If a picture paints a thousand words

 

What you see here is a first for BfK – it’s an experiment with the idea of adding video to the blog. And, before we go any further, this is far from the finished item: there’s no audio track, I haven’t filmed a third section of this yet and the video quality / lighting is basic (to say the list). But it is a proof of concept and, on that basis, I’d be interested in your feedback.

You see, I have this idea that I can do several things with video that the written word and some photos can never convey satisfactorily. However, I’ve already learnt that doing those things has the potential to be time consuming, so I want to gauge if it’s worth the effort before pursuing it any further. I suspect that the clip above will give you a fair idea of two of the areas I’m considering committing to video – namely product reviews and “how to” tutorials. In this case, the rough cut already has the basics of the review element but I’m yet to record the “how to” part. If I can get that sort of thing to work out well, then I might move on to some “on location” reportage style recordings.

So what’s triggered this dalliance with video? Well, like so many events in life, it’s the serendipitous intersection of several different threads. Some of which are: watching a report of the BBC News website about how professional films can now be made on smartphones, my daughter’s acquisition of an iPhone, me getting an Android tablet that has a rudimentary camera and video recording software on board and a recent e-mail discussion I had with a BfKer who wanted advice on brush cleaning. It was this last item that really got me thinking. I found myself trying to put into e-mail an explanation of how I look after my brushes along with some (hopefully) useful tips. It took quite a bit of thought and a while to write. All the time I was doing this, I was thinking how much easier it would be to sit with my correspondent and show him. Of course, it wasn’t realistic for us to travel and meet up in person. And then what if more than one person asked me the same question? So that’s when the germ of this video idea planted itself in my head.

I could go into gory detail about how I recorded the video and what software I used to edit it and start to witter on about transitions and pans and fades and cuts and… But this is a wargaming and figure painting blog, so I’ll spare us all the pain. Instead, I’ll ask for your comments and suggestions (possibly even for topics to make videos about). Gulp!