Online video instruction in small doses
A colleague of mine who teaches video production swears by the Creative COW online community. He says it’s a great place to learn about digital video editing and other useful geeky stuff.
The other day he sent me a link to this new DVD, Internet Killed the Video Star: A Guide to Creating Video for the Web. It’s a big collection of short podcasts by Aharon Rabinowitz, a regular at Creative COW. For about $40 U.S., you get 4.5 hours of how-to podcasts on topics such as “Compression Settings and Presets” and “Intro to Flash Video.” It also includes a bunch of podcasts about how to create and produce a good video podcast.
This got me to thinking about all the time and effort some news organizations are pumping into online video — but getting very few viewers in return. Maybe a carefully planned system for syndicating the video would make a difference. Podcasts from a variety of sources have loyal audiences. I realize most newspapers’ audio podcasts have been badly received, but maybe that’s because of the content — not the format.
Anyway, I haven’t bought the DVD yet, but I’m planning on it — because $40 is not too much to risk. I watched a few of Rabinowitz’s regular podcasts on the site (you can watch them free, here), and they are pretty good.
Most of us in online journalism are familiar with the excellent Lynda.com videos, but this CreativeCOW collection is new to me.
As far as Podcasts go, while I was at the Sun-Sentinel, one of the sports writers thought that a Dolphins news Podcast would be well recieved by readers. They figured if they could get over 5,000 viewers a day for Dolphins videos, at least a good portion of those viewers might want a podcast. The content was great, the demand seemed there, but the paper was reluctant because of past, failed endeavors. Why have readers been so hard on Podcasts?
November 28, 2007 at 9:37 amI downloaded a number of audio podcasts from newspaper Web sites a few years ago, when “podcasting” was a hot new buzz word. Without exception, those podcasts were horrible. Even when the production quality of the audio was good, the content was poor — some reporter reading in a stilted, unnatural voice.
Spoken voice is an art. It takes practice to do it well.
The same is true for video podcasts.
I think a lot of the newspapers approach these new projects like a kid doing his homework 10 minutes before class starts. The result is not good. It’s not quality. It’s not satisfying to the audience. In short, it’s garbage.
So they put this garbage out on a plate, and then no one ate it. And the newspapers said, oh, see, those podcasts didn’t work.
Meanwhile, others (like This American Life, for example) served up delicious podcasts that people loved then and still love today.
Is the format (podcasts) the source of the problem? Of course not. It’s content and delivery, always, every time.
November 28, 2007 at 10:38 amMy current favorite video training podcast is “The Shirtless Apprentice.” http://www.shirtlessapprentice.com/podcast/
December 2, 2007 at 12:59 pmNot journalism based, but funny and informative studio and technical tips.
“The Shirtless Apprentice” is VERY amusing! (And useful too.) Thanks for sharing that!
December 2, 2007 at 3:48 pmThere is a great site for all the how-to instructional videos called WonderHowTo
http://www.wonderhowto.com
They collect all the videos from all the places around the web, including all the videos on creative cow, shirtless apprentice and more.
Enjoy.
May 14, 2008 at 4:22 pm[...] Mindy McAdams highlights a site for video tutorials. [...]
July 1, 2008 at 2:59 pm