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Wow, over the next couple of months I am going to be doing a lot of travelling. First I will be going to Hawaii for about a week for Podcamp and Wordcamp Hawaii. 2 days after returning I am going to be going to India on business for 4 WHOLE WEEKS!! It will be my first trip to India so I am really looking forward to it. I don’t know if I really wanted to go for that long on my first trip, but hey what can you do when work calls. Since I will be gone that long I told my wife she might as well plan a trip to visit her parents in Japan. That way she will have some help with our 16 month old son and wont be alone for 5 weeks. If possible I am going to join her in Japan for about a week or so, depending if all things fall into place.
One thing I need to do is get all my bills online so I can pay them from anywhere in the world! Especially, if I am going to be travelling for these long periods of time.
For my Hawaii trip I know I am bringing my DSLR, HD Video Camera, and FlipVideo Camera. For India I am thinking about just bringing a good point and shoot camera that has the ability to shoot video as well. I am getting to the point where it’s a pain to carry all these cameras so I need to figure out a way to minimize my gear. I am thinking that a new higher end point and shoot with a BIG memory card or two is the way to go. What do you think? How are you travelling these days?

A short video taken from a boat looking at Downtown Seattle. I used the FlipVideo for this which explains the not so great quality.

My In-Laws Toilet decided to attack me when i wasn’t paying attention!!

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