Archive for the ‘video’ Category

Custom website video production services for small business owners are now offered as part of custom website design from the Small Business Resource Center. These dynamic and affordable videos and screencasts are perfect for product demos, site introductions, new product or service intros, company training, or even real estate virtual tours.

Watch this latest video tutorial about free methods to produce voice narration for your custom website video, and then consider the value of a permanent advertisement on your small business website.

Title: Video Narration Using Audacity
Play Time: 3 minutes, 14 seconds

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbmMdnrVk6E]

Imagine the positive first impression made with a custom video on your website. Combine voice, music, and video to enhance the visitor experience and memory retention of your message. Compare the price of custom videos that I produce to made for television ads, and the cost of adding a quality video on your website becomes very affordable.

Unlike print ad costs that are paid every month or week, your video ad reaches your audience forever without a recurring advertising budget.

Learn more about custom website video production services on my main site including custom video content tips for small business owners. Contact me for more details.

Here are steps used for creating custom videos for clients from an excerpt of my main site:

To maintain competitive pricing, the client will participate in steps 1 through 4 below, and the balance of the production steps 5 through 10 will be provided by the Small Business Resource Center, as follows:

1. Plan Production: Agree on video message and overall content presentation
2. Create Script: Write script for narration based on intro, main content, outro
3. Video Content: Collect graphic elements, photographs, and movie clips for video
4. Voice Content: Record the background voice narration as MP3 from the written script
5. Music Content: Choose background music from stereo music selections in my library
6. Arrangement: Assemble video elements to match the production plan and script
7. Edit Tracks: Edit the video, voice, and music tracks for quality and synchronization
8. Mix Tracks: Combine tracks with the video, voice, and music to create the final video
9. Production: Create and compress the video for maximum quality and smallest file size
10. Distribution: Present the video for online website display for your website or blog

Special Note on Copyright: All content contained in your video must be original material that does not violate any copyright laws. Client supplied material listed under video content above must be your exclusive copyright owned material only. The stereo music tracks for your video are selected by the Small Business Resource Center from my library of royalty free music that was purchased with full rights to use in the production of your video.

Read the video content guide on the main website, or view custom website video examples.

After experimenting with video recently, I decided visitors deserved a more personal introduction and a closer look behind the scenes. The bonus surprise is a series of rare photos of George Bush taken in 1988 when my wife and I met him in San Diego, California.

While watching, consider the value of a website video for your small business. Screencast and video production have been added to my list of services. Show people details of your small business products or services and provide a permanent ad or demo on your website.

Thanks for watching. Please contact me to discuss your small business needs for custom website design, custom blogs, matching artwork for print, or video production.

By popular demand, yesterday’s text tutorial for masking photographs in Xara Xtreme has been recorded as a video, so now visitors can watch and listen to me present the lesson. Play time is 5 minutes and 25 seconds. In that time I mask and clip a photo of my dog to remove the background, and then pull in a sample new background. Yes! Just 5 minutes!

The technique shown in my video tutorial is a fast method for cropping part of a photograph using Xara Xtreme. The amazing part is the effect starts with a rough outline using straight lines. This simple method should be easy for all skill levels including novice graphic designers.

You may view the photo masking tutorial on YouTube, or watch and listen here.

Practical ways to use a cropped photo include business cards and other printed materials, or for website graphics. My previous lesson for techniques using error diffusion to create clean transparent gif graphics may become a video tutorial soon.

After viewing and listening to a screenreader demonstration video by Victor Tsaran, I strongly suggest that readers visit www.last-child.com to observe first hand how blind or vision impaired persons experience the internet. Here is my blog comment left for Victor concerning his video:

Victor,

Your accessibility video was especially interesting and informative. As a website developer I downloaded and tested a screenreader in May 2007 in an ongoing effort to educate my small business clients and others to accessibility issues. Not being vision impaired, using a screenreader was daunting so doing the test run gave me a greater appreciation for the need to educate people about this subject. I’ve written accessiblility posts with advice and another with a freeware review on my blog at the following links:

Advice for testing websites for accessibility and Review of Thunder freeware screenreader.

Thank you for this great introduction to accessibility and screenreaders.

Jim

P.S. A new post and backlink to your video will be online later this evening.

Once my readers experience this must see screenreader video demo, I believe you will be very impressed with Victor Tsaran and how efficiently he navigates the internet. Very complex websites are easier to explore if the designer uses techniques that accommodate handicapped persons, vision impaired and others.