August 2024

My brother and I went to New York City to see some sights. Mostly I wanted to visit The Empire State Building (ESB), MoMa (Museum of Modern Art) and B&H Photo super store. Of all the places I went, I liked the ESB the most. Here's why...

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So, I went to B&H Photo intending to purchase a small point and shoot camera for sight seeing. I was thinking my 4k Pocket Cinema Camera by Blackmagic Design was a little too big for touristy excursions. And I would get something smaller.

I was looking right at a nice Canon PowerShot SX740 HS Digital Camera, but the salesman turned his back to me and ignored my presence. It occurred to me that I could do better consulting a website.

A little research online told me Amazon has that particular camera. This little beauty has a phenominal 40X optical zoom lens. 4k and time lapse video capabilities from a 20.3 Megapixel sensor make this camera well worth the price.

My tip is this: Unless you specifically require a great camera, why not use a cell phone camera? I caught King Kong on the Empire State Building and cropped it using Paint.net to achieve a decent photo. No extra cost for a camera I might only use once in a while. Whereas my cell phone camera goes with me everywhere and is as easy to point and shoot as any camera.

In the painting "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh you see a turbulent night sky and a quaint mountain village. It is also every beginning video