The Internet Archivefeatures a huge “Moving Images library” of free movies, films, and videos. This library contains thousands of digital movies which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to videos of every genre uploaded by Archive users. Many of these movies are available for download. There are well over 50,000 free downloads in the “Open Source” library and many are usable in your own productions -simply check out the Creative Commons License details.
Another great index of free stock video footage resources is available atRobin Good’s blog.
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It’s perfectly normal for someone new to appearing on camera to have a little case of the jitters. Regardless of your previous experience, it’s something you have to get over if you want to present yourself on camera or in front of a live audience.
Anytime you clamber onstage –whether it’s talking to a group of one or 1,000 –part of your job is to create a positive and informed mental image in the minds of your audience. If you have presentation coming up, a little stage fright is a common phenomenon; quite a few well-known celebrities who regularly appear in the public eye have been known to suffer from stage fright. Heck, after 40 years of being onstage regularly, even I still suffer bouts of stage fright.
Here are some tricks and techniques -and an inexpensive tool -that can reduce your pre-show jitters. Read the entire article here.
I recently got a few samples of the new Archival Century DVD Disc from Ross Allen at VA Media, which he claims is the only truly archival DVD available, “maximizing data life to 100 plus years.”
You might remember a couple years ago when Ross’s company were carrying LUX-PRO archival DVD - the one you could fingerprint up, scratch it up with steel wool, write on it with a pen -and it would still work?
It went a little against my grain to purposely deface a perfectly good disk, but I gave it my best shot. Fingerprints, scratches…”Boy,” I thought, “This one’s going to end up in Skip City!”
When I was finished ‘ruining’ the DVD-R, Ross slipped it into a DVD player. And to my amazement, it played perfectly. No skips, no stops, no signal breakup at all. That was my introduction to the LUX PRO “precision archival” DVD-R.
And the new Century Disc DVD is apparently even better.
My old partner Randy was one of those guys who never threw anything out. As a result, our production company had a lot of…well, interesting is a good word…interesting stuff cluttering up the place. Laser disc players, a couple of broken reel-to-reel 1/2″ VCR’s, some hopelessly antique cameras and camcorders…he had so much of this technojunk that we finally built him a large storage space -”Randy’s Room” -filled corner to corner with sturdy steel shelving. I was down at Great Lakes Video the other day and -guess what -even though he’s not with the operation any more, Randy’s Room remains, securely locked and apparently still loaded. Sort of like Al Capone’s vault. Who knows what treasures lurk inside?
Well, Randy isn’t alone. Old computers, camcorder, motherboards, broken audio boards and switchers, cell phones, CDs, jewel cases, old VHS tapes…we of the video production persuasion certainly can stack up the old equipment quickly.
As we move farther into the information age, the volume of obsolete computer equipment and supplies is becoming a serious problem that needs to be dealt with responsibly. Today, it’s estimated that over 90 percent of technojunk is not being recycled. Some is thrown away, but most remains unused sitting on desks or taking up storage space.
You know what I’m getting at; I’m asking you to recycle your old broken and outmoded gear. There may be a local drop-off that legitimately recycles your equipment. If so, why not make a stop there part of your spring cleaning ritual?
Alas, many communities don’t have a good recycling point. If this is your case, I recommend an operation such as GreenDisk. You can use them to recycle ‘puters, iPods, MP3 players, cell phones and chargers, digital cameras, PDAs, palm pilots, and more. Also, easily recycle all of your CDs, jewel cases, DVDs, audio and video tapes, pagers, rechargeable and single-use batteries, PDAs, and ink/toner cartridges with GreenDisk’s Technotrash program. For $30, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in which you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above. Your fee covers the box as well as shipping and recycling fees.
Big props to everyone who is a member of, goes to the meetings of and works on behalf of local video associations. Because of schedule conflicts in the past, my own attendance record has been pretty spotty, but the good people of MIVA (Michigan Independent Videographers’ Association) have come up with a good way to trap me into showing up more; they’ve put me on the Board of Directors!
Actually, I am happy to help out a great organization and if you’re a Michigan- or Windsor-based videographer, I’d like to personally invite you to our next meeting. The details are right here. Not a lot of info on the website at this very moment, but I’m in the process of redoing it. Just another task for the new board member…
Well, I just figured out how to save a whopping amount of money this year; this morning, I notified my office building landlord that I’ll be moving out at the end of the month and moving my local office home.
It makes perfect sense, in that I subcontract out our order fulfillment services now, and have a big whompin’ remote backup server to hold all our work files so we can work from anywhere there’s a good WiFi signal…and even more sense when we looked at my calendar for the past few months and realized that I spent about an hour a week in my official office -and that was mostly just to drop copies of paid invoices into a “closed” folder, or to say hello to my cousin David, who occupies the office suite next to me.
Okay. So a few things to get done before that happens of course, and one was quite serendipitous -to finalize production and release my latest program “Success Without Stress -with Your Home-Based Video Business!” So that is now done; in fact, I just now uploaded the final files and put it into our online catalog. If you ever wonder how to get everything done and juggle the kids, the dishes and the dirty laundry, entertain clients and try to maintain some semblance of a normal life, this program will really help you. Go here for details and to watch a little introductory video!
I should note that this is our first instantly available video training program. That’s right; within a minute after placing your order, you’ll have the program downloaded to your desktop and ready to help you succeed with your home-based video production business.
The Internet Archive features a huge “Moving Images library” of free movies, films, and videos. This library contains thousands of digital movies which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to videos of every genre uploaded by Archive users. Many of these movies are available for download. There are well over 50,000 free downloads in the “Open Source” library and many are usable in your own productions -simply check out the Creative Commons License details.
As we move farther into the information age, the volume of obsolete computer equipment and supplies is becoming a serious problem that needs to be dealt with responsibly. Today, it’s estimated that over 90 percent of technojunk is not being recycled. Some is thrown away, but most remains unused sitting on desks or taking up storage space.
Okay. So a few things to get done before that happens of course, and one was quite serendipitous -to finalize production and release my latest program “Success Without Stress -with Your Home-Based Video Business!” So that is now done; in fact, I just now uploaded the final files and put it into our online catalog. If you ever wonder how to get everything done and juggle the kids, the dishes and the dirty laundry, entertain clients and try to maintain some semblance of a normal life, this program will really help you. 
