‘Steady’

I made a steady cam rig thing! And it seems to work well! I was finding a lot of my footage from the shooting of the behind the scenes stuff of other people’s projects has been really wobbly and shaky. So I decided to try and make a steady cam rig like the one I had read about online a while back. The insurrections I used are by Johnny Lee. He says it costs $14, and mine cost around $12, so it really is rather cheap to make.

I had my brother drill the holes since he was around, and is a bit more handy than me. I used Plastic pipe where I could, but had to use a steel tee connector in the middle. Using plastic caps made it easier to drill into, and lighter. Along with being light, it is also cleaner. Steel pipes have oil all over them to help keep them from rusting.

I plan on using this all weekend as we finish up the filming of everyones movies.

Link: $14 Steadycam The Poor Mans Steadicam