Vimeo Video School

The streaming video website Vimeo has launched the Vimeo Video School, which is has a growing series of "how to" videos. 

Lightworks - Open source video editor - Free

A free public beta download for the newly open source video editing software Lightworks is available for Windows and soon for the Mac. This is a professional level editor. I expect it will have a bit of a learning curve, but will be worth learning. This software is early in its redevelopment, so expect some bugs.

Musopen.org - Public Domain Classical Music Source

Musopen.org has sheet music and .mp3 files of music that is in the public domain.

Musopen (www.musopen.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials. We provide recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions. Put simply, our mission is to set music free.

I read through the Terms of Use and was unclear about whether their music files could be used in multimedia projects. I wrote to them, "I am a high school animation and video production teacher. Can filmmakers use the MP3 files on your site in their work as they would if this work was under a Creative Commons license?" Aaron Dunn, the founder of the website wrote me back on December 3, 2010, with the reply, "Yes absolutely."

They have some examples from filmmakers using music from their website posted here.

Audio for Video Training - PowerPoint

On October 13, 2010, I did a teacher training presentation for the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium.  The topic was Audio for Video.

This Teacher Resource Page has a link to the video of the event and the PowerPoint I used.  You can watch the video at the SECC website.

Using a tripod as a jib

A cool tip on how to use  tripod as a jib.

4Filmmaking Free Resources

The website 4Filmmaking has some free forms available for download. 

Google Creative Lab's Creative Internet

Google Creative Lab's look at 106 creative things on the Internet.  Video is used in many of these ideas. 

Atomic Learning Video Storytelling Guide - Free

Atomic Learning has a free preview of their Video Storytelling Guide with a series of videos.  The entire series requires a subscription, but the first 16 short videos are free. 

Yola.com - Free web hosting

Yola.com is another free web hosting site that provides easy-to-use design templates.   They feature under thier free service banner-free hosting with unlimited bandwidth.

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer

A brilliant satire on the formula used in movie trailers (and Hollywood story structure).

Final Cut Pro Level 1 Study Materials

Susan Smith of Edinburg High School has study materials available on her school's website for passing the Final Cut Pro Level 1 exam.

Revised Link 9/24/10

The Smalls Street Sounds - Free sound effects

An interesting new site for free sound effects for use in films. Check out The Smalls Street Sounds project.

This is The Smalls Street Sounds, the next generation sound collaboration. We thought you might like to listen to sounds from across the United States, and maybe upload some yourself? The Smalls Street Sounds is open to filmmakers, musicians, artists and anyone with a little inspiration. Record and upload sounds from where you live, or just come here to listen and travel in your imagination. When you’re ready, download sounds to provide inspiration and audio for your own short film. Anything is possible.

Music Clearance Guidelines

The website clearance.com has a page on how to get clearance for a song you may want in your video. Another pages explains Public Domain. It also has a useful list of clearance terms.

4filmmaking.com - Online Filmmaking Textbook

4filmmaking.com a "Film School Online" is a site with lots of free filmmaking information. The design of the website is not very appealing and it is loaded with ads, but the content is quite good. It can make a fine online textbook. Its focus is more on low budget filmmaking, which is different from the television focus found on the excellent cybercollege.com website.

Irish Moving Image Arts Curriculum

The Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission website called Creative Learning in the Digital Age. It supports their high school level examination in the Moving Image Arts. Among the resources are 48 pages of film lesson plans.

Shot Type Exercise

An interesting assignment illustrating shot types.

Production Apprentice - Videos and tips

Production Apprentice is a great website for tips on entering the industry and working on set. Check out the video below on how to use a C-Stand.

CStand from John DeMaio on Vimeo.

C-SPAN Searchable Video Archives - Free

Below is an announcement from C-SPAN to teachers about their free searchable video library. While you can watch the videos, you will need to pay (typically $29.95-$44.95) for a copy if you want the footage on DVD. No word on if they will offer a teacher discount

Today, C-SPAN officially launches the C-SPAN Video Library, a free, searchable online collection of every C-SPAN program aired since 1987. This means teachers will now have access to over 160,000 hours of searchable digital video. You will also be able to create your own embeddable clips for lessons and presentations in your classroom.

C-SPAN’s Video Library easily equips teachers with thousands of free resources to create authentic learning experiences for students that deepen their understanding of U.S. and world history, the workings of governments, the role of the media, and current political events.

