Reflecting on Editing and Posting Video

While this project was actually for an assignment in the Digital Writing course I am taking, it began at home with my wife and I anticipating some fun with our cat, Charm. We set up a black-cat Halloween prop for Charm to find, and at the last minute we thought to get the camera. I should say here that Charm is extremely sensitive to anything new and she especially does not like other animals about. I should also admit that we weren't as prepared as we should have been. Good photographers and videographers know to always have their equipment pre-checked, ON, and ready to shoot. We were a bit slow, but we still managed to get some good material. We should have gotten the camera sooner, and we should have made sure we had fresh batteries! Live and learn, I guess.

Even though we shot the video on the Kodak EasyShare Z885 camera, we were able to use a cable we got with our Canon camera to transfer the video files to our PC. No problem so far. But then when I went to begin editing the video in Windows Movie Maker, problems quickly arose. The video was in Quick Time Movie format (.MOV), which is not supported by Windows Movie Maker. So I had to take A LONG TIME searching the web to find a file conversion site that was reviewed well on several discussion boards. I settled on Media Convert, and was eventually able to successfully convert my four .MOV files to .AVI files. Since I am, by nature, obsessive compulsive, this whole ordeal probably took me much longer than it would take anyone else, but slower is sometimes better.

Ironically, by this point, I had to leave for class, so I took all the video files with me, on a USB flash drive, and I ended up beginning the editing process, in class, ON A MAC. So, I didn't need to do the conversions after all, but I do eventually want to go back and learn Windows Movie Maker, if only because my college does not really support Macs, except for the Art Department.

As you might already guess, the video editing took me A LONG TIME also. I began it in class, but had to spend about three-and-a-half additional hours outside of class to produce a 3-minute video. I was then able to compress it, upload it to the U of MN's Media Mill, process it there, and have it ready to embed on my blog and upload to YouTube. The first upload to YouTube did not "take," for some reason (which, based on past experience, I'm guessing had to do with my poor relationship with the U of MN's servers, or with doing it on a wireless laptop), but the second upload to YouTube from my PC at home was successful.

In all, however, in spite of the video file format conversion problem, and in spite of the uploading to Media Mill and to YouTube problems, I enjoyed the video editing process MUCH MORE than the audio editing process (for the podcasting assignment) even though the two processes are very similar and the editing environments (Audacity or GarageBand, and iMovie) have many similarities--e.g., multiple "tracks," adding in music or sound effects, cutting, rearranging "clips," etc. And I'm not sure why I enjoyed it more. Was it because I had already gone through the "hell" of podcasting and editing audio, so I had more "background knowledge" when it came time to do the video editing? Or was it because I am a more "visual" person so I enjoyed that element more? (This second reason I'm not as sure about, since I also tend to learn better from reading than from hands-on lessons--for example, I loved the chemistry formulas, math, and "book work," but I hated the chemistry labs.)

So ... would I use this in class? I'm not sure yet. I would first want to learn Windows Movie Maker, so that I could "teach" it to my students, at least in a rudimentary way. Second, my college does not loan out cameras, I don't think, whereas the U of MN does, either in the Curriculum & Instruction Library or out of Walter Library, so I'm not sure if my students would have as good of access to equipment as I did. Third, I'm not sure yet what assignment I could give that would lend itself to video. I could see an argumentative-inquiry project involving not only research but some type of video component, but that's as far as my thinking has gone.