Tag Archives: video footage

Videos of Interesting Animals

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I’m finishing up a video I worked on during Hurricane Isaac.  In the meantime, here are two interesting videos about animals.  One shows a feisty cat slapping an alligator (thanks to Mark H. for the link).  The other is of a clever heron using a piece of bread to attract a fish (thanks to Joy M. for the link).

These are examples of videos with amazing content but are poorly shot and edited. Both feature animals doing something unexpected.  Suspense is also a characteristic of both videos.  These features apparently override any deficiencies in the quality of the footage since they each have over 1 million views.

Food for thought when designing your next video….

Tutorial: Avid Studio for the iPad (Part 2)

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In this post, I’ve added the second part of the tutorial on using the movie editing program, Avid Studio, for the iPad.  With this app, which costs only $4.99, you can shoot and create professional-looking videos entirely with your iPad.  Avid Studio has more editing options than iMovie, which I covered in previous tutorials, but is a bit more challenging than iMovie.

Both are fine editing programs….each has their advantages and disadvantages.  If you’ve learned how to use iMovie already, however, you’ll have no problem with Avid Studio.  I’ve covered all the basics in this two-part tutorial, but have left some options for you to discover on your own.

So here’s the second and final part of the Avid Studio tutorial (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

Tutorial: Avid Studio for the iPad (Part 1)

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Think you need special equipment, expensive software, and special skills to create a video about your work?  Well, if you already have an iPad 2, for just an additional $4.99 for a movie editing app for the iPad, you can shoot and create a professional-looking video. To help you along, I’ve also done a tutorial, linked below, showing how to use Avid Studio.

Previously, I did a tutorial series on the iMovie app for the iPad.  In this post, I talk about another excellent movie editing app for the iPad that you can use.  Avid Studio has more bells and whistles than iMovie, but is a bit more challenging to master and use.  But with this tutorial, you should be able to begin using Avid Studio immediately to edit your science videos.

Take a look at Part 1 (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

How to Remove the Background from an Image (Part 2)

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This is the second part of the Adobe Photoshop (CS5) tutorial in which I show how to remove the background from an image when that background is not a solid color but is instead a more complex image.  I provide several examples of images with different types of backgrounds and then show different techniques for handling these situations.

Once you master these very easy techniques, you will then be poised to create more professional looking montages in your videos or even to begin creating some simple animations.

Here is the video tutorial (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

How to Remove the Background from an Image (Part 1)

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In this post, I introduce a tutorial I created to show how to use Adobe Photoshop (CS5) to remove the background from an image.

Have you ever wondered how people superimpose graphs, isolated images, clip art, and other graphics onto another image so that they both have the same background?  You might wish to layer a series of images of plants or animals, for example, onto a map or a diagram so that they all share a common background.  To do this, you will have to delete the background of the original photographs (left-hand image below) so that when you layer the images onto a base photograph, they all have the same background (right-hand image below):

How is this done?  In the following tutorial, I show how easy it is to remove the background from this type of image in Photoshop.  This technique is a precursor to developing animations and montages of images in a video….so that the result looks professional.

Take a look (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):