A self-critique of a self-shot video project

Right before the start of spring semester, I was charged with creating a short instructional film that succinctly explained our COVID safety guidelines to students. This was my first time doing a multi-scene film shoot where I was both the filmmaker and the one being filmed. I shot the entire video solo (although my son held my laptop as a teleprompter). I wanted to record (pun intended) and share what I learned.

The Final Project

Gear I Used

Camera: Sony A6000 mirrorless camera
- Manual mode, Wide Metering, Custom white balance, Wide Focus
Lens: Sony 35 1.8 . Used to shoot the talking head shots
Lens: Sony 16-50 : Used to shoot a wider angle shot with me sitting in a study area (1:13), also me at the book pickup location (2:21)
Audio: Lavalier Mic plugged into my Android phone with Recording App
Tripod
Laptop: Used PowerPoint as a teleprompter
Video Editor: Hitfilm Express (free or very low cost)
- This free video editor is a great tool. It allows you to automatically sync audio from two separate sources.

Gear that would have been nice to have

Lights
- A few of the shots indoors would have benefited from video lighting, rather than just relying on the available light. Our 2nd floor of the library is quite poorly lit. Lights would have made it much easier to match exposure and white balance across all of the inside clips.
White balance card
- I used a piece of white paper to set my custom white balance with each shot. I’ve since purchased a white balance card set.
An external monitor
- Having an external monitor to frame, setup and review shots would have helped me identify areas to improve the shot.

What I learned

I learn something new with each project. Here’s what I picked up this time around.

Working with a short deadline

I was given the assignment on Monday, had a script and shot list ready by Tuesday, and filmed and edited on Wednesday. The video was posted to YouTube on Friday, which was my deadline for inclusion in a news story that would be emailed to all students in the campus newsletter. If I had more time, I would have returned to reshoot a few of the clips.

Shooting earlier

The outside shots at the beginning of the video were bit overexposed. I shot this sequence around 9:30, and this was actually the first sunny morning in many days. If I had filmed the outside shots closer to 7:30 or 8 while the sun was lower, or if it had been a bit more cloudy (as it had for the past week) the exposure would have been a bit easier to get right. In the spring or fall, the leaves from the nearby trees would have helped to diffuse the light as well.

A screenshot of a video frame of the author, shot outside, in front of the library. — The left side of my face is very bright. Shooting earlier while the sun was lower (or on a cloudy day) would have helped.

Correcting exposure

In addition to the outside shots described above, I was also not happy with the shot in the book stacks. I was facing a window, which was ideal, but the shot was still very much over exposed. The cause of this did not seem obvious at the time, but I realized when editing the video what I did wrong. When framing my shots, I had my son stand in for me to frame the shot and set exposure. He was wearing a very dark blue shirt. I wore a light blue shirt. Setting the exposure using him in the frame caused me to be overexposed during the actual recording. Next time we’ll wear similar colors, and I will shoot multiple takes.

I also set the camera light metering to “wide.” While this worked okay for most of my shots, the outside and book stacks shots were overexposed. Next time I will use center-weighted metering for the shots where I am in center of the frame.

The author, Chad, in a video clip that is overexposed — In this shot I was facing a window, which was ideal. Setting the metering to center-weighted would have helped me to not be overexposed. The white balance was also a bit orange in this clip as well.

Staying in focus

For the shot in front of the book self-pickup area (2:12) I used the Sony 16-50 kit lens as I needed a wider angle for the shot. Unfortunately, the lens decided to focus on the book shelves behind me and the sign to my left, resulting in me being a little fuzzy and out of focus. It’s not bad, but still noticeable. Next time I will set the focal point manually, though this is challenging to do when you are filming yourself.

The author, Chad, in a video clip that is slightly out of focus — In this frame, the books over my left shoulder are in focus. This resulted in both the sign and me being a bit fuzzy. Next time I will set the focal point manually.