Key features of the C-SPAN Video Library (www.c-spanvideo.org):

· Over 160,000 hours of searchable and watchable digital C-SPAN video
· All C-SPAN videos dating back to 1987, and certain older videos from C-SPAN’s earliest years
· A comprehensive search engine, developed exclusively for the Video Library
· Flash player with clipping and sharing features
· Share buttons for e-mail and social media (Facebook and Twitter)
· Transcripts, photo galleries, statistics and more
· User-friendly

Some Ideas to Get You Started:

• Take a look at the C-SPAN Video Library Blog. We have linked to several historical 20th Century moments that you may find useful in your classroom.
• Discuss this week’s impeachment hearings of Judge Thomas Porteous by using video of past impeachment hearings. You can show the Senate’s impeachment process with video from former President Clinton’s impeachment trial. Here’s a link to C-SPAN’s coverage of the trial.
• Have your students try the C-SPAN Video Library image quiz. Name the faces that appear on the page. Check their answers by scrolling over the images.

Share Your Ideas:

• Now that we have given you some ways to use C-SPAN’s Video Library, we would like you to share your own ideas. Join C-SPAN’s Ning Community, where teachers are already sharing their ideas about using C-SPAN in their classrooms.



While you’re looking at C-SPAN’s Video Library, make sure to go to the Congressional Chronicle. It is an index to C-SPAN video recordings of the House and Senate floor proceedings - organized by speaker - with full-text and full-video search and an extensive Congressional database going back to 1993.

The C-SPAN Video Library will be helpful to show your students the political and policy process from events which occurred in the past or just earlier that day. Its extensive holdings will allow students to see how elected officials, politicians, journalists, experts, authors, and other opinion leaders present themselves on the issues of the day and over time. We hope it will quickly become a resource for your classroom. The C-SPAN Video Library and its Congressional Chronicle truly offers ‘Washington your way’.”

Juiced Link Audio Tutorials

Juiced Link, a company that specializes in audio for camcorders and HD DSLRs has a number of audio related tutorials.

ArtBeats.com Free Daily Clip

ArtBeats.com is offering free clips in HD, NTSC and PAL formats for free. I have downloaded some nature shots and what look like loops. You need to register to access the page. The link is on the front page of their website.

Robert Rodriguez shoots music video with DLSR

Zacuto has photos of Robert Rodriguez shooting a music video with a Canon 7D digital still camera in HD mode.

Final Cut Pro's Documentary Oscar Winners

MacWorld has an article that notes that nine out of ten 2010 Academy Award nominees in both the feature and short Documentary categories were edited with Final Cut Pro. (All of the shorts were done with FCP.)

This includes feature winner, The Cove, and short category winner, Music by Prudence.

Freesound.org - Free sound effects

Freesound.org is a a great source for finding sound effects for films. The every growing database of sounds come from people making their recordings available through a Creative Commons license. These are not music loops but sounds often recorded in the field. You are required to register before you can download, but you can search and listen to sounds to see if they have what you need. Registration is free. You will need to credit the creator of any sound you use.

The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to

• browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a "sounds-like" type of browsing and more
• up and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license
• interact with fellow sound-artists!

Set-to-Screen Videos and Curriculum - Free

I have updated an earlier post on the Set-to-Screen podcast series that was on the Apple website. It featured an in depth look at Baz Luhrman's Australia. That webpage is now down, but you can still access the videos and lesson plans. The series is aimed at high school students and is excellent.

DebugMode Wax - Free PC video editor

DebugMode Wax is a free video editor and compositor for Windows computers.

Wax can create 2D & 3D special effects and can work in two modes - as a standalone application which would appeal for home users/beginners, and as a "plug-in" to video editors/NLEs which would be more useful for professional editors.

There are a few tutorials that can show you how to use some of the features. Some show how to to do the lightsaber effect. The one below shows how to make a fireball.

InternetAudioGuy - Free Music

InternetAudioGuy.com has 14 tracks of free music on his website.

These are royalty free music beds to use as much as you like for broadcast, internet, audio books, CDs, training programs, walk-in music or anything you like.

MediaCollege.com - Video Resources

MediaCollege.com is an excellent educational website containing free tutorials, reference and other resource material in all areas of electronic media production.