DOCTRID Video - Behind the Scenes

On October 16th, 2010 the first annual DOCTRID International Interdisciplinary Conference was launched after many months of planning.  To mark the inaugural launch of the conference a signing ceremony kicked off the conference in which Daughters of Charity and five universities (Dublin City University, Michigan State University, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University College Dublin, and University of Limerick.) signed a Letter of Memoranda launching the new Research Center for Intellectual Disability.

I had the great pleasure of being invited to this truly amazing conference to capture the story behind the conference and research institute in a short documentary.   As a one man documentary crew I had to capture the best possible video and audio with very modest equipment and time.  This filming was my first official documentary shoot, and it was a wonderful experience in both the personal interactions with the wonderful people involved as well as the technical challenge of filming and capturing the story of this monumental conference.

The Planning:

Since I knew going into this project it would be a one man job from start to finish I had to ensure that I planned as much of the shoot ahead of time as I could.  I was able to work with conference organizers ahead of time to get an understanding of the flow of the conference and who would and would not be available for comment.  Given the platform of the conference and the unique challenge of shooting such a highly mobile documentary on a one-day-one-take type of scenario I had to carefully choose my equipment.  To meet the needs of the documentary and to also stay within my shoestring budget I had to choose very carefully the right tools for this job.  More on the exact equipment used below.  For this job I decided to go with a DSLR rig to ensure that I would get the highest quality images and sound with the maximum mobility needed for me to move from one area of the conference to another and setup quickly to capture the interviews and b-roll footage.

The Equipment:

The equipment I chose to take for this shoot was really simple, as that was one of the constraints and challenges of having barely any budget to accomplish the shoot.   For this job I used a DSLR rig setup for highly mobile video and on board audio recording and a pocket full of class 10 SDHC cards and Nikon EL3e batteries.

The camera I used was my trusty Nikon D300s with the Zacuto Z-finder and Rode Shotgun Microphone.  This setup allowed me to both hand carry and tripod mount the camera to capture an amazingly clear high def image at 720p and as well as capture high quality stereo audio without having to use wireless mics.  The Zacuto Z-finder proved to be invaluable as it allowed me to ensure tack sharp pull focusing (since the D300s does not have auto focus on video) and magnified the LCD to 3 times its native size.  The only draw back to the Z-Finder I had to deal with was one I caused myself by not ensuring I had the correct mounting bracket to work in conjunction with my battery grip, so I had to loose the battery grip while filming which turned out not to be too much of an issue but did mean that I had to carry a bunch of batteries in my pocket.  The Rode Mic performed wonderfully, I am still amazed at audio quality that mic is able to capture, even at a distance.  Being able to rely solely on a shotgun mic for audio was crucial given the  fast paced, limited time I had with each interview, setting up each person with a wireless mic was not an option, nor did I have an audio controller to monitor the audio levels.  While it would have been ideal to run a seperate audio capture the entire time with controlled audio levels etc. it was just not in the cards for this shoot, and I can't say enough how happy I was with how the Rode Mic performed.

The Challenge:

the biggest challenge for this shoot was that I only had one shot to get it right.  Since this entire documentary was to be filmed on one day while the conference was going on live, I had to execute my filming plan without the chance to "redo" any of the shoots or interviews.  While looking back, there are about a million things I would do differently, but that always seems to be the case.  Fortunately I was able to get most of the interviews planned and I did not run into any technical difficulties.

The second biggest challenge was to edit all of the interviews I had gathered down to a reasonable 10-15 min time frame.  This of course, took many hours of red eyed editing late into the night.  After many hours and a few consults to the conference organizers I finally released the final version of the video.

I was thrilled to coordinate with the folks form Fegan Films in Ireland to supply them with a finished European version (PAL) of the video to be incorporated into a published DVD of the conference.  I am very proud to have a finished piece of film on a published DVD along with the fantastic work conducted by Fegan Films.  Hopefully this is the first of many more short subject documentaries to come.

For More information on DOCTRID conference please visit their offcial website at www.doctrid.com.

Moving forward with Web Accessibility

On May 2nd, 2011 MSU officially released the second coming of the Web Accessibility website which has been the central resource for MSU and the official Web Accessibility Policy since 2009.

The MSU Web Accessibility site is the forward facing public portal to the MSU Web Accessibility Policy that covers all University Web pages used to conduct core University business or academic activities.

What's New you ask?

In this second version of the site one of the top priorities was to include an entirely new section devoted to tutorials and how-to's on many of the most common accessibility issues when dealing with web pages, or other digital content, like pdf's, Microsoft Word documents, and video to name a few.

More content including video tutorials and example templates are currently in the works to be added to the site in the near future. Big Step Forward

The launch and revamp of this site is a big step forward in accessibility,  there are many issues and obstacles associated with creating accessible websites from lack of knowledge to limited resources.  The new Web Accessibility site offers a great resource for the MSU community and beyond to begin (or hopefully continue) to move towards making web content more accessible.

As one of the contributors and content authors of this site, it is a continued goal of mine to contribute valuable resources and tutorials on how to make content accessible.

Mobile Lecture Capture - Presentation

This is a video recording of my presentation to the Web Development Group at Michigan State University on February 19th, 2010. Presentation Part 1 of 2.

Presentation Part 2 of 2

Here is the original presentation, feel free to explore as you like.  I used Prezi to create and share this presentation.