The Final Take(away)

Unfortunately the video never made it into the all-student email newsletter. The video is posted on our “safe study” page on our website, and has been viewed about 70 times so far. Nevertheless, I learned from the project and got to practice my filmmaking skills. As a matter of fact, I applied what I learned just last week, where I had the opportunity to film a colleague. Learning from prior successes and failures helps to make future projects better. It’s also a lot easier to film someone else!

March 5, 2021

How to improve recording quality in your Screencast-o-matic videos

the author, Chad, giving two thumbs up for Screencast-o-matice

Screencast-o-matic is a very affordable software that you can use to create screencasts, screen recordings, and instructional videos. I’ve used SOM for years and highly recommend it. It’s pretty easy to use and most folks get up and running pretty quickly. However, some users may find that their first few videos aren’t as good as they expected them to be. Here are some tips to improve the quality of the recordings.

Use Maximum Resolution Available

If you plan to upload your video to YouTube, Vimeo, or any other online host, it’s likely that viewers will want to view your video in full screen mode, especially if you are recording a web page with text. If you record at a low resolution, then the video will be fuzzy when viewed full screen.

If you’re recording on a laptop, check the maximum resolution of your laptop screen in your computer’s display settings. Many business class and inexpensive personal laptops often have maximum resolutions such as 1366 x 768, which is not Full HD. If you can only record on a laptop, make sure you use the “Full Screen” setting in Screencast-o-matic (both full screen . While full screen is only a few pixels more than the 720p setting, you’ll be capturing as much resolution as possible. It will still be a bit fuzzy when played full screen, but perhaps not as bad since you are capturing every available pixel on your screen.

the Fullscreen option in Screencast-o-matic — Select “Fullscreen” for optimal resolution

Use an external monitor or TV

If you have one of those laptops with a low-res screen, you can increase the resolution by plugging into an external monitor or TV. As an example, my laptop only has a max of 1366 x 768, but when I plug into an external monitor, the resolution is 1920 x 1080 (full HD). This means that if I record on the external monitor in full HD, Screencast-o-matic captures the monitor resolution and the video will not be fuzzy when played on full screen mode on YouTube.

Once you plug into an external monitor, check and adjust your display settings. You can probably increase the resolution to full HD (1920 x 1080) on most modern monitors.

Get a better camera

If you are using an inexpensive or business class laptop, your webcam probably stinks. It might have a maximum resolution of 720p, that is okay for Teams and Zoom meetings, but it just won’t cut it if you want crisp on-camera video of yourself.

Use an external webcam

One option is to use an external webcam. My preferred brand is Logitech. They have a variety of webcams at different price points, but just choose one that is Full HD — you don’t need 4k for instructional video. I use the Logitech C920. I especially appreciate that you can use either the LogiCapture or G-Hub software to customize your camera settings. This keeps you from looking like a Smurf if the white balance is off, or like you are in a witness protection program due to poor camera exposure.

Customize your camera settings with Logitech G-Hub

Use your phone’s video camera

If you don’t have a better webcam (or they are sold out due to a global pandemic and everyone’s working from home) you can also use your phone to record yourself. I suggest using a tripod to hold your phone and avoid shaky footage. While most phones have both a front-facing (selfie) camera and a rear-facing camera, the rear-facing camera is generally a better camera and offers a higher maximum resolution. While it may seem easier to see yourself while recording on the selfie camera, you’ll have much better results using the rear-facing camera on your phone. Make sure you set the camera settings to Full HD (1920 x 1080).

Once you record your video, you need to get the video file on the computer that has Screencast-o-matic installed. The file will be too large to email, so you’ll need to either transfer via USB or a cloud service (OneDrive, Google Drive, etc. ). Use the Import button in Screencast-o-matic to import the file into the editor. If you are importing the phone file into a video you recorded of your computer screen, , you will probably need to adjust the audio volumes to match since they are from two different audio sources.

Use an external microphone

Typically the mics on our laptops are not very good. If you want to get better audio, I suggest using an external microphone. This can be as simple as a conference call headset or your phone’s earbuds. If you want to get more elaborate, the Blue microphones are highly recommended and easy to use.

