And guess who the director is, you! Swivl is a mount for your pocket camera or iPhone that takes direction from a tracker attached to your subject, and it can tilt or pan to stay with you. Videomaker first looked at this product when it was in it’s prototype stage and needed funding. After a lot of crowdfunding with IndieGoGo the project has become a marketable product and was a Videomaker Spotlight Award winner from International CES 2012.

The Swivl promotes mobility and playfulness by keeping you in the frame that you define, even if you run circles around it. Sporting 360 degree horizontal tracking and 25 degrees on the vertical axis, there is little that Swivl won’t catch. The smooth movement of the tilt can be locked since it tends to move up and down with the tracker’s movement. The tracker also doubles as a wireless mic, which should really open up possibilities for one person crews or vloggers. You may be 32 feet away doing something as simple as checking your snail mail or working on a training montage with the hero ducking branches and running between trees and it can be tracked.

There is compatibility with Android phones that are .4-inches or less than 11mm, as well as standard tripods. The weight limit is 6 oz. and your time limit is four hours with AA batteries, or not with the wall charger. It is likely that your recording time will be completely dependent on your camera’s battery, since the tracking remote runs on a pair of AAA batteries for about 10 hours.

Swivl is packaged with the tracking marker, tripod mount, lanyard, batteries and a Micro USB cable. Shipping begins by this spring from the folks at Satarii Inc.

The audio capabilities are only available with the app, and the wall charger is sold separately, but for a final price of $159, you couldn’t find a better hire.

So you want to make a documentary? We’ve all heard that before.  Just as we know that all the greatest writers are supposedly too busy hanging out in coffee shops and bemoaning the difficulties of writing to actually write, all the greatest documentarians are too busy worrying about where to start to actually, well, start.  When I was a kid, I used to love watching nature documentaries on PBS, all about the ocean floor or the rain forest or, especially, dinosaurs.  For years, though, I thought that a documentary HAD to be about some exotic faraway locale, that you had to travel to, say, the Gobi Desert or the Marianas trench, and that they always had to be about weird animals.  You might have the same problem, you’re too convinced that documentaries have to be sprawling, complicated affairs to realize that they’re actually pretty simple.  All you have to do it break it down!

Yup, it’s simple if you just break down the documentary process.  For example, take a look at Videomaker’s premium documentary series, now available to buy as one complete set at a $60 discount.  This DVD series divides up the daunting documentary process into four tidy little segments, so that you won’t get too overwhelmed.   All you need to worry about are four little things:

1) Documentary Storytelling: There’s good fodder for a stellar documentary anywhere.  Maybe you know a person with an unusual story to tell or maybe there’s a local landmark that you’ve always been curious about. Some of the most compelling documentaries come from personal stories or family histories, or dramas that, in the grand scheme of things, might not really be that dramatic. The incidents might be small or mundane, but if they communicate bigger, universal themes, they can touch people in ways that more polished but less intimate documentaries fail to do. For example, “The King of Kong” is a documentary about one man’s fight to become the world champion at the video game Donkey Kong. Most people would dismiss that as a silly goal, but the filmmakers were able to use his quest to tell a universal story about every man’s desire to leave his mark on the world.  This DVD shows you how to find the deeper meaning in even ordinary events and how to determine whether there’s enough meat in a story to be worth your time as a documentarian.

2) Documentary Funding: Yeah, so we’ve already established that you don’t have the budget to go down the Amazon. Unfortunately, even a modest documentary needs some budget and you don’t want to be stuck spinning your wheels because you can’t think of a way to get your hands on some cash.  Well, before you resort to robbing a bank, pulling off a daring international diamond heist, or something equally drastic (Pro tip: Don’t do that!), you should probably take a look at this DVD. Documentary Funding gives you helpful, practical and, above all, proven suggestions to get some cold hard cash to back up your documentary dreams. This feature looks at finding sources for funds, writing a thorough prospectus, knowing the details of an accurate budget sheet, organizing a successful fundraiser, editing a demo reel that impresses, and presenting the techniques of an effective pitch.

