We’re getting ready for some summertime fun with features to inspire video producers to get outdoors and shoot.  I thought you might like a look behind the scenes at our car mounts photo shoot.

From car mounts to citizen journalists, shooting video is becoming more mobile and easier to share. This summer Videomaker has several features showing you how to take action and get in the video producing game.

This is our Art Director, Susan Schmierer taking a picture of the Matthews PRO Car Mount System that we’re reviewing for the July issue.

Assisting Susan with reflectors and scrims is our Associate Tech Editor, Jackson Wong, and local reviewer Adam Vesely.

Usually we just shoot a picture of the product we review with a neutral white background, but for this review we thought it would be fun to show it in action.

So of course we had to get a cool car to shoot it with and there’s few cooler than a red Mini Cooper Countryman, courtesy of Adam Vesley.

The June issue is already finding it’s way into subscribers’ mailboxes and will be on sale at bookstores across the U.S. next week. We’re shipping the July issue, with the Matthews PRO Mount System reviewed, to the printer’s today… and it should be making it’s way to you by the end of June.

What else is in store for the summer time issues?

June has a 2-part series on your rights in public as a videographer – the first is on Citizen Journalism and how you can get your video on the news, and a second feature is on Copyright Registration, how to protect your copyrighted video once it’s “out there” in the Wild World of Web chaos.

We continue the look at your rights in public in the July issue with a continuing look at the very current actions in courts of ordinary citizens being arrested for recording public officials with our feature: Filming Police and Your First Amendment Rights. Are you protected?

Also, to continue look at protecting your assets, our August issue will have a feature on Watermarking your Video so you know when someone is using it online without your consent. Still shooters use watermarking tricks all the time, but how do video shooters do it? With metadata – we’ll show you how.

Finally, we’re looking at many ways you can profit with your video production, whether you are already in the video business or are a weekend hobbyist with our popular Profit Making column. June features profiting through the largely expanding Action and Extreme Video market, July takes a look at How to Find Clients and August examines the Real Estate Video Market – while the Real Estate market is dismal, marketing videos to the RE market is finally getting some acceptance, now is the time to jump into the game!

All that and more, stay tuned – it’s all inside!

In honor of CTIA 2012, we want videographers to be more aware of wireless terms, some you may know, but the less you need to glance at glossaries, the better. These come from a few CTIA pages on consumer information,

1. Federal Communications Commission (FCC): An independent U.S. government agency responsible with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. This includes all aspects of the wireless industry such as devices, policies, programs and outreach initiatives.

This is a big one, this national agency regulates pretty much anything that TV and radio stations play. The inclusion of the wireless industry means, that the Wi-Fi camera you just got, must follow the agency’s guidelines. The FCC is also the agency responsible for setting the standards for many aspects of video, particularly, which frequencies your devices are able to use.

2. Filters: Most wireless carriers provide parents with the ability to filter Internet content accessed on a wireless phone on their network.

Not to be confused with many other definitions of filters, the International CTIA WIRELESS filter is generally one that provides you squeaky-clean Internet videos, text, and photos that are mainly concerned with the well-being of your device. These filters will often appear in the form of software, and while there is software with filters for video, our favorite filters are the physical ones that will modify the images you’re capturing with your little devices.

3. Interoperability: The ability of a network to coordinate and communicate with other networks, such as two systems based on different protocols or technologies.

Interoperability is really a measure of how well systems can communicate or share. This should be familiar territory for any videographer that’s had to work with containers or codecs extensively. What we’re looking for is simply being able send video from one device to another, in different areas – the smoother, the better in this case.

4. LTE (Long Term Evolution): The next-generation network beyond 3G. In addition to enabling fixed to mobile migrations of Internet applications such as Voice over IP (VoIP), video streaming, music downloading, mobile TV and many others, LTE networks will also provide the capacity to support an explosion in demand for connectivity from a new generation of consumer devices tailored to those new mobile applications.

Largely dependent on which is available to you, 3G or 4G, LTE is tagged onto 4G since it is the most current network and is committed to supporting expansions in the realm of video delivery. Video will get further versatility as long as LTE can keep up.

5. Packet Data: Information that is reduced into digital pieces or ‘packets’, so it can travel more efficiently across networks, including radio airwaves and wireless networks.

Packets and Packet Data are like the media cards you may use with your camera, but on a minuscule scale. Rather than uploading a 2GB video all at once, parts of it are sent over time, thus, you get buffering. This can really help make video smooth, just give the packets time to move.

6. Smart Phone: Wireless phones with advanced data features and often keyboards. What makes the phone “smart” is its ability to better manage data and Internet access.

Indeed, we have now learned what makes you smart, being able to manage data and access the Internet, no wonder those fifth graders do so well! In all seriousness, being able to access the Internet opens a host of video applications since so much video gets downloaded and uploaded every minute – 60 hours and that’s just on YouTube. Now you may consider an app that lets you edit video or provide a viewfinder for your sportcam. When it comes to data management, there’s likely a very high percentage of videos and films that would fail as early as pre-production if not for such smart phones.

7. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol): VoIP is a two-way communication service that can allow users to communicate via voice or video. Based on IP technology, VoIP is used to transfer a wide range of different type traffic.

