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!

Video production is such a wide and varied field, from hobbyist and amateur producers, to Lone Wolf business people and full-fledged production facilities. Is your interest in editing video production or video production service? Are you a wedding video producer or a newbie looking for advice? Are you making online video or educational video? Video producers come in all flavors and inquiring minds want to know: who ARE you? What kind of video work do you do? Let us know, we’re curious about what type of video you make, and for what purpose.

Recently, EarlC, one of Videomaker‘s moderators, posted a Videomaker Forums Survey looking to answer some questions about the type of video producer who reads Videomaker, either online or in a paper edition, and who reads our forums and who is active on them.

As many of you might know, Videomaker forums are chock full of advice from real video professionals working in the trenches – and best of all, they’re FREE! How many places can you get service for free, huh?!?! Read the rest of this entry »

Apple has been known for being very ‘i’ centric with it’s devices – often only allowing Mac-able applications to run on many of the products Apple sells. So we were all taken aback with the big news coming from Avid’s corner that Avid Studio editing software will now run on Apple’s iPad.

Avid is known for Big Processing and Blockbuster Movie editing, but a few years ago they acquired Pinnacle Studio, which was an entry level editing software. Avid changed its name to Avid Studio and re-wrote its code to be more like mainstream entry level systems and more stable than it was in the past. Now Avid Studio is being released to edit on an iPad and we think the user abilities have many possibilities. Read the rest of this entry »

How good is your video art – really? Good enough to stand alongside the likes of Warhol, van Gogh and Picasso? Here’s your chance to find out.

Ignored for years by art curators and critics,  still photo shooters and video creators alike are finally getting the recognition they deserve. Now that digital imaging has become so ubiquitous, the art world has finally accepted that what we do IS art – well, what some of us do – As we video “artists” know, many people just pick a camera off the rack, hit the red record button and flay the camera around and think THAT is capturing video, which it is, but we true artists know the difference, and now the art experts want us to prove it to them.

YouTube users have the chance to have their work featured among the art masters of the world at one of the world’s most renowned art establishments, the Guggenheim Museum.

Usually the curatorial process can take years to result in Guggenheim exposure, but winners of YouTube Play’s contest will be displayed at the Guggenheim in October this year.

Guggenheim and YouTube Play’s partnership was developed to uncover the “most creative video content in the world.” The Guggenheim will select a shortlist of submissions to be evaluated by an international jury of experts and celebrities from the worlds of art, design, film and video, with the final 20 videos on display at the Museum.

So do you think you’ve got what it takes – really? By being a Videomaker reader you KNOW video production, so you’ve already been cut from the pack and have your place amongst the elite - here’ s your chance to prove you’ve got the chops to create true video art, and get the recognition you deserve by one of the most prestigious art galleries in the world.

But don’t sit around contemplating this too long, the entry deadline is at the end of July.  Find out more at http://www.youtube.com/user/playbiennial for submission details.