Right-click on steriods

There's a really cool little extension for Firefox called Hyperwords. After installing Hyperwords (for free, by the way), one simply selects a word in ye olde fashionne of click-and-drag and the drop-down menu appears. From the top, the menu gives you the ability to ...

• Search for the selected word in everything from Youtube and Google to Netflix and Metacafe
• Reference the word through dictionary.com, wikipedia or even IMDB.com
• Translate the selected text into a dozen languages on screen (fairly accurately, too)
• Do the usual copy, paste, search, the usual gamut
• Search Ebay, Amazon, iTunes or Craigslist for related products
• Go directly to a submitting page to blog about the selected text (Blogger, Livejournal, Twitter, Wordpress) or search one of the big blog searchers for it (Technorati, et al)

Basically, it's friggin' awesome. And, as a free extension that takes less than a minute to load up, completely worth ... well, a lot more than you pay.

Down with the Fly ... uhm, never mind ...

DownFly is yet another quasi-social-networking-thingamajig. Instead of having to worry about the the whole "cut, paste and link" process of sending someone a link via email, it allows one to easily send a link directly to a friend. People don't actually have to on DownFly to receive your links, but the risk of not is that they'll just get an email with the link. Which means there's the great possibility of spamming a good friend with emailed links to useless and obnoxious Youtube videos. If you are on DownFly, though, you get a nice little page with all the links your friends wanted you to see.

control your background

This is from March 27, but I can't not show you. President Hugo Chavez/Mickey Mouse smiles during an interview or something in Brazil. I don't know what those actually are, looks like speakers or decorations or something

via boingboing.net

Videojournalism: Hard-Core Site for Hard-Core Mulitmedians (persons who do multimedia...hey maybe it'll catch on)

Found an interesting, if not kinda werid, site about videojournalism. There is a video on the home site called "8 Days - Award Winning VideoJournalist Film" about how to turn a newspaper journalist into a video journalist. Also, there are differnent implications of video that this site suggets, from advertising to "conflict reportage training"...
see what you think...

Camera movement, cont'd...

In sort of a follow-up post to the "9 basic camera moves," I thought I'd put up a few links to some sites featuring instructions on how to assemble your own steadicam at home (unless of course you happen to have an extra $12,000 lying around and decide to go with the pro model instead). The first one, found here, is considered the poor man's steadicam and can be yours for all of $15 in spare parts from the local hardware store (some assembly required...). Its basic, it's metal, but it works...

Another option that turned up during my search is the Stabilizer FLEX, which can be sent to you pre-built for $150, or they'll send the instructions on how to build your own for $80. The video demo shows off the difference between using the steadicam and shooting handheld, and should easily convince you why shooting handheld is never really a good idea (though there are always exceptions to these so-called rules, as we learned duirng our discussion of the jump cut).

Lastly, here's a page featuring pics of a number of other home-made camera stabilization units. Instructions for assembly are provided for many of them, and I know that Biddle has made a few of his own steadicams very similar to some of these, so these are definitely do-able weekend projects.

As a final note, for those of you who will be here in the fall, Biddle is putting together a 2-day steadicam certification workshop that should be scheduled for sometime in September. Though the $375 enrollment fee might be kind of steep for some, this is a great opportunity to get some professional hands-on training. Though I'll probably be out in LA by that point, I'll do what I can to attend...check it out if you're at all interested.

9 Basic Camera Moves

Now that we've started experimenting with video, I thought it'd be appropriate to direct your attention to a basic training site on the 9 classic camera moves.

Now for the jump cut...a must not for any great video (although as we learned in class, it really does depend!)

Google shenanigans

I am so very excited about living on Mars, and being a Virgle pioneer. You should all take the test to see if you are qualified. Project Virgle will be just like Gmail--a beta (or test phase) of life on Mars. There's a plan of action laid out all the way up to 2108. Look out space, here I come!

But just in case I'm not ready when the morning comes, I'll be sure to use my wake up kit.

Oh, and by the way, I want this to post 6 hours ago, so I'd better get working on my gmail custom time settings...