Webcam-ing may be forever tied to VoIP so just know, if you use FaceTime or Skype, you are using VoIP, and clearly it has already made great improvements from its early days in the mid 90s.

Keep checking our video news blog for the latest from CTIA 2012, and we’ll keep searching for the most notable video developments the event has to offer.

Another Videomaker workshop is under way this weekend and this small group will get lots of one-on-one training. This weekend’s offerings are the Basic Production Workshop and the Intensive Lighting Workshop.

Attendees often come from all over the world come to beautiful Chico, California for fun and extensive training for 3 days at the Videomaker Headquarters. (What we like to call VMHQ for fun)

The Basics of Video Production workshop attendees spend the entire 3 days shooting a short film from start to finish, taking the beginning videographer into several areas of production including pre-planning, audio delivery, shooting, post production and lighting with hands on instruction from the Videomaker staff and certified instructors.

Workshop attendees use our equipment and team up with others in the class, sharing roles from Director, Shooter, Lighting Gaffer, etc. This weekend’s workshop attendees will be working with Canon XL2s  and 1D Mark IV, Sony’s NEX VG-20, Adobe CS5 editing suite on HP EliteBook 8760w workstations , and lights, mics and accessories from Videssence, LitePanels, iKan, Manfrotto, Marshall Electronics, Sennheiser, Azden, and much much more.

The Intensive Lighting class will learn the basic 3-point lighting setup, of course, but also more intense specialty lighting techniques like lighting for greenscreen, lighting products, day-for-night tricks, using reflectors, gels and DIY setups, working with Magic Hour and specialty lighting for people.

We started doing a Show-n-Tell session a while back and it’s been a great hit. We have all this gear that many of our attendees read about but often never get a chance to see in person.  Unless you live in a major metropolitan area with brick-and-mortar production gear stores like B&H Photo, you can’t find most of our specialized equipment at your average electronic store. Attendees get to see products we’ve reviewed and take notes and pictures and get a hands-on feel of some specialty gear they’d like to find more about like under-water housing, suction-cup car mounts, and all sorts of lights, mics and stabilizers.

If you want to learn more about Video Production, you definitely need to check out the Videomaker Workshops! We have another workshop coming up in a few weeks in June, and, as always, space is limited.

This workshop also covers the Basic of Production and offers and Intensive Editing workshop running concurrently. [meaning you can’t take both at the same time.]

If you take the June class or are considering the September class, come early for our popular Thursday Night Market event in Downtown Chico  is a weekly fun spring-to-fall event that’s like an outdoor Farmer’s Market combined with a “Small Town Main Street” feel that includes music, food, craft fair and kiddie activities. Mainstreet America doesn’t get better than this!

Below is the schedule for the rest of 2012 – Hope to see you soon!

June 1-3, 2012
The Basics of Video Production
Intensive Editing

September 14-16, 2012
The Basics of Video Production
Intensive Lighting

October 12-14, 2012
The Basics of Video Production
Advanced Shooting

December 7-9, 2012
The Basics of Video Production
Intensive Editing

Spotlight: HP Z1 – Workstation

We’ve been watching this one for a while, and a good thing  since it’s going to change the layout of lots of video editor’s desktops. The Z1 brings the upgradeability of a workstation to the desktop, and an all in one desktop at that. Building from a good base is a life lesson, and the Z1 understands it with two of it’s three available processors as a quad-core Intel Xeon processor that is usually reserved for the highest-end computers.

Since the largest thing you’ll see in this computer is the monitor, HP provides a 27-inch display that can tilt horizontally and snap open to allow your to add your upgrades. Cool features also include a Blu-ray slot-load writer, 1080p webcam and SATA storage up to 2TB and 300GB SSD.

In case you missed our first post on the Z1 or are interested in how the announcements sound when they become presentations – click here.

Spotlight – Autodesk Smoke 2013 Post-production Software

Visual effects and Autodesk seem to go together extremely well, generally, Autodesk Smoke has been used by only top level professionals, but now Smoke 2013 is shaking that notion. The redesign from node to layer-based editing is one part of this overhaul, and the brightest part of the deal, what was once $15,000, is now $3,500. This still puts it on the high-end of post-production software, but it is much more feasible. By combining the node system within the tracks and layers, Smoke retains its powerful compositing.

There is plenty of ability to work on 3D, including editing, titles, logos and complete lighting control. Since many more people will have the opportunity to try this software out, you may be able to see it for yourself.

Best accessory – Roland R26 Portable 6 Track Audio Recorder

We know first hand how useful handheld field recorders are, and the R-26 is sure to be a valuable tool for any videographer. Being able to record six tracks may seem like overkill for video, but it’s actually three stereo and will make it great for interviews and still allow for recording an on-camera mic or ambient mic. The recordings come in as WAVE/BWF or MP3 and use SD cards. As for inputs to compliment the built-in XY mic, the R-26 sports two phantom powered combo XLR and TRS jacks as well as a plug-in powered miniature mic.

The body of this recorder has two prominent knobs for adjusting volume, which is much preferred to camcorders or other recorders that use an on screen button or side wheel. Overall, the R-26 screams efficient functionality, and sometimes, that’s just what we want.