If you are using an external webcam, that audio is generally better than you computer’s mic, but it will pick up extra noises around the house/office.

If you want to capture better audio when using your phone’s video camera, I suggest either a lavalier mic or a phone-specific shotgun mic.

Check out some tutorials

I hope this post helps you improve the quality of your videos. I’ve found the Screencast-o-matic tutorials useful in building my skills as well. Finally, check out other blog posts on home office and video production setups. I especially like this post that offers suggestions for setups at different price points. Good luck!

November 12, 2020

The benefits of using Microsoft Teams for research consultations and chat reference

Over the past few weeks, I’ve conducted 8 scheduled research consultations and answered 2 chat questions via Microsoft Teams. This is approximately 30 percent of the 27 patron reference transactions that I have personally recorded since school resumed on March 23. While my overall numbers are down likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the interactions that I have had with students, faculty, and other patrons have been positive and fruitful.

After each Teams encounter I’ve tried to reflect on how the session went, what worked, and what did not. What follows are my general observations about the benefits of using Microsoft Teams for research consultations and general chat reference.

You know the names of everyone you meet with

Since Microsoft Teams requires everyone to have an account, and since accounts are tied to the university, that means I have seen the names of every student I’ve talked to. From a direct chat perspective, this means that I’m not talking to an anonymous person who is on my guide page using my chat widget. I feel like this makes the interaction seem more like a conversation between two actual people, rather than just between me and some random person on the Internet.

Names have also been useful in meetings. Many of my consultations have been with teams of 4-6 students. For in-person consultations, I typically only know the name of the person who reserved the appointment with me. Once the team shows up, I have no idea who is who, and no way of keeping track of all of the names. With Teams, since everyone in the Teams meeting has a name, I can actually use their names when responding to questions. For me, this made the consultations more personal, even if they are at a distance.

Teams gives you a virtual paper trail

During many of my consultations, I would share links I found on the web, quick screenshots, links to searches, files, or additional search terms in the chat. Because I did not record any of the consultations, whatever I put in the chat (which is perpetual) could be referenced later by the students.

Also, because the chat creates a perpetual connection between student and me, the student can immediately reach out with follow up questions. This has actually happened on two occasions so far. Because I can see the chat history, I can more easily recall what I discussed with the student the last time. With conventional chat programs, in person consultations, and even email, the student may vividly remember the last interaction they had with me, but it is very difficult for me to remember ever encounter (especially since many are so similar).

You can follow up very easily

As is the way with many encounters, I sometimes forget to tell a patron or group something during a consultation. Also in many cases, I get similar questions over a period of time, and during that time period I discover new ways or different sources to answer the similar questions. As a result, the students I talked to a few days ago may not get the same answer as someone I talked to this morning. Microsoft Teams enables me to follow up with them if I remember or learn something that can help them. With in-person consultations I don’t keep detailed notes, so follow up is difficult. With my experience with Teams thus far, I have been successful in sending links in the meeting chat later, and the students appreciated the follow up.

By the same token, Teams makes it easy for the student to follow up with questions later as well. I have had two students in the past week chat with me on a few different times after our initial consultation. Because I had a record of our previous conversations in the chat, I was more prepared to give them help to their specific projects.

You can let the patron drive

For most of my consultations I have been sharing my screen with the patrons. However recently I had a student share her screen with me and I was able to tell her where to go in the database. This worked well with this particular student as she was able to build a report and a map on her computer, rather me demonstrating and her trying to replicate the steps later.

I also found this exercise useful as I was able to view a shared screen from the user’s point of view. Watching this student share her screen has helped me slow down and be more intentional about describing what I am doing while sharing my screen with others.

You can record your steps

In one of my most recent consultations, I used the “Record Meeting” feature in Teams to record my screen. This automatically generates a Microsoft Stream video file that the student could then refer to later. I was demonstrating one of our more advanced databases, and I figured the student might appreciate referring back to the video if needed. I did tell the student that I was going to record the next part of our meeting together, which I think is a good practice.

