while I'm in between projects...
stuff... and such...
It's funny how things grow into themselves... When I bought Fraps back in February it was simply to try to catch a few of the funny moments on cam since the gal who was currently doing so posted that she'd be stepping away. She left big shoes to fill, and I still hope I've done her justice... I remember I bought the program that day, specifically so I could catch the moment where Newt got distracted and walked off the tower to a three foot drop to the floor.
Amazing how the project has grown, since then. Spring storm season brought LiveStream instabilities, and after a few days of "if you weren't there to see it live, you didn't get to see it" frustration with the DVR function not working I started capturing the weigh in sessions and uploading them. Then Livestream changed their mobile app and took the DVR function OFF so people on phones and tablets checking in could load the live feed faster, but all they got was live. That affected a surprising number of people who then never got to see when John had been in. Watching the kittens play and sleep and wrestle with each other is fun and all, but watching the development of how they respond to people is an important part of getting these guys adopted - and inspiring others to foster as well. Watching John has been a better foster parent training session than a lot of shelters run, so the importance of having that available grew.
I still use Fraps. I love Fraps. I love how easy it makes both recording and catching screenshots. I outgrew Windows Movie Maker pretty quickly though. Trying to find a movie editing and creation program that would let me do everything I wanted to do without costing a month's rent or taking a quarter long session at the college to figure out how to use it seemed to be a "search for the holy grail" project at first. I tripped over CyberLink Power Director and spent a day or two editing the same video in both WMM and PD, hit CyberLink's site for tips, hit youtube for how-to videos... looked at how much help there was to figure out anything else I wanted to do, and jumped.
I'm SO glad I did. Not only a cleaner editing process, and not only a lot more options, but faster as well. This is important as the number of things I'm recording has expanded. It's not uncommon to pop into chat and have someone with a list of timestamps to try to catch from while I was away. I appreciate that, because it saves me a lot of clicking through the DVR to try to find things. It also means the number of videos I'm uploading has mushroomed.
I'd been kind of concerned that John was going to be a bit disturbed at being recorded and uploaded... but he was being recorded anyway, by his own design. He's the one that set the cam up, and he was in chat several times when I reassured viewers I was ready to record so they wouldn't miss his visit for being off to class. I knew he supported my recording when he deliberately delayed a visit by five minutes to allow me to finish recording something before he came in and reset the cam. I loved when he posted one of my videos from a couple litters *before* as one that he'd spent about fifteen minutes watching over and over and over... and it was a thirty second video! *g*
We were off in chat in a cam inspired by him, run by a gal down in CA. Sarah mentioned she was absolutely not watching the next morning, because the packing up for adoption day would make her cry and she had stuff to do. I'd laughed and said that was okay, I'd make her cry later when I posted it all... okay, folks, I was *kidding* about the making people cry... but apparently the last couple videos I posted should have had tissue warnings on them. I have really mixed feelings about that... on the one hand there's the lingering mortification everyone feels who's ever gotten in trouble for making someone cry... but mostly, there's an odd satisfaction in having moved this from cut and dried, informational video presentation toward the "video as art" realm that gets under guard and lets it touch hearts.
It's funny how this has come from "hah! that was funny" through informational to full range from funny and triumphant to bittersweet. Even funnier, to me... I thought I'd have a handful of people watching - the people who missed stuff and wanted to catch up when they got back. Never dreamed I'd have over 1200 viewers checking my channel daily. I was amused when I checked the channel analytics and over thirty days my videos had been watched for five days. Next time I looked they'd been watched for the equivalent of thirty days. O.o Now I average 175 days in a thirty day period. Still not sure what to think of that.
But the most important part of it all, for me, is the messages. My email has been taken over by comments on the videos, and while there's a very very rare troll (three total, I think) most of it is confirmation that I am, in fact, reaching my intended audience. These ARE reaching the people who wouldn't be able to see the visits, or the developmental milestones, otherwise. Fully a quarter of my viewers are on mobile devices, so they are reaching the "I would have missed that" viewers. They are reaching the travelers, the students away from their beloved pets, those who've lost their furry companion and aren't ready to adopt another yet but miss them... The "I'm thinking about fostering, and it's nice to be able to look back through and see what to expect" segment is growing, which is nice. The "what tools do you use for this?" is nice, too.
Had a suggestion of a related project for between litters. I'm contemplating it. Right now, I'm kind of enjoying the chance to stretch and nap or wander completely away from the computer without guilt... I love doing this, but it absorbs a lot of time. I don't know that I want to stretch that out again.
