The Basics of Video Editing: The Complete Guide [Night School]

Barbara Glenn has put together on a distance learning training module for the QEP. It will be available by next fall. Currently, there are six flip cameras faculty in HSS you can check out and then check out to students for video projects.

Why video projects in a writing course? You might be interested in teaching video in terms of multi-modal writing and/or the oral communication outcomes. Folks may also be interested in using video casts in their distance or hybrid teaching. In any event, this is the best comprehensive guide to video editing I've seen in quite a while, so I thought I'd disseminate it.

Steve

The Basics of Video Editing: The Complete Guide [Night School]: "

Last week we learned the basics of video editing, covering everything from the general workflow to special effects and color correction to a primer on encoding and delivery. Here's the complete guide with all the videos and notes in one convenient location.

These lessons concentrate primarily on editing video in Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro, but that doesn't mean they won't be helpful for other editing software. The idea behind having the lessons with both applications is to demonstrate that when you learn one editing application it's pretty easy to learn another. Most of the stuff is the same, and these lessons mainly concentrate on the sorts of things all video editing software can do. We'll get a little application-specific at times, but you'll get an idea of how different applications tackle the same problems. If you want to learn Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro, that's great, but if you'd prefer to learn other editing software you shouldn't feel like these lessons don't apply to you, too.

Part I: Getting to Know Your Editing Environment

Before you get started editing any video in a professional, you need to understand your environment. In our first lesson, we'll take a look at all the windows and tools in Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro so you know what you're dealing with. More...

Part II: Creating a Project, from Start to Finish

Now that you know your editing environment, you can start editing. In this lesson, we'll create a project from scratch, perform some minor edits, and take a quick peek into exporting out projects. More...

Part III: Effects and Color Correction

Special effects and color correction are some of the more fun parts of video editing because you get to manipulate the picture and create some pretty neat, visually-appealing effects. While we're not going to learn to be special effects masters in this lesson, we'll take a look at basic color correction and effects that you can pick up pretty quickly to create some awesome results. More...

Part IV: Preparing and Encoding Your Video for Delivery

In our last lesson, we'll get your footage ready for delivery by learning about the built-in video export methods in both Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro. We'll also spend half the lesson discussing encoding, how it works, and how you can create your own encoding specifications to achieve better results with your exported video.More...

Part V: Additional Resources

If you want to keep learning more about video editing, here are some additional resources and additional video editing options to help you out. More...

Lastly, if you want all the notes for this lesson in a PDF file, you can download it here.

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You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter and Facebook. If you'd like to contact him, Twitter is the most effective means of doing so.

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An Exhaustive Guide to Casual Podcasting [Podcasting]

For those who have been thinking of making podcasts part of their teaching...

An Exhaustive Guide to Casual Podcasting [Podcasting]: "

MetaFilter founder and friend of Lifehacker Matt Haughey has been casually podcasting at MetaFilter for the last four years, and in that time, he's amassed a lot of knowledge handy for anyone looking to learn a little about the art of casting pods.

The guide covers everything from preparation and format to recording, editing, and publishing, and while the software section skews Mac, even it's got useful suggestions that would apply to just about anyone. For example, regarding format:

I listen to a lot of podcasts and the most typical format is 2 or 3 hosts and sometimes one guest. I've never subscribed to a single-person podcast before because I've yet to find a single-person-talking podcast that is interesting enough to stick with. I've tried a few but one person talking is usually pretty boring after a while. Two or three people chattering to each other is the most common format but it's possible to take it too far. The other day I heard a six person podcast that was an utter nightmare. Everyone talked over each other and when it came time to make small quips and jokes you had to wait for five people to make a wise crack. Stick to 2-3 people on your show.

Having listened to and made a couple of appearances on TWiG, his comments on format ring true from my limited experience. Whether you've considered putting together a podcast or you want to improve your existing workflow, it's a good read. Photo by Bernard Goldbach.

Everything I've learned about casual podcasting | fortuitous

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Untangle those Confusing Words

Untangle those Confusing Words: "

BY KEVIN HODGSON

We all have them — words that baffle us, even when we use them all the time. I, for one, still have trouble with “lay” and “lie” and even remember getting an angry letter from a reader about my use of lay instead of lie (or was it the other way around?) when I was a newspaper reporter. The aptly named Confusing Words is a website that might come in handy for those times of confusion. It contains more than 3,000 words that people tend to have trouble with, and it accepts suggestions for more. The site was developed by the husband of a teacher, who had asked if there was some way to develop a system to help her students deal with common grammatical word errors.

Confusing Words is simple enough to use. Just type in a word that you find confusing, spelling it as best as you can (the site’s programming has some special tricks to finding words spelled close to the original). The site then gives you a list of words that might be confusing due to similar spelling or meanings, provides definitions, and then shows examples of how each word is used in proper context.

If nothing else, you should print the read-outs for the their/there/they’re and to/two/too helpers and pass them out to your students. Strunk and White will surely thank you.

Confusing Words

Related stuff

Stomp Out These Common English Errors

Its not what you say, but “how” you say it: The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

English Fale Blog: Wear Grammer and Spelling Goes Bad

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Ommwriter Brings Its Relaxing, Distraction-Free Writing Tool to Windows [Video]

Ommwriter Brings Its Relaxing, Distraction-Free Writing Tool to Windows [Video]: "

Mac/Windows: The seriously relaxing Ommwriter was one of your favorite distraction-free writing tools, and now Windows users can enjoy the same tranquil sounds and sights as they write.

If you haven't heard of Ommwriter before, it takes a slightly different approach to distraction-free writing. Instead of merely being a full-screen text editor, it adds relaxing backgrounds and peaceful music or ambient noise to the mix, to not only keep you focused on your writing but keep you relaxed and productive. It comes in two versions, a free version and a paid version that comes with extra backgrounds and audio tracks. Check out the video above for a demonstration, and hit the link to download it and try it out now.

Ommwriter is a free download for Windows and Mac OS X, though you can donate any amount you want for the more fully stocked version.

Ommwriter [via Ommwriter Blog]

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You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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