What’s next

As we think about work and life post-pandemic, I have been thinking about how I will continue to incorporate Teams into my normal workflow (Will we return to normal? What will the new normal be?) Here’s some quick thoughts:

Continue offering Teams consultations. Most of the students that I typically help live either on campus or close to campus, so in-person consultations have been the norm. However, I have thought about making Teams meetings an option, or may consider offering evening consultation hours which I would staff from home via Teams.
Promote the Teams chat over my general Libchat. Since Libchat is web-based, I’m pretty guilty of failing to log in or out. I am in Teams all day every day. It’s just easier and the notifications are better than Libchat.
Hold drop-in online office hours via Teams. I can create a meeting in Teams and link to it from my guides. Students could come and go during the time slot to ask questions.
Record in-person sessions in Teams. This would enable the patron or student to refer back to what we discussed later. This could be especially useful for those consultations that require multiple advanced search techniques and sources.

What about you? Have you used Teams effectively? Please leave a comment and share your experiences with others.

April 13, 2020

Improving my WFH video tutorial setup for better audio and video quality

Chad is talking on camera to his webcam while shooting a video

My first videos in my new work-from-home basement office were a bit rushed, so I didn’t have much time to work out all of the details before recording the research sessions for my students. While the content was okay, I wasn’t happy with the quality of the audio and video. I watched a few YouTube videos and some Lynda training, and have adapted some ideas to improve my video tutorial setup.

The picture above shows my latest setup when making videos at home.

Blinds are open to let in natural light. I make adjustments depending on time of day, weather it is sunny or cloudy, etc.
Logitech C920 Webcam attached to a chair with a Joby Gorillapod
Blue Yeti microphone (recently acquired) on the stool just below the mic
Left monitor shows Screencast-o-matic used for recording
Right monitor shows Logitech G Hub used for adjusting webcam settings (more on this in a later post)

Before making the changes

Here’s what the video looked like before I made the changes outlined above.

Webcam sitting on top of monitor, making adjustments of the camera angle a little limiting
Background is a mess, though reflects reality of my life at that moment. (I have to day the guitars on the wall do make me look cooler, I think?)
Blinds are open and overhead lights are on, but the webcam was on “Full Auto”. As a result, I am a bit blue in the video
Audio recorded with a headset — not necessarily bad, especially if you’re going for the “air traffic controller” look. However, the audio was “tinny” sounding
Nice flannel shirt

After

Webcam at eye level and a bit closer to the subject. (supposedly this creates more trust with the audience)
Less cluttered background — No Legos on the floor, open bathroom doors, or sons playing Xbox photobombing me
Background picture, lamp and plant are not distracting, but still provide something to provide some depth to the video image
Blinds open to the left, overhead light on, two lamps behind me. This makes the video less pixelated.
Webcam settings (exposure, white balance, saturation, etc.) were tweaked manually (more on this in another post)
I still need to work on the white balance. While I’m not as blue as the “Before” shot, I am a bit too warm in this shot.
I’m not doing any color correction (yet) as I just edit in Screencast-o-matic, so I need to get the white balance as close as possible when I record
I also feel like I need a key light for off to the right and behind the camera to help balance the light from the window
Different day, same flannel shirt
Same shiny head, too

Video resources that helped

Here’s a selection of the videos that gave me ideas for improvements.

Lynda.com Training

YouTube

April 6, 2020

Using my son’s toys for a green screen

Today my son and I experimented with his Kaskey Kids Football Guys field fabric for potential use as a green screen. The results look promising and may open up some more options for my videos.

The fabric seems to work fine as a green screen in Screencast-o-matic. I just need to combine a few of the fields and hang them up somehow.

Chad with is son in the background holding up a green screen

This could be fun. More later.

