BRUSCA

Video Formats Explained – Start Your Own Internet TV Show

An internet TV show is a great way to give away learning content and help people to learn about your offerings. It's something that you could never have done even five years ago. But it can be done easily now.

So how do you go about starting your own Internet TV Show?

Like most learning content it begins with planning. You need to decide a number of things before you ever start. For example, who is going to watch the show? What are they interested in? Why are they going to watch? What will they get out of it?

Once you understand your target audience you can go on to your response. What is the show going to look like? Is it going to be an on location show? Or are you going to do it in the studio? Is it going to be live? What formats will it use? Or will it mix them up? What is the show going to be about? What will you teach? What will you discuss? What will you show? Will you have interviews? Will you do all the presenting? Will you have a single topic per show or regular columns? How long will you make the show? Where will you host the show? Will you use your blog as a repeater?

Once you've made those decisions it's time to go on to the television project itself.

For a live studio you have four basic levels to choose from. You can go amateur… take a webcam and shoot where you work on your computer. Or you can go minimalist. A simple color screen and desk is all you need. Or you can create a set. Desk, chair, and something behind you to break up the scene. An office, a 50's diner, and a brick wall can be found on YouTube. Pick something that matches your show and brand. Or you can go hi-tech… use a chroma key background and edit in whatever background you want. For some types the traditional studio set isn't needed… you need a workroom instead.

Whatever you choose, your show, your products and your audience will determine the best solution.

That's it for set. But what about equipment?

Again your show, products and audience will determine what you need. A webcam will do the job for some people. An HD pocket camcorder is perfect for others. And a professional quality HD handicam is barely enough for still others. You don't have to be complicated with your equipment. Pick what works for you today. You'll grow into it and eventually beyond it. But by that time the equipment will have gotten better too.

You'll also need the lights and other equipment of course. You'll need at least two lights (the main or fill and the key). I'm not going to get into the details here but you can go from minimal to really great for not a lot of money.

As for the show itself, start simple. Stick to the 10 minute YouTube limit until you've gotten your video legs. That means one detailed look-see. Well sort of detailed. You'll be surprised at how short 10 minutes really is. Basically you get to introduce yourself, talk about 3 related points and that's about it.

Write one show and then practice it. Multiple times. Don't worry about being perfect. You're looking for timing and getting yourself comfortable with the camera.

Now go and write a number of shows. At least 4 weeks. More is better. Commercial TV aims for 22. Really. I mean it. Otherwise you're going to find yourself with a show to do and nothing to say. Trust me!

Now it's time to start recording your show. So do it. Don't worry about mistakes. Correct them and keep filming.

Once you've filmed the show, you'll need to edit it. There are a number of computer tools including Microsoft's free Movie Maker that will do the job (except Chroma key which requires a better editor).

Now post it and market it. Then get set to do it all over again. Try to put as many shows in the can at the same time as you can. It helps when you've got a backlog… it really does.

Do you want to learn how to create information products (learning content)? Check out my new free eBook “7 Myths and Seven Tricks in Nine Steps”: http://www.learningcreators.com/myths.htm

Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/

Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.

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The Internet TV Revolution

With the revolution of Internet TV, you can now carry your favorite shows with you and watch them at your convenience! Just hook up your laptop or a high-end mobile phone (Android or iPhone I might recommend) to the Internet and play the program you want to watch. Or, you can simply download the program to your computer and watch later. Read on for more.

A New Twend

You have to love the freedom of creating on the interwebs people. From interviewing successful business owners to animating lego or geeks talking about… what geeks talk about. I give you TwendyTV. I with the help of some pretty amazing friends hope to grow TwendyTV into a hip little internet TV network of shows that will one day also integrate into the TV network as seamlessly as switching between cable TV channels. So look out ABC’s of the world, look out NBC, CBS and all the big boys… ha ha… baby steps, ease up Bruce.

Why Twendy?
When I was traveling around Tanzania in June 2009 there was one Swahili word that really stood out, Twende (Let’s Go). After arriving back I felt inspired to start working on an idea for a travel blog called Twende, but this soon turned into grander ideas of creating multiple shows and an internet TV network. One thing lead to another, a tweak of the word to accommodate a grander theme and voila, TwendyTV. If anything it’s a bit of a play on the word Trendy, but the W I feel also gives it a slight TWITTER slang. I have felt for a long time that TV networks and internet content will eventually merge into a seamless experience, so why not start something now before it the BIG BANG happens. What I also love about this project is that there are no boundaries, no limits, this is completely open to the world. Hopefully our regular TV shows will end up the same way, being released to the world instead of restricted to one country then filtering out in time to other countries. Fat chance of that happening right now, but you never know.

www.twendy.tv

TwendyTV Channels
Initially we were to launch with 4 shows, but could only manage 3 to start on the current time restraints. We are currently working on the before mentioned travel show and also a conservation style show called Evergreen.

Current Channels

• Twendy Town
• Twendy Business
• The Geek That Was

Most Popular Episodes

• Brad Sugars of Action Coach
• Hamish Edwards of Xero
• Zombie Apocalypse
• LOST in Twendy Town

While we have launched and everything is GO, there is still plenty of work and progress to be made. I do hope you enjoy what we have to offer and there is plenty more to come. We also have some behind the scenes photos and footage, enjoy! Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and or facebook.

HTML5 Video Playback…

I just finished up watching the latest Diggnation and was quite surprised to hear Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose claim there was no reason to use the flash video playback anymore. As you can imagine I was astounded at this notion. Video playback through the Flash player on the web has been a major part of my focus for more than 5 years now and the next best options are not even close.

I for one have not yet delved into building HTML5 pages yet, so I thought I would do a quick test. As a quick test I spent 5 minutes adding a video tag to an HTML page and linked a video to it, excellent! Fast and easy, what everybody likes. So I tested this on Safari first, knowing this browser seems to support HTML5 the best, and no worries there. Next Firefox 3.6, see the resulting screen shot below. Turns out FF supports the video tag but not the H.264 codec. So because of this you cannot use alternative content, like say the flash plugin just in case your browser does not support that specific tag. You just get a big grey box. Check out how the video presents in your browser http://www.brucelevick.com/html5.html.

So without even getting to the most commonly used browser on the market there is already a big issue of the different codecs supported in different browsers (Flash plays the same codecs no matter what the  browser), with no control that I can see if one of these codecs is not supported. As for IE, the most commonly used browser, no support whatsoever for the video tag. Yes I certainly should ditch my Flash video playback (sarcasm if you didn’t pick up on it.) . I will say one thing that at least with browsers that have no support you can implement alternative content. Until IE supports some other codec the others don’t, then HTML5 video playback is going to be a nightmare to manage.

Check out how your browser measures up. http://html5test.com/

Also check out the “limited” attributes the HTML5 video tag has. http://www.w3schools.com/html5/tag_video.asp. Don’t even get me started on the comparisons to the Flash video functions.

Sorry for the rant, I just find this very frustrating to hear industry geeks make ridiculously uninformed statements, and that the (video playback) wheel is being reinvented so to speak. Lets not go back 10 years and go through that same teeth pulling revolution we went through 10 years ago. I can’t go through that client heartache implementing elements working on one browser and not the other, not again. HTML5 video playback… not for a while.

C’era una volta il West

or “Once Upon a Time in the West” is a movie filmed in 1968. This particular scene is the first six minutes of the movie, and was referred to by Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad (if you haven’t watched Breaking Bad, you really should check it out) in a recent podcast, as one of the best opening scenes ever. So after hearing Vince laud the opening scene of this movie, I had to go check it out for myself. I must say I completely agree with him on this.

There is virtually no dialog, yet the actors along with gorgeous camera angles and the tension building atmosphere created by the sound builds to a climactic standoff on the station platform. For a movie filmed in the 60′s it really shows more than anything that it’s not all about technology, but more so having that creative spark in the first place.

Enjoy!!

eVolution of Entertainment

The development of online entertainment continues to flourish. How it settles as part of our everyday life remains to be seen. I think this will evolve for some time to come. In the past 15+ years the revolution of the internet itself has completely changed the way we carry out our everyday lives. While our entertainment is well on it’s way to changing along these lines there is still a long way to go. One thing is for sure, the television networks are going to need to define an online strategy and do it early to keep their market share of audiences. Keep an eye on the .TV eVolution.

Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs, War on Work and Safety 3rd

Mike Rowe is by far my favourite presenter on TV to date. The way he gets into his work on the Discovery Channel with Dirty Jobs captivates me with every episode. It’s the most simple of concepts of presenter being followed by 3 camera men and they film Mike doing a “Dirty” job for a day. It’s simple but works very well. Now this is not the most high quality of content but in my eyes it’s 50% content and 50% the endearment for the presenter, which on the Dirty Jobs show seems to work perfectly.

Apart from being a great presenter he is also a great speaker on stage as shown in the video below at a TED conference. Mike claims we have declared WAR on work as a society. He discusses his own misconceptions of work he discovered working on Dirty Jobs and that the people who do Dirty Jobs are happier. I do have to disagree with his opinion on NOT following your passion. I couldn’t be happy in a job if I wasn’t passionate about the work and the achievements within, dirty or clean. Check out the video for yourself and make up your own mind.

A Lego Christmas

I thought I might wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with a short but fun little animation. Shot with the Nikon D90 using stop motion and masked video. Enjoy :0)

It’s been a big year, Merry Xmas and looking forward to a big 2010.

Brusca
xo

A Lego Christmas from Bruce Levick on Vimeo.

I thought I would put together a small fun Christmas wish animation. Hope you like.