3) Documentary Equipment and Crew: Remember how we said you’d need money to shoot your documentary? Well, here’s where that comes into play. You may be able to cajole some friends into helping you out and you may be able to borrow your neighbor’s old camcorder for free… but let’s face it. You know you get what you pay for when you rely on the kindness of strangers (and friends).  If you’re going to make a documentary, make it good.  Cutting on necessary expenses always impacts the result and not in a good way. This DVD offers you tips on how to choose cameras, audio gear, lighting gear and accessories, and tips to finding and working with a professional crew. These tips will get you on your way to making a great documentary.

4) The Documentary  Shoot: And now that you’ve got all that preliminary planning and pre-planning and pre-pre-planning out of the way, it’s time to go out on the actual shoot.  This is where it all counts. The shoot is probably the most fun part of making the documentary, because this is where you really get to see your vision come together.  If you picked a good subject, you should feel re-newed excitement when you revisit the stories that originally sold you on it.  Conducting insightful interviews, setting up good lighting and audio, and getting location access are all part of the process here!

So there you go, the entire documentary process, all in four easy-to-digest chunks.  Now you better start filming, because, when you watch these DVDs,  you’ll no longer  have the excuse that you don’t know how to start.

Video shooters of all expertise levels, from novice to pro, are always looking for the fastest way to get big chunks of data off the camera and into their editing programs.  For the majority of us, that now means pulling images and video off an SD card and onto our computer’s hard drive.  In managing this process there are usually three primary considerations: speed, capacity, and compatibility.  Leveraging both 2.0 and 3.0, Verbatim has announced its new USB 3.0/USB 2.0 Universal Card Readers and USB 2.0 Pocket Card Reader – compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems.

(For years USB 2.0 was the standard. Then USB 3.0, launched in 2010, increasing transfer speeds by a factor of 10.  For more background on USB, read the Videomaker article about USD 3.0.)

Universal Card Readers

These new readers support a wide variety of memory card formats and are 100% compatible with all USB ports. Verbatim indicates that the USB 3.0 device delivers transfer speeds of up to 5GB/second, while the USB 2.0 version transfers data at a rate of up to 480MB/second.

Memory cards supported by both the USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 Universal Card Reader include: CompactFlash Type I & Type II (CF), Secure Digital (SD), Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC), miniSD, microSD, Memory Stick (MS), Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo, Memory Stick Micro (M2), MultiMedia Card (MMC) and xD-Picture Card (xD).

The USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 Universal Card Readers are available for $14.99 and $24.99, respectively.

USB 2.0 Pocket Card Reader

Sporting an integrated USB cable, Verbatim’s  Pocket Card Reader is just as its name suggests. The portable, pocket-sized multi-functional reader supports a wide variety of formats, including compatibility with SD, Memory Stick and MMC interfaces.   Memory cards supported by the Pocket Card Reader include: Secure Digital (SD), Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC), miniSD, microSD, Memory Stick (MS), Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo, Memory Stick Micro (M2), MultiMedia Card (MMC)

The Pocket Card Reader is available for $9.99.

As the transfer speeds of readers like these increase and the compatibility of the readers with a multitude of card types adds to their versatility, videographers will find them more and more indispensable.

Holiday Shopping List for Video Producers

So that special one-day-a-year holiday is upon us. The day many people, young and old, anxiously await. When people scurry down the halls in their slippers and jammies, hoping to get a peek at that one item they’ve been hoping to own – a one of a kind super-duper priced item only found at a Black Friday sale.

The malls open before dawn, other stores are open all night, stores are so anxious to make a sale that they offer huge doorbusters and loss leaders just to get you to buy. And people all over town lose their senses.

Does anyone feel like me and think this stuff is getting a bit out of hand? I often wonder what non-Christmas celebrants think about all the noise? How do you dim the din?

It’s tough not to get engaged in all the commercialism, but let’s face it – a sale is a sale and if you’re a video producer,  you can NEVER have enough stuff. If it’s just a new tabletop tripod or another hard drive, if I can get it marked down, I’m happy, regardless of the time of year.

Making a List

But since this is the time of year many people expect to get or buy more toys,  and you’re a video producer – what would be the BEST video gift you’d like to receive? We have a few hints you might want to whisper in Santa’s ear. Our Uber Associate, Videomaker writer Doug Dixon has a great “Holiday Gadget List” just for you. Check it out.

