Project Youtube

I have a few Youtube videos at http://www.youtube.com/shambezi.

Unfortunately, I do not find that they are very professional.

In order to improve this, it seems that I should:

(1)Develop a systematic way of organizing my thoughts, and writing things down.
(2)Develop a means of capturing this video, and importing it into editing software.
(3)Obtain editing software.
(4)Add and edit sound to my video.
(5)Improve music theory knowledge.
(6)Obtain necessary props.
(7)Obtain necessary actors.
(8)Obtain a better camera.
(9)Learn basic film-making technique.

To solve these problems in the order given above I find that:

(1) A standard script writing technique will do. I can make auxillary comments as necessary. I will read Screenwriting.info.

(2) The camera I have only produces video in the Quicktime (.MOV) format.
Luckily I found an Open-Source program called Virtualdub that includes a plugin - http://www.tateu.net/software/ linked from the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualDub that will allow me to effectively convert the Quicktime format to the .avi format.

(3)I have a program called Windows Movie Maker that came with my computer. It accepts the .avi format.

(4)There is an Open-Source program called Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ that allows for the manipulation of audio files. I can obtain a sound source from my Sony tape recorder and/or my Casio CTK-480 Electronic Keyboard. Audacity also generates simple waveforms like the sine, square, and sawtooth waves in addition to other sounds such as white noise, clicking, and plucking.

(5)I will need something like basic piano theory. I have found that a site mentioned by my understanding music teacher called Musictheory.net will be useful. In addition, there are websites such as
http://www.piano-lessons-central.com/ as well as this obscure website from a elementary school in California that will be useful.

(6) Props will have to be things around the house, like books, computers, food, etc.

(7) It would be ideal to have more people. But considering my experience....

(8) I have a Nikon Coolpix L11 camera. It hardly produces the quality that I want, but it will have to do. Otherwise, I could borrow one.

(9)I have a book on photography, but no book on filmmaking. The Internet and/or other sources will have to do.

Edit to (5), (4/11/2010 6:53 PM): a book by Dominic Milano called Synthesizer Programming may also be useful.

Thankfulness

I am thankful for:

1. Completing my BS in Chemical Engineering
2. Being in a good financial situation, (omitted for post)
3. Completing all my coursework for my MS degree in Chemical Engineering
4. All of the friends that I have had that have supported me during difficult times
5. God’s love (You have no idea how much this means to be in light of all the mistakes that I have made.)
6. All the knowledge that I have accrued throughout the years. Google is amazing.
7. God’s help appreciating everything (My schooling, my degree, my failures…)
8. Oklahoma University Libraries. Thanks for all the Journal Articles and countless books on interesting topics like Physics, pyrotechnics, and noise formation.
9. (omitted for post)
10. Being given the situation where I conquered my fears and learned computer programming.
11. Doing well this week with my research.
12. Nerdy discussions on Talk-Polywell. My Age of Boron Blog.
13. Friends in my life that really have inspired me to grow to appreciate more things, as well as things about myself.
14. Macromedia Flash 5. I have not found a more entertaining computer program. (plus it’s great for finding a hexadecimal values for creating webpages with color!) It’s also helped me draw stuff, which is really helpful considering…
15. Facebook.
16. All of the website experience I obtained while fooling around on the Internet when I was younger
17. Friends that I can relate to.