Random thoughts

Will Vincent

Will Vincent

Your input sought...

Hey all..

I'm slowly gearing up to launch my personal website, and I've been kicking around ideas of what exactly to DO with it over the past week as I think it will help me a bit when I actually sit down to do the design and whatnot. Obviously I'll have my resume and up to date list of films & theater work I've done, and I'm thinking some kind of blog though at the moment I don't particularly know what topic I would focus a blog on.

Two other ideas have bubbled up to the surface though that I am very seriously considering, and they are the reason for this post.

1st, a collection of tutorials, primarily aimed at post production techniques. I'm leaning toward a bunch of after effects tutorials because there are a huge amount of things that could be covered and while the video copilot tutorials are good, Andrew Kramer can't possibly cover everything. On the other hand, I feel like it might be good to cover other topics as well, editing tips & tricks, color correction, sound design, etc. Maybe even some pre-production stuff.

2nd, a filmmaking podcast. This is where I would probably cover a lot of the preproduction topics, and my thought would be that it would be an interview type show, where I would interview someone in indie film on a particular topic probably a couple times a month or something. I don't want to commit to an outrageous schedule at least initially, for fear of falling behind and loosing subscribers. Better to do one a month regularly, than try for one a week and fall behind in my opinion.. (still debating whether it would be an audio or video podcast)

Anyway on to my questions for you....

  1. Which of these would be more helpful to you, and would make you visit a site on a regular basis?
  2. Are there particular topics you would like to see addressed in either case?
  3. Do you have an idea that you think would be better/more beneficial to the indie community?

I think that'll cover it for now.. Look forward to your feedback. There's no point in putting out a website for it to be a worthless black hole, devoid of anything useful with no visitors. ;)
 
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Weasel. I'm already working on #2 (slowly but surely).
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Honestly, both your ideas seem pretty good.

I get most my AEFX tutorials from Creative Cow. Many have nice videos to go along with them. That what you looking at, or filling gaps in what they don't cover?

Personally, I think you should do a test how-to on colour-correction in both Prem & AEFX... simply 'cos I'm about to start learning how to do that. :blush:
 
The key is constantly updating your site and offering interactivity (comments, polls) and syndication links feeds so people can post them on their sites.
 
Zensteve said:
I get most my AEFX tutorials from Creative Cow. Many have nice videos to go along with them. That what you looking at, or filling gaps in what they don't cover?
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Both.. same kind of thing, and covering things they don't. But yes it would be video tutorials, much in the style of the videocopilot tutorials, nice large sized video that's easy to see what's being done. My one gripe about the creative cow tutorials is that the image size is very small.
 
indietalk said:
The key is constantly updating your site and offering interactivity (comments, polls) and syndication links feeds so people can post them on their sites.
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Well, I'm not sure about whether I want people reposting video tutorials, I'd much rather they come to my site to see them, but that's certainly something to think about..

I agree though, definitely have to have the interactivity. :)
 
There are different ways you can syndicate, you can offer just the title, or just the title and a blurb, ex:

New on Will Vincents Site:

How To Make A Greenscreen
This week Will shows us how to make a greenscreen with sixty bucks and some house paint.

They click and go to your site.
 
Hmm.. that's true.

I also suppose I should decide whether my personal site is really the best spot for this or if I should just syndicate the content on my personal site and set up a separate site for the tutorials. That seems like it might be a better option.
 
I really like the second idea, and the only advice I can honestly offer to that end is to remember that some of us may need to be spoken to like we're six years old.

I realize that sounds really stupid, but one of the problems I've run into trying to learn film is with people who don't understand that sometimes I need them to slow down a little when they're explaining something to me.
 
From my standpoint, I'd kinda like to see interviews with individuals who much like most of us, started out small and now operate a decent sized company (whether it be a film maker, or post-production company, etc) and to hear what mistakes they made and learned from. It might do some good to hear some motivation every now and then from a real "everyday" person, not someone from a Studio. Items such as how they figured out their pricing, marketing strategy, how they found their niche, etc, more about how they got to where they are today.
Tutorials are always nice of course. But with the library of tuts I already have, it's hard to even say what i'd like to see next, I still haven't mastered all the ones I've purchased from Creative Cow and Andrew Kramer.
I can always use a good tutorial on color correction. I haven't found any good ones that tell me why I would want to correct colors, there are a few vague ones about how to do it in AE.
Pre-Production would be great. I have no clue about Pre-Production. I'm actually going about things all backwards. I'm a Post Production guy who now decided to get into film making.
Watching the videos from fxphd makes me want to see videos of people who specialize in VFX such as using Massive. Not neccessarily tutorials, but maybe videos that offers the average person exposure to what other programs are available and used in feature films. I mean, what the hell is DaVinci and what is it used for, and who the heck would even think about getting into little known (to the average VFX tech) software like Massive, DaVinci, and other programs? I think most of us are unaware of all the cool little professional software that's being used unless we happen to stumble across an article or video. Sure, very few of us will ever buy or use these high end programs, but I personally still find it fascinating to see what is actually used to create awesome effects. But of course, that's just my personal interests, one small person. :) I already get a lot of advice from this Forum , YouTube, and I purchase a lot of "educational" videos. But, for me, I'm always looking for the successful little guy who does a lot of DIY, but also is professional in appearance. YouTube has a lot of DIY videos, but the productions look exactly like what they are, kids using their allowance to build what they need- nothing wrong with that of course, its what I do, whatever allowanec my wife gives me for that month. :) I'm interested in seeing the work you've done actually. So, again, I'm just one voice, but hope this helps in a way.
 
barnaclelapse said:
I really like the second idea, and the only advice I can honestly offer to that end is to remember that some of us may need to be spoken to like we're six years old.

I realize that sounds really stupid, but one of the problems I've run into trying to learn film is with people who don't understand that sometimes I need them to slow down a little when they're explaining something to me.
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Six? Hey, you're a year up on me! *L* I can agree with that. There are things I want to do, and I don't always know the correct termnology, so I'm like "I want to do this, with this and also this, but subtract this thing over here" meanwhile there's a one word term for it :) I find myself trying to remember a lot of stuff with lighting, and people I ask off the boards(on these boards are great), they give all this detailed stuff and I'm like "whoa, whoa! back up a few steps. What was step 1?"

Keeping it simple definitely helps :)
 
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