Mobile Video Capture on Prezi

Online Course Enrollment at MSU College of Education

In 2008 my colleague Rob Malinowski and I took it upon ourselves to conduct an informal investigation into the trend of online course enrollment within the College of Education at Michigan State University.  What we found was a trend that supported our initial hypothesis that online course enrollments have increased in the last 5 years. Data Collection:

The data we collected was from the online course scheduling website provided by Michigan State University.  At the time of this study (Spring of 2008) we only had data that went back to fall of 2003.

Graphical Representation:

Once we had the data we were able to construct a series of graphs that showed the overall enrollment as well as the semester and course breakdown.  When viewed on the original site, the user can click through the various semesters to see a more detialed makeup of the enrollment per semester.

Results:

We found that:

Using the data collected we were able to build a detailed graph of enrollment broken down by semester, and then further identified by department offerings within the college. As seen in the graph below there is distinctive trend of increasing online course enrollments within the College of Education. Of the varying departments within the college, it appears as though the Teacher Education program is growing at the largest rate.

Future Study?

It is my intention to revisit this research in the coming year to further investigate the trend.  It would also be beneficial to broaden the scope to include more colleges across the university to get a more generalizable result to the university setting as a whole.

Original Website as presented in 2008:

MSU College of Education: Online Course Enrollment Trend

Cribs Video - MAET Style

CRIBS - This past summer during our summer Masters in Educational Technology (MAET) program we (the instructors) decided to shoot a quick MTV style cribs video for our participation in the last installment of the student run weekly news.  It has been a tradition for the instructors to contribute a small segment in the last week of the news, and since we weren't about to disappoint we grabbed my camera and started filming.

One of the challenges that our students face consistently in their professional capacities is making the most of the equipment they can get their hands on.  In many public schools this means doing what you can on a shoestring budget.  So in the spirit of leading by example we used an minimalist kit to shoot this video.  While we didn't go super low-tech we did keep it very simple, no lighting kits, only one camera, one lens and some creativity.  This video was shot entirely on a Nikon D300s DSLR with the 18-200mm VR Nikor Lens and a single Sony wireless lapel mic.  The video was all hand held, with the occasional shot being held steady by attaching the camera to a tripod and holding the legs of the tripod against out bodies.

Overall, the shoot took us about 1 1/2 hours to film (including all the goofing around) and then a quick overnight editing job.  Given the fact that we started filming around 7pm the night before the video was due we were very pleased with the final result.

If you are interested in the MAET Program at all check us out... Masters in Educational Technology

Or follow us on Twitter - MAET

Remix Reuse Recycle Quickfire!

Leigh and I challenged our year 3 MAET students to the infamous REMIX, REUSE, RECYCLE quickfire.  It was only fair that we too took the challenge our selves.  We dusted off the video decks and got to work...see if you can tell which learning theory we were trying to demonstrate?

Capture this! - behind the scenes

Lecture Capture?

What is a lecture capture you ask? Well, its exactly what you might guess, capturing a lecture. Now the trick is to capture the lecture professionally so you can use that information at a later time.

I recently returned from a lecture capture trip in Shanghai China for the 2009 Coca-Cola Food Safety Conference. I figure what better way to share the information about what lecture capturing is than to share my experiences first hand. Here are a few videos that will help explain what a lecture capture is.

Equipment Overview:

Behind the Scenes in Shanghai

There are many different ways you can capture a lecture or presentation. Typically the "low-end" consists of just a screen capture of the presentations with audio. Normally I am required to capture at a high production value so that includes the presentation slides, audio and external video that are then edited together to create a digital asset that can be used for sharing, dropped into online learning environments, or burned to DVD as training materials.

Typically to capture a lecture you need the following items

• Screen capture software (Screenflow, Camtasia, etc.)
• Audio recording device (hard line, wireless mic, built-in laptop mic, etc.)
• Video camera (stand alone camera, web cam, etc)
• Still camera (optional)

When on location, there is really only one rule...everything ALWAYS goes wrong. Your laptop will crash, your camera will freeze, your batteries will die, you will lose power, your tapes will jam, your hard drive will tear itself apart. So to prepare for the certain uncertantity of equipment failure I can offer three suggestions, all learned the hard way.

1. Use the high quality professional equipment where possible. This seems like a no-brainier but seriously, spend the money for high end gear, its expensive for a reason...it works, and it works better than the cheap stuff. This is especially true with microphones and cameras, do not skimp on those, buy the best your budget can afford.
2. Test your equipment and setup thoroughly, again this seems like an obvious statement, but in the heat of the moment when you are supposed to capture a once-in-a-lifetime speech or presentation and something goes wonky you better know how to set that white balance, or fix that audio level on the fly quickly without having to "figure it out".
3. Have a backup plan. I can promise you this, at some point something will go wrong, so plan ahead. You should have a plan in case each component fails. If your camera fails what will you do? If the laptop freezes up, what will you do? If your batteries drop on you half way through a presentation and they were supposed to be fully charged what do you do? You should have answers to all of these so WHEN they happen you will be prepared to handle it right there on the spot and you can minimize the "damage" of losing footage.

More and more often grants for workshops and conferences are coming with stipulations that the information given at these events be shared openly for the greater good. This is where a lecture capture comes in, with the lecture capture you can preserve the information presented so participants can get access to the information again, and so those who were unable to attend the actual event can still benefit from the information presented.

For this event, the content created will go directly on a website used for food safety training for industry professionals. You can see the agenda, pdf versions of the presentations at www.fskntraining.org once the produced lecture capture videos are finished they will be posted to that site.

If you are interested in learning more about these types of captures drop me a comment and I'll get back to ya.

-SML