April 3, 2020

How to add a Microsoft Teams chat link to your Libguides profile box

Last week I added my Microsoft Teams chat link to my Libguides profile box. Since this required some different code than just adding a Teams chat link to a general guide, I thought I would share it here. Maybe you’ll find it helpful.

The code

<style>
#teamschat {
  background: #FFFFFF;
  border: 1px solid #545AAA;
  border-radius: 4px;
  color: #333333;
  font-size: 18px;
  font-family: 'Barlow', 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  padding: 8px 20px;
  cursor: pointer;
}
</style>

<div id="teamschat"><a href="https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=boeninge@ohio.edu&message=Hi%20Chad%20I%20have%20a%20question"><img alt="Click to Chat with Chad in Microsoft Teams" src="https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/7927/images/teamslogosmall.png" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; float: left;" /></a>

<a href="https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=boeninge@ohio.edu&message=Hi%20Chad%20I%20have%20a%20question" target="_blank">Microsoft Teams Chat</a> 
</div>

<br />

How to customize

Copy the code above.
Navigate to your LibApps profile.
Scroll down to the “Other Widget Code” box and paste in the code.
Change users=boeninge@ohio.edu to your Teams email account. You will need to change this in two places . As much as I love your students, faculty, and patrons, I am sure they would rather talk to you. 😉
Change the “Chad” to your name. You’ll need to change this in two places (unless your name is “Chad”) . My other Teams post has more details about changing your introductory chat text.
If you know a little CSS, you can modify anything within the <style> section at the top of the code to change font, size, etc.

Let me know if this was helpful and if it worked for you.

Good luck!

March 31, 2020

Outtakes and Bloopers

I tried to make a video yesterday but couldn’t quite get it together. This was the result. I hope you find humor and can laugh at yourself even in frustrating and uncertain times.

In other news, I got a new mic and it sounds great!

March 27, 2020

Research @ Home: Delivering asynchronous library instruction with web video during the Covid-19 pandemic

Chad Boeninger business research thumbnail

With the abrupt move to a blend of synchronous and asynchronous online learning for business students for the remainder of the semester, the faculty asked me to record a video for my research session. Here’s my writeup of how this worked out. Perhaps others will find this useful as they develop their own remote teaching plans.

Under normal circumstances, on Monday I should have delivered my business research instructions sessions from my office to over 400 students in the classroom, as I have done in the past with Microsoft Teams. However, with students not on campus and me working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, things are definitely not normal.

The Video(s)

Instead of one long, rambling video, I created six videos to divide the content into more manageable chunks. Creating six different videos also allows me to more easily recycle and embed the videos on different pages in my guides. Shorter videos means that students can watch a few videos at a time, and my YouTube analytics seem to confirm this behavior.

Usually I like to do a personal on-camera introduction with each of my videos where I introduce the content. This is important for me so that students recognized the face (and the expert) behind the voice on the screencast. Since these videos were all part of the same page, I decided to just record a general introduction to students for the first video, where I give them a little pep talk and discuss ways to connect for research help. The other four videos are demonstrations of how specific databases can be used for the personal fitness industry project. I posted all videos on a page for the specific guide I made for the semester project. The final 6th video was another pep talk vlog encouraging them to ask questions if they needed help.

I recorded and edited the videos with Screencast-o-matic using a Jabra Evolve 65 headset for audio. The audio is not as good as with the Blue Yeti mic, but it’s serviceable. You may notice a slight lip sync issue with the on-camera shots, but I believe I have that figured out for the next time. I created the custom images for the videos using YouTube templates in Canva ( the free version).

a screenshot of page with instructional videos — A screenshot of my page with the videos.

Finally, I created six simple quiz questions that faculty assigned in Blackboard. All told I have about four hours in the creation of the guide page, the videos, and the quiz questions.

Did they watch?

Well, right now, the jury is still out as my analytics are a bit confusing. According to Google Analytics, the guide page has 379 unique views since Monday. That seems to line up with the total number of 350 students, plus a few serendipitous hits from other people (perhaps faculty?). I’m basing my analytics on the past two days, as the quiz was due in Blackboard by midnight last night.

