Lights, Camera, Learn!

This iPod Nano Video workshop has just been named Best of CUE, as evaluated by the attendees and participants of the CUE 2010 Conference in Palm Springs. It's pretty easy to be a snob about video cameras if you went to film school. It's a Hi-Def, progressive-scanned, 1080i pixel resolutioned, cine-geek's wonderland! I have learned since then, most often by necessity, that good work can be done with the simplest tools at hand.   So when I was challenged by my friends at the recent Computer Using Educators Conference to present a Lights, Camera, Learn! workshop featuring the video camera on the new iPod nano , I was intrigued. This new 5g iPod Nano is certainly cool, it boasts a video camera, FM radio, pedometer among its extra features and absent a world with flying cars, the new nano is strong proof that the future is here! It captures certainly 'good enough', cell-phone quality video and sound, but it's so light and small you wonder if a strong gust of w...

Editing is sometime called a story's final re-write. It's the stage in post-production when all of the story elements are finally assembled. For movies, editing means weaving pictures & sounds, using cuts and transitions to control pace & mood. In movies what happens in the edit suite can make or break the director's story...or tell an entirely different one. How may times have you seen a movie trailer that looks nothing like the movie you paid to see? Marvel at the skill of the trailer editor, for they know how to spin a story and sell the sizzle! What some of them do to relax is a testament to the power that skillful editing has to tell engaging and sometimes completely unexpected stories. There is much to learn from their example...