Trying out Videos
As a Town Historian, I get to occasionally attend conferences and get new ideas from others. Recently I attended a virtual annual meeting of the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS for short!). There was a session on "History & Technology: Utilizing Video & Other Multimedia Formats" which I enjoyed and which motivated me to begin a project to produce a video, which I had long considered but done nothing about.
I used a prior project I had written up as I already had more than enough information to move ahead on it. But I found the process of producing a decent video much more difficult than I had expected, especially considering the limited equipment I had. There was a steep learning process involving learning new programs, stitching video segments together, inserting still shots, and producing and inserting audio, since the camera I shot video with couldn't record audio unless you held the camera 6 inches from your mouth. Also numerous hours spent wading through woods and brush trying to get decent video. Mid-March would have been a better time!
When I thought I had it all together, (after about 20 hours of editing), I put it up on YouTube and streamed it over my TV and the audio was horrible. My voice has always been weak and it is getting worse, plus streaming it made it sometimes unintelligible. I thought of getting someone else to read the narrative, but with the covid that isn't likely to happen. Now I am trying an online text to voice converter - we will see how that goes! I'll get it done eventually, but it won't be this week as I hoped.
My computer is also acting up. Haven't figured out what is going on yet.
This weekend we had a reservation to go camping over the border in Vermont, but with the covid level now rising it looks like that won't happen, either. I am waiting for the final new figures that come out today, but barring a sudden and miraculous decrease we won't be allowed in the State Park.
The President is back in the White House, but I think he is pushing his luck. If the disease strikes back suddenly and hard, like it does sometimes, he will be rushed back. Though he does have better medical care than most Americans do, even at home.
I have to mow the lawn again. Used to be that was over at the end of September, but last year I had to mow the first week in November!
October 7: Reworked the whole video, uploaded it to YouTube, and it is off and running. See the link I put in here.
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