For me the hardest part of any project is deciding the subject matter I want to focus on and how to go about presenting it. In this case, I knew what I wanted to focus on but had a hard time deciding how I wanted to present it. I started with the graphics required for the assignment, then worked on content, finally I rummaged around in Creative Commons to find the perfect background music.
Graphics
In order to get the pictures I wanted for this project I used a mix of graphics. First I started by taking a picture of my daughter, Harley, pretending to use my computer (she's a born actress) and used Photoshop to crop out the skating rink in the background (they skated while I worked).
Then I used Creative Commons to find a background picture that suggested a classroom feel.
I used layers to put Harley in front of the graphic I chose. I had to do some resizing of Harley and the background to make them work together:
I used screen captures throughout the presentation such as the various software titles on the Creating a Video page and the Website screen shot on the Benefits page.
Audio
After some consideration and a couple hours listening to samples, I came across this artist who had a lot of music that was just really cool. I found I was that I thought they worked with the flow I was wanting to create with the video I was working and I downloaded 3 samples I liked to use. I was using Camtasia to produce the video but it did not like the file I chose because of the extra "metadata" that was included in the file, so I had to use Audacity to convert the file from .mp3 to .mp3 (basically by doing it that way it stripped out the stuff that was not needed for the project). I chose mp3 because I felt that would give the best sound quality in the video and also because that was the format I'm most familiar with. It also is a more versatile format that will work with most programs.
The process I used to manipulate the music was to import the music into Camtasia at the original volume. I then used edit points to manipulate the volume so that it decreased during the main part of the video where I was narrating and then increased at the end of the narration. On the credit slide, I had it fade out so that it was completely gone by the video ended. The song I chose was a little longer than the video so I had to cut off the end, since I had never used Camtasia for any reason, it was a bit of trick to figure out how to delete the part of the music I didn't need at the end.
Video
I started by looking at the slides and trying to decide how I wanted to present them in the video. I did several attempts at trying to ad lib the video before actually recording it but couldn't find a flow I liked. I opted to create a script instead by looking at the slide and typing up what the information I wanted to share based on the points on each slide. This really came in handy later.
Camtasia allows you to record your video right from your PowerPoint slideshow and installs the add in for PowerPoint when you install it on your computer. I used it to record my video and it still took my several false starts before I was able to get an acceptable video recorded.
The closed captions were really easy to add to the video using Camtasia. Since Camtasia did not have a lot of experience translating my words previously, I got a lot of really funny captions from the software translating speech to text. Since I already had the script and it was already pretty clean, I used it to place the captioning into the video.
The format I used to upload the video was mp4. I chose this because I wanted it to be able play on the most devices. I wanted my audience to be able to play it no matter where they were and I know mp4 will do it because all my videos play on my cell and I-Pad and they were all created as mp4's.
Overall View
All in all, I really enjoyed this project, not only reviewing things I had learned in previous classes but also in trying out a new program I had never used before. Camtasia really is a very versatile program that allows you to produce a video from beginning to end. On the other hand, the cost of the program makes it hard for the average teacher to purchase it on their own salary and many districts do not have the funds to purchase it.
Tools Review Activity
This is my class web page:http://aidd.x-spann.net/review-activity
This is the live site where my audience will view the video:
http://video.x-spann.net/Blog
For me the hardest part of any project is deciding the subject matter I want to focus on and how to go about presenting it. In this case, I knew what I wanted to focus on but had a hard time deciding how I wanted to present it. I started with the graphics required for the assignment, then worked on content, finally I rummaged around in Creative Commons to find the perfect background music.
Graphics
In order to get the pictures I wanted for this project I used a mix of graphics. First I started by taking a picture of my daughter, Harley, pretending to use my computer (she's a born actress) and used Photoshop to crop out the skating rink in the background (they skated while I worked).Then I used Creative Commons to find a background picture that suggested a classroom feel.
I used layers to put Harley in front of the graphic I chose. I had to do some resizing of Harley and the background to make them work together:
I used screen captures throughout the presentation such as the various software titles on the Creating a Video page and the Website screen shot on the Benefits page.
Audio
After some consideration and a couple hours listening to samples, I came across this artist who had a lot of music that was just really cool. I found I was that I thought they worked with the flow I was wanting to create with the video I was working and I downloaded 3 samples I liked to use. I was using Camtasia to produce the video but it did not like the file I chose because of the extra "metadata" that was included in the file, so I had to use Audacity to convert the file from .mp3 to .mp3 (basically by doing it that way it stripped out the stuff that was not needed for the project). I chose mp3 because I felt that would give the best sound quality in the video and also because that was the format I'm most familiar with. It also is a more versatile format that will work with most programs.The process I used to manipulate the music was to import the music into Camtasia at the original volume. I then used edit points to manipulate the volume so that it decreased during the main part of the video where I was narrating and then increased at the end of the narration. On the credit slide, I had it fade out so that it was completely gone by the video ended. The song I chose was a little longer than the video so I had to cut off the end, since I had never used Camtasia for any reason, it was a bit of trick to figure out how to delete the part of the music I didn't need at the end.
Video
I started by looking at the slides and trying to decide how I wanted to present them in the video. I did several attempts at trying to ad lib the video before actually recording it but couldn't find a flow I liked. I opted to create a script instead by looking at the slide and typing up what the information I wanted to share based on the points on each slide. This really came in handy later.Camtasia allows you to record your video right from your PowerPoint slideshow and installs the add in for PowerPoint when you install it on your computer. I used it to record my video and it still took my several false starts before I was able to get an acceptable video recorded.
The closed captions were really easy to add to the video using Camtasia. Since Camtasia did not have a lot of experience translating my words previously, I got a lot of really funny captions from the software translating speech to text. Since I already had the script and it was already pretty clean, I used it to place the captioning into the video.
The format I used to upload the video was mp4. I chose this because I wanted it to be able play on the most devices. I wanted my audience to be able to play it no matter where they were and I know mp4 will do it because all my videos play on my cell and I-Pad and they were all created as mp4's.
Overall View
All in all, I really enjoyed this project, not only reviewing things I had learned in previous classes but also in trying out a new program I had never used before. Camtasia really is a very versatile program that allows you to produce a video from beginning to end. On the other hand, the cost of the program makes it hard for the average teacher to purchase it on their own salary and many districts do not have the funds to purchase it.