Checking it Twice

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, [CEA], more than half of American citizens are expected to shop this weekend. Now if you’re making plans to do some heavy lifting…er,shopping, don’t walk out the door or tickle the keys until you’ve read some hints from our friends at Retrevo. We told you about Retrevo a few years ago, a wonderful “Go To” site for electronics research. From the Good to the Bad, [OK, I'll throw in the Ugly, too!] the folks at Retrevo take their research seriously and offers a lot of insight to products’ reliability and price comparison, among other cool tidbits. They even have tips for making your gadget world Earth-friendly.

Among some of the tips are lists for:

1. Nationwide Black Friday Deals

2. Nationwide Black Friday Duds

3. Nationwide Black Friday Store Hours

What video gadget gift would you like to receive? Talk to us! Send us your wish list, we’re curious to know what our readers are looking for this year.

Who’s Naughty or Nice?

Many people seek deals online and if you prefer to cruise online rather than on the crowded streets, make sure you shop safe. We’re video producers, so we should know technology better than the average consumer, but sometimes a good deal is hard to pass up. The biggest online shopping days are December 5-15th, or thereabouts, so you can relax and enjoy your 4-day Thanksgiving weekend in peace, and wait until next week to do any heavy shopping. But, before you go anywhere to shop online, check out McAfee’s “12 Scams of the Holidays” list.

These are for scammers, but what about retailers that seem legit, and when you excitedly open your delivery box you find you didn’t get everything you thought you were buying? Check out Videomaker‘s  Buyer Beware article that offers some good advice for camcorder shopping online.

And if you’re out and about looking for a deal, Jennifer Waters, with “Market Watch” has a good list of “2011 Secrets to Finding the Best Holiday Deals”. Check it out.

Admire The Grinch

Finally, if you don’t want to appear to be a lemming running with the pack or “Bah, humbug!” is your motto, then there’s always “Do Nothing Day”, a movement to stop the madness of over-shopping and consumerism.

As for me? Well, love me or hate me, admire me or curse me, but I’ve had all my holiday shopping done since before Halloween, so if I do get a chance to venture out, it will be for gifts for number 1: Me.

Happy Shopping, everyone!

As the standard for smartphone cameras reaches 8MP, and is soon to go on up from there, the phenomenon of videos shot entirely on smartphones like the new iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy S II is only going to expand in the coming years. The consumer and the prosumer market for full-featured camcorders and HDSLRs is certainly where serious videographers go, but it sure looks likely that smartphone video is here to stay. Likewise, gadgets and accessories meant to enhance the shooting experience and the quality of video produced with these devices is a market segment that is scrambling to keep apace.

Hardware designed to augment smartphone cameras has been around nearly as long as the phones themselves. In the March, 2010 issue of Videomaker, we reviewed the Owle Bubo, a device designed for the iPhone and meant to enhance the stability of the smartphone as a video shooting camera. And devices like the Bubo are proliferating seemingly in lockstep with every new advance in smartphone camera technology.

Among the add-on accessories available to enhance smartphone video camera The Olloclip three-in-one lens adds the versatility of fish-eye and wide angle lenses to the iPhone. Similarly, the Kogeto Dot is a “snap-on” lens that together with a free app enables shooting 360 degree panoramic video. And for more in the iPhone lens category, Photojojo offers mounts that allow you to mount Cannon EOS or Nikon SLR lenses to the phone’s camera.

Zacuto offers the Zgrip which is designed to provide some stability to the notoriously shaky video that comes from shooting with a flyweight and relatively delicate smartphone. Additionally, Gary Fong offers an iPhone tripod adapter, providing another option for bringing stability to the smartphone camera world.

These are only a few of the products designed to help turn the tiny but capable cameras in today’s smartphones into surprisingly competent video devices. For more on smartphone videography, read Jay Montana’s article here.

The question for us, as always, is: what’s next? As the cameras in these devices continue to improve will we see more videos proudly proclaiming to have been “shot entirely on a smartphone.” Or, perhaps more likely, will the smartphone, outfitted with some cool camera accessories, become a fine tool for an introduction to video before progressing to the big guns? In the end, you all will be the ones to decide.