Okay it’s 2009 and it’s about time I refresh the blog a little with a new theme. Not sure which one I am going to use yet, but stay tuned. There will probably be some funkiness going on over the next couple of days while I check some new ones out. (^_^)
Would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!! 2009 will be a great year so get ready for the fun to begin!! My plans are to live life to the fullest and spread positivity throughout the world. In the near future I will be traveling in the US for a couple of weeks and then heading out for some international travel. Look forward to lots of great pictures, video, and stories from my “world tour”. Also, don’t forget to be nice, spread positivity, and dont be afraid to help someone when they are down. It will make the world a better place to live in.
PS. “Ake-Ome” is a Japanese slang for Happy New Year.
Okay Seattle has gotten a little cold!! I guess my time in Hawaii and India have spoiled me a little (and old age too). Here is a bullet point update from me:
Just a quick post to of some Podcamp Hawaii pictures. I will get mine up as soon as possible.
Well I just receive word that my Google G1 phone (AKA the gPhone) is on the way from China or Taiwan (wherever it’s made)!! I am just hoping it gets here before i leave for Hawaii, even though Hawaii wont have it’s 3G turned on yet. My current phone, a T-Mobile Shadow running Windows Mobile, is giving me a headache with it’s lack of ability to render websites correctly or at all. If I have time I am going to do an unboxing video and walk through the basics of it. Probably do a couple of speed test to test the Seattle 3G. There are a couple of pages that I navigate to daily that are “heavy” in the size deparment. Actually, pretty much every site on the web today is not friendly for mobile phones!! Google reader is probably the best option for those that want to check sites for non-3g phones, but that’s only if the site has an RSS feed.
Anyways Look forward to my G1 and i will give you my honest semi Mac FanBoy review of it.
Heading to the islands for Podcamp Hawaii in a week or so. Check out the commercial all my friends made!!
Just a little update on whats going on in the life of ierict. First off, I have been doing my usual weekly business trips to Yakima, WA. I have been spending about 3 days a week in a hotel there while doing training. This will be ramped up to 5 days a week for the first 3 weeks in October. This kind of sucks, but hey what are you going to do. The good thing is after that I will be spending a week in Hawaii!! Podcamp/Wordcamp Hawaii to be exact!! I am looking forward to catching up with friends and family while on the islands and meeting a bunch of new people while attending.
As for my side projects I am working on a video training series that I hope to make available just before Podcamp/Wordcamp Hawaii. It will start out with a WordPress tutorial that has a working title of “How to Install and Maintain a WordPress Blog”. It will be available for purchase directly and probably through www.amazon.com or www.lulu.com. The big question I am asking myself is should I start yet another site to sell them or should I just sell through here. What do you think? The answer is probably both and in every other place I can, but it’s just something I have been thinking of…A
After the Wordpress video tutorials I am thinking about doing a series on iMovie or Final Cut Express, but I will probably wait for the new versions to come out around the beginning of next year. That’s when Apple usually releases their iLife suite and updates the Final Cut. That will probably be a long process though and I will have to figure out how to free up a lot of time. I will worry about that later, though.
Found a gem in Bellevue!! It’s a little mall called Bellevue CrossRoads and it has a cool little food court with food from a lot of different countries. My favorite is the Indian Place but there is also Mexican, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian, American, Mediterranean, Chinese, and a couple others I can’t remember off the top of my head. Oh, and I almost forgot they have Boba Tea!!
I have both Final Cut and iMovieHD on my MacBook and I have to say that I use iMovieHD much more than I use FCP. FCP is a great application but most of the time I dont need all the functionality that it offers. Especially, if I am shooting the video with my Flip Video. If you think about it, all you really need is a few transitions and the ability to cut, add sound, add titles and encode to your format of choice. Once in a while I need to do some kind of picture in picture, which iMovieHD cant do (to my knowledge), or need to do other types of complex editing. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of projects that have been done using a MacBook and iMovie!
It’s all about deciding what you want to final product to look like before you sit down to edit. Story board it if you have to, get a small white board, napkin, scrap piece of paper, or whatever you can find. If you look at the video I did called Me Today + Jump Cuts, you can see something that I made a little plan and executed. I knew I wanted to do jump cuts, and I new i wanted to cuts to be different views and different directions. I also knew I only had my MacBook with me so thought how I could do this and made a silly little video. I really wasn’t worried about the footage, I just knew that i wanted to make a video using the “Jump Cut” video editing technique.
What are you using for your videos? Here is what I use:
1. MacBook
2. iMovieHD and the rest of the “i” suite (Final Cut when needed)
3. VisualHub
4. Flip Video Camera
5. Sony HD Camera
6. White Board for notes, ideas, and storyboards
7. Tripod or Monopod
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