Here’s what YouTube Analytics says:

The top video was viewed 280 times.
The least viewed video was viewed 63 times, but it didn’t contain critical content. It was more of a “you got this” and “I’m here to help” vlog and was posted late in the day on Monday.
Average percentage viewed was 72.81. This is not bad considering that my channel lifetime average for view percentage is around 40 percent.
I’m a little disappointed that my “Analyze the Local Fitness Market” video (in purple below) did the poorest of the bunch. I think the resource that I demonstrate, SimplyAnalytics, is the most important tool for their project. This was my longest video at ten minutes in length, while the others were less than five.

a screenshot of YouTube Analytics, with data described in the bullets above

Takeaways

Unfortunately the data does not show that each student watched every video and that is a bit disappointing. However, it is helpful to consider that for each project, business cluster students work together in teams of four to six students. I have seen this play out in how they conduct research. For example, on my guide I might suggest four resources for understanding personal fitness consumers. Typically the team will divide up the resources so that only one student looks at a resource. They follow the same behavior when writing the final paper or creating the presentation; each student takes a section and does their part. Unfortunately this usually makes the paper or presentation look and read like it was literally pieced together, but faculty have been doing their best to discourage this practice. One theory in the video views is that the teams divided up the videos among the members in their typical divide-and-conquer strategy and completed the quiz through collaborative effort.

I will say that I am very pleased with the average percentage viewed for the videos. This tells me that those who did watch the videos watched most of the content. Even the lowest percentage watched video (at 53.6% of total viewed) is higher than the YouTube relative audience retention of similar length videos. So that’s not bad at all.

YouTube anlaytics showing the data mentioned in the paragraph above

My highest percentage viewed video outperformed the YouTube average for similar length videos. That’s pretty cool!

screenshot of YouTube analytics demonstrating that percentage viewed for the video was higher than YouTube averages

Ideas for next time

For next time, some ideas that I might consider:

Do the shorter videos work if we want all students to watch all of the content?
Would they watch a longer 20-30 minute video if they couldn’t easily divide the work among the team members? How would this affect the total percentage of the video watched?
Or in the case of my 10 minute video, should that have been separate videos no longer than 3 minutes each?
Did having 6 videos make it too easy for the teams to divide up the work?
Also of note is that I was crunched for time and my usual production value and edits suffered. I probably could have trimmed 30-60 seconds off of each video with additional edits or takes.
Were the quiz questions too easy? Should I have provided more quiz questions? Ideally they’d watch all of the videos just because their faculty told them too and that the content would help make their research easier.
Will the students come back to the videos throughout the remainder of the semester? Will they watch videos that they missed? Will they re-watch videos?

I also need a better understanding of YouTube and Google Analytics. Seeing as how I’ll be working from home for a bit, I’ll have plenty of opportunity for learning and improvement.

A Success?

All told, the viewership across the six videos for the past two days totals 58 hours of total watch time. That’s impressive and demonstrates something to build on for more remote/online learning projects.

If you’ve read this far, what are your thoughts? Have you done any similar analysis to your online guides, tutorials, or other learning objects? If so, leave a comment or reach out for further discussion.

March 25, 2020

A great book on remote work is now free!

One of my favorite books about remote work, The Year Without Pants, is now free on Amazon Kindle at the request of the author, Scott Berkun. You don’t need a Kindle to read it, just the Kindle app and an Amazon account.

I liked it so much when I first read it, I even blogged my thoughts about it a few times many years ago. When I read it in spurts in 2013-2015, the book prompted me to think about libraries and support work, how we can change our mindset about our jobs, what we can learn from the WordPress creed, as well as librarian perspectives on telecommuting. I now want to re-read it and discuss with my newly-distributed teams . Book club via Microsoft Teams, anyone?

It’s a great read and highly recommended. However, webcams have advanced a bit since the book was published, so keep your pants on. 😉

March 20, 2020