This is professional advice on lighting-you don’t want to miss it!

I am jazzed!! Larry’s book, How To Shoot Better Camcorder Videos-Help From the Hollywood Pros, is now for sale on Amazon!

It’s gotten excellent reviews and ratings, so they’ve selected it for their site. Yeehaa!

Here’s the link.

Here’s Part Two of Lawrence’s video tips articles – this one on how to record the best possible audio with your camcorder.

Beginning today, I’ll start presenting a series of five of his expert articles, as my holiday gift to you. I want you to have the best (and least-complicated) information, so you can grab your camcorder and shoot with confidence!

If you’d like a copy of his excellent book, “How to Shoot Better Camcorder Videos – Help From the Hollywood Pros,” he has priced it to be within everyone’s reach.

I’ve actually been helping authors, actors, and others, get (and stay) organized for a few years now.  An author friend said, “You could write tips and a book on organizing,” and I thought, “Well yeah, I could.”  So I’m in the process of putting together a book on organizing for creative people.  Since we’re all creative in one form or another, I think I’ve pretty much got all the bases covered.

If you have any organizing tips you want to share, email them to me at woyt@earthlink.net.  If I use them in the book, I’ll give you credit and we can share reciprocal links. (Assuming your site doesn’t deal with hate, porn, or other stuff like that.)

In the organizing spirit (which we all need especially for the holidays),    see my page.

Also, to keep everything less stressful (and stay organized) in this hectic season, I have to tell you about a book I bought.

I know a guy who’s an Apple-certified trainer and editor. He’s edited trailers for Disney.  He’s been the Director of Photography on many shoots.  He wrote a manual called, “How To Shoot Better Camcorder Videos-Help from the Hollywood Pros.”

I was able to preview a few pages, and knew I’d better buy it BEFORE all the festivities start.  This book will help you create shots and movies that people will enjoy. And because it’s been a tough year for a lot of people, he’s keeping the price low for awhile.  But don’t think that this book isn’t worth much much more.

Get more video info!

If you get it, let me know what you think.

Tria

If you’re an actor, and you want to put together a demo reel to show casting people, hopefully you have already recorded at least a couple of scenes. If you haven’t, you need to find a good scene or two, plus a scene partner, and work on getting them honed to a commercial performance level. Find someone knowledgeable (preferably, a director or acting coach) who can watch you and give suggestions on how to improve your performance. If you don’t have/can’t find a scene partner, work up a couple of monologues.

I can personally recommend a fine acting coach-her name is Jeannie Hartman, her website is:

http://www.jeannehartmanactorsdetective.com/

Once you’re ready, collect all your source material (DVDs, VHS tapes, etc. if you have recorded stuff, copies of your scenes/monologues if you don’t) and find an editing studio. If you are recording material, you need a studio that can also put you on-camera and tape you. In the Los Angeles area, the studio I know of that tapes actors’ audition scenes inexpensively is EditPlus. If you’re somewhere else, sorry, I don’t know who does that in your area.

For anyone who is editing: the previous paragraph applies – gather up all your source material that you have recorded on. Look through them and make yourself a “paper edit”- a list of scenes you want and where they begin (Example: “Approx. 13 minutes from the beginning”, “1:34:52″ if you have a miniDV tape and you can see the time). If you’re not sure about including something, note that, and discuss it with the editor. She/he can help guide you to make the finished product look its best.

If you have pictures or videos that you want to include, make sure you bring them. The more prepared you are, the more efficient your editing session is. That saves you time, which of course, saves you money.

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