Making My MindBite-5 Helpful Tips

One logical requirement of your employment with MindBites is that you contribute to the community by making your own MindBites. It helps us to understand what our authors and users go through to publish on our site. In addition to making my own MindBite, I wanted to write about the process as someone with no video production or editing experience, other than simple videos of my son with our digital camera.

I joined forces with Huntley, another new member of the MindBites team to shoot. She has already shared her take on the process, but here are a few of my own take-aways about the process:

1) I started by planning my MindBite using the Author Lesson Planning Worksheet. I had a ton of information swimming through my head, some of which I had even forgotten might be important to mention until I sat down to write it out. Inevitably, this all would have come out in multiple messy takes. My hope was that thoroughly planning my lesson would cut down on the number of takes that are necessary, and therefore, the amount of editing.

2) That being said, do not expect to side-step the editing process through planning. You will still have to do some editing, but the more organized you are in the beginning, the less work you will have to do at the end.

3) We used the flip cam, which is ridiculously simple, but has some slightly frustrating limitations. One being that it does not zoom well. Huntley’s MindBite, which I filmed (and vice versa), involved some detail work that was hard to capture with the limited zoom functionality. However, the flip is about $115 on Amazon, and plugs right into your computer via USB once you are finished shooting.

4) Pause. Seriously, wait several seconds before you start talking, after the camera is on and another several after you are finished speaking, before you turn the camera off. Just stop. Don’t move & don’t speak. If there was one thing I wish someone had told me before I filmed it would have been this. My transitions and editing would have been much smoother.

5) Editing is not that difficult. My perception of editing was that would be impossible and painstaking. The hardest part about it was actually talking myself into sitting down at the computer and getting it done! Using a combination of PowerPoint and the free iMovie software on my Mac, I was able to put together my lesson, complete with title slides. The iMovie software was simple enough that I was able to teach myself the basic functions without needing to watch a tutorial or read the instructions. The only problem I encountered was that the filp camera records in .avi files, and iMovie does not edit .avi files. One simple, free download, and I was golden.

Alright…now that I’ve made my mindbite, it’s your turn!

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