Video Killed the Radio Star, But Made My Library Awesome!

I attended this session by Shawn McCann, Catherine Baird and Krista Godfrey of McMaster University because a few months ago I put in a request for funding to hire two summer "student videographers" at the Angus L., and I was curious to hear about their experiences. (They made their videos themselves, but did recruit students to participate.)

Much of what they covered amounts to "video 101" fare -- storyboarding, shooting out of sequence, basic lighting continuity and the importance of good sound quality. Although I knew this stuff already, it was good to hear in a pared-down way. A few points that are worth noting:

• The librarians and staff they chose to "star" were those that students might run into at the library.
• They mostly shot at times when the library was closed to avoid sound interference.
• They made an intro sequence that could be appended to all the videos.
• All their videos are under one minute in length.
• They chose to use memes that are known to anyone who uses social media (pirates, ninjas, zombies).
• They ended up purchasing a Canon Vixia HD camera, and were happy with the results (it records to SD card, which makes it easy to transfer footage).
• They used the lights from their digi-lab.
• They used the SoundSoap application for cleaning up sound, Audacity for audio mixing.
• They recommend starting to think about promotion at the very beginning (they only tackled this later on). Make sure to have a target audience selected (e.g. first-year students).
• Using local music is a good way to promote local bands!