Personal Videoblogging and the Squirrel
I’ve been rather dismayed lately with the amount of videobloggers that I am subscribed to that arent creating videos. I’ve heard reasons are that some just dont have the time to shoot and edit video anymore. I find that hard to swallow. Videoblogging is all about capturing that moment. Personally, I think the less one edits, the better it is.
I wanted to create this quick spontaneous video to show that it doesnt take long to shoot, edit and post something. It’s not a great video but it serves it’s point. Capture your life for the world to see. That’s what videoblogging is all about.
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22/07/2008 at 8:51 pm Permalink
My dog chases the squirrels in our yard, so not so easy for me to video blog. But you’ve motivated me to shoot some stuff from the my boat this weekend.
FYI, Vimeo looks nice from work PC using IE 6.
22/07/2008 at 10:33 pm Permalink
This is a great video, i can’t recall ever being that near a squirrel, it seems magic that the situation arose from the discussion on twitter earlier and you were able to post so quickly as you said.
I don’t think that i could put my site into the personal videoblog category, although i hope to consider that it does belong in some area of the videoblogger’s community. As i mentioned before i wish i could make these little doc’ shorts as you do, but am struggling with purpose/ matter to make a point/ statement with, maybe one day.
You’ve definitely got me in the mood to make a video and post it though, so thanks for that, hope more will too.
23/07/2008 at 4:12 am Permalink
nice, point proven. My problem is not with shooting, as I mentioned on twitter. I shoot tones each week and that is the problem. It piles up. i am editing video from February still. Stuff I liked at the time. i dont want to throw it out just because the moment passed. Most stuff I dont even edit that much any more. Just assemble clips together.
Do you shoot and send from the pphone. I think that medium helps greatly with immediacy. There is no delay from shooting, getting it home to your computer and doing whatever routine you do. If the iPhone did proper video (not some hack) it might be a deciding factor.
Good excercise though. Well done.
23/07/2008 at 6:31 am Permalink
@iconjohn - Awesome! I’d love to see what it’s like out on your boat. How about a tour?
@Krystian - You are correct. I wouldn’t classify your site as “personal” either as I didn’t think my site before was either. It is videoblogging though. I struggled with these short little video shorts before as well. Finally just let go and they just started to happen. I’m sure I will make more substantial in-depth videos in the future. Right now, these snippets suffice for me.
@adam - Almost all of my videos here are shot on my phone then transferred over to my computer for editing and upload. I rarely will edit in the phone as it is rather limited. Since we don’t have 3G here in Iowa, uploading a 40 meg video would take forever. That said, the plus side is that I always have the phone with me so the opportunity to shoot video is always there. Hell, I don’t even edit these things in Final Cut Studio. iMovie does the job just fine.
My whole point in making this quick vid while I was outside on the patio was showing the immediacy of it all. I have tons of video from months ago that sit on one of my external drives. It’s doing no good just sitting there. Will I ever edit it? Maybe. I ain’t going to worry about it and it wont stop me from posting anything new just because I have all this unedited video laying around.
My new mantra is “Life is not edited…Life just happens”
23/07/2008 at 9:09 am Permalink
I like that the squirrel pops out. I also like you mention “this is video blogging.” So, does Seesmic, Qik, Utterz and the like count? To be a video blog, do the videos need to be aggregated under a single domain that is self-hosted? What of Youtube?
A while back I posed the question “What is a podcast?” to Kosso and he responded with a fantastic video which emphasized the enclosure. Do you agree with his definition?
23/07/2008 at 11:21 am Permalink
“Life is not edited…Life just happens”
I love it. Copyright that shit right there, build your brand around it. Genius, like Just Do It….
Or maybe I’ve worked in advertising too long
23/07/2008 at 12:47 pm Permalink
@doug no! don’t ask the What Is Videoblogging question! (it used to be a subject of repeated, passionate and eventually exhausting debate over on the Yahoo videoblogging group) — I think the general consensus now that the geek pedantics have backed down (and now that YouTube is dominant) is that videoblogging is as much a form, a style, a way of presenting stories as it is a technical description of how the end product is published.
@adam Just Do It! pick the best moment - single clip. share it. iMovie 6 will take care of everything for you easiest.
@david no. seriously. that squirrel teleported. either that or it’s Agent Smith.
23/07/2008 at 12:53 pm Permalink
@doug - I havent a clue really what the definition is for a videoblog. Too many people have had too many arguments for too long trying to define it.
@rupert - I’m positive it’s Agent Smith. I’m going to have to keep my eye on him from now on.
23/07/2008 at 4:10 pm Permalink
I know what videoblogging is, and I make one every day! But mine’s not really personal, it’s (barely) commercial. I do the Nokia Daily News every day, for almost two months now. I’m doing it just to create… something, and to figure out the workflow. I’ve accepted low-quality instead of aiming for perfection, which allows me to film most days in one try. Admittedly, I only watch about 1 in 5 of my own “vlogs”. I say Um too much.
The editing that I do is done right on my Nokia N95-3. It’s got a built in video editor, and I add opening and closing titles, and theme music. I still need to copy it to a computer, upload it to blip, wait for it to convert, then embed the video on my blog, which takes a while in total. Using something like Qik would help speed up this part.
Creating a video blog is a lot of work. What else besides Qik might make it easier? I’m wondering what will happen in this space once Qik and Kyte are running in iPhones? Less geeks, more sheik? And lots more noise to dig through.
23/07/2008 at 4:30 pm Permalink
Hi Matthew - I hadn’t seen your videoblog - I’m subscribing right now!
I’ve been doing it all in the phone for 18 months or so, and mostly because I found you can save yourself a LOT of time by setting Blip up for Mobile upload with autocrossposting to your blog. Once you’re finished editing in the phone, you just email it to your specific Blip mobile upload address via wifi, and as soon as it’s done, it will autopost to your blog as soon as it finishes the flash conversion. Blip will create your blog post title & text from the email title & description.
So as soon as you press send on your email you can forget about it until it’s on your blog, then you edit the post.
So many stages skipped and so much time: No bluetooth to computer, no computer to blip upload, no waiting around for conversion, no pasting embed codes. Fire and forget!
24/07/2008 at 5:45 am Permalink
@matthew - Excellent! Another Nokia Vlogger! Bookmarked and subscribed to your site
24/07/2008 at 4:34 pm Permalink
@Rupert - the files are too big to email. They’re typically 20 - 30MB each, at 320 x 240 x 5 minutes or so. Shozu has a 10MB limit, and my GMail account might also. I haven’t been able to get Blip’s mobile uploading working.
I’m wondering if S60FP2’s ability to mount a webDAV drive might help me out in the future. If Shozu supported bigger file sizes, I’d be all set. Blip auto-cross-posting might be tough, too. I draft out all the links on the vlog in Wordpress, print that out to read, then embed the video in the final draft, then publish.
I wonder how long until one of these video hosting sites supports mobile uploads AND includes your titles and theme song, and maybe banner overlays like the big-time news shows. I’d like that…
Thanks for the hits, you guys. If I figure out any awesome time savers, I’ll let y’all know. Rupert, I’ve also subscribed to your RSS feed.
24/07/2008 at 4:51 pm Permalink
@matthew they’re not too big - I email files that size all the time. just don’t use Shozu. SMTP servers won’t have an outgoing email attachment size limit. Set your phone up with your Gmail account, and send the email via Gmail over wifi to the email address that you set up in Blip. Just go to Blip > Dashboard > Publishing > Mobile Upload… and then set your mobile password. It’ll generate an email address in the format username.mobilepassword@mobile.blip.tv - so then just email your files to that address.
Blip once said they would create a tool that automatically tacked on your front and end titles for you - but it never emerged, sadly. Thank goodness it’s possible in the phone. I make my titles in iMovie and bluetooth them to the phone. Though the new N95 8GB has a seriously limited editor - so I hope that’s a mistake and not a continued feature removal on all future phones.
26/07/2008 at 12:05 pm Permalink
Are you familiar with nokia productions project? You should submit some of your videos! Go to http://www.nokiaproductions.com/ and click on “start collaborating” in the top right corner.
27/07/2008 at 1:24 am Permalink
After seeing this Hi-Tek discussion, it seems inappropriate to comment this video just with “Oh, David, this moment is really very nice!”.
Nice video, David!
02/08/2008 at 6:52 pm Permalink
I’ve stopped posting to Blip because I’m doing 1-1/2 minute videos to Flickr and You Tube (I think of Blip as some place for longer, better edited videos), but I’m posting one nearly every day. Definitely The Story of My Life (with lots and lots of puppies)
16/08/2008 at 12:16 am Permalink
I used to be on that bandwagon last year and Rupert was the one who reminded me that it’s as simple as point, shoot, upload. And there shouldn’t be a time limit on what should be shared. 15 secs or 15 mins, if it means something to you that’s all that should matter.