Re: Video skills and equipment

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 2:30 AM, Lars Aronsson<lars <at> aronsson.se> wrote:
> I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania.
> Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes,
> some only played the first minute and then stopped.  I don't think
[snip]
> How can we learn to make better videos?  Are there some good
[snip]

The particular example you raised isn't much of matter of skill or
knowledge it's a matter of simply having the time: After all a lack of
sound is obvious to anyone, so long as they have the opportunity to
spend the time to get it right.

But in general even to people skilled in the art making video is
vastly more time and resource intensive than stills. So this will
remain a challenge even if better educational materials are provided
(I snipped out your suggestions in those regards because I had nothing
to say to them: they sounded like good points).

[snip]
> Current digital video cameras use hard disks or memory cards,
> instead of tape cassettes.  Many new models cost less than 300
> euro (or dollars), some as little as 120 euro (memory card perhaps
> not included).  Some have a special "Youtube mode", and I guess
> that kind of usage is what drives the price down.  What models are
> good, and what should one watch out for?

Unfortunately you're not going to be producing video which is remotely
professional looking with a 120 euro camera, not yet at least.
Consider the typical user-created video on youtube.