Anyway... random project babble off. =)
It's funny how things grow into themselves... When I bought Fraps back in February it was simply to try to catch a few of the funny moments on cam since the gal who was currently doing so posted that she'd be stepping away. She left big shoes to fill, and I still hope I've done her justice... I remember I bought the program that day, specifically so I could catch the moment where Newt got distracted and walked off the tower to a three foot drop to the floor.
Amazing how the project has grown, since then. Spring storm season brought LiveStream instabilities, and after a few days of "if you weren't there to see it live, you didn't get to see it" frustration with the DVR function not working I started capturing the weigh in sessions and uploading them. Then Livestream changed their mobile app and took the DVR function OFF so people on phones and tablets checking in could load the live feed faster, but all they got was live. That affected a surprising number of people who then never got to see when John had been in. Watching the kittens play and sleep and wrestle with each other is fun and all, but watching the development of how they respond to people is an important part of getting these guys adopted - and inspiring others to foster as well. Watching John has been a better foster parent training session than a lot of shelters run, so the importance of having that available grew.
I still use Fraps. I love Fraps. I love how easy it makes both recording and catching screenshots. I outgrew Windows Movie Maker pretty quickly though. Trying to find a movie editing and creation program that would let me do everything I wanted to do without costing a month's rent or taking a quarter long session at the college to figure out how to use it seemed to be a "search for the holy grail" project at first. I tripped over CyberLink Power Director and spent a day or two editing the same video in both WMM and PD, hit CyberLink's site for tips, hit youtube for how-to videos... looked at how much help there was to figure out anything else I wanted to do, and jumped.
I'm SO glad I did. Not only a cleaner editing process, and not only a lot more options, but faster as well. This is important as the number of things I'm recording has expanded. It's not uncommon to pop into chat and have someone with a list of timestamps to try to catch from while I was away. I appreciate that, because it saves me a lot of clicking through the DVR to try to find things. It also means the number of videos I'm uploading has mushroomed.
I'd been kind of concerned that John was going to be a bit disturbed at being recorded and uploaded... but he was being recorded anyway, by his own design. He's the one that set the cam up, and he was in chat several times when I reassured viewers I was ready to record so they wouldn't miss his visit for being off to class. I knew he supported my recording when he deliberately delayed a visit by five minutes to allow me to finish recording something before he came in and reset the cam. I loved when he posted one of my videos from a couple litters *before* as one that he'd spent about fifteen minutes watching over and over and over... and it was a thirty second video! *g*
We were off in chat in a cam inspired by him, run by a gal down in CA. Sarah mentioned she was absolutely not watching the next morning, because the packing up for adoption day would make her cry and she had stuff to do. I'd laughed and said that was okay, I'd make her cry later when I posted it all... okay, folks, I was *kidding* about the making people cry... but apparently the last couple videos I posted should have had tissue warnings on them. I have really mixed feelings about that... on the one hand there's the lingering mortification everyone feels who's ever gotten in trouble for making someone cry... but mostly, there's an odd satisfaction in having moved this from cut and dried, informational video presentation toward the "video as art" realm that gets under guard and lets it touch hearts.
It's funny how this has come from "hah! that was funny" through informational to full range from funny and triumphant to bittersweet. Even funnier, to me... I thought I'd have a handful of people watching - the people who missed stuff and wanted to catch up when they got back. Never dreamed I'd have over 1200 viewers checking my channel daily. I was amused when I checked the channel analytics and over thirty days my videos had been watched for five days. Next time I looked they'd been watched for the equivalent of thirty days. O.o Now I average 175 days in a thirty day period. Still not sure what to think of that.
But the most important part of it all, for me, is the messages. My email has been taken over by comments on the videos, and while there's a very very rare troll (three total, I think) most of it is confirmation that I am, in fact, reaching my intended audience. These ARE reaching the people who wouldn't be able to see the visits, or the developmental milestones, otherwise. Fully a quarter of my viewers are on mobile devices, so they are reaching the "I would have missed that" viewers. They are reaching the travelers, the students away from their beloved pets, those who've lost their furry companion and aren't ready to adopt another yet but miss them... The "I'm thinking about fostering, and it's nice to be able to look back through and see what to expect" segment is growing, which is nice. The "what tools do you use for this?" is nice, too.
Had a suggestion of a related project for between litters. I'm contemplating it. Right now, I'm kind of enjoying the chance to stretch and nap or wander completely away from the computer without guilt... I love doing this, but it absorbs a lot of time. I don't know that I want to stretch that out again.
Anyway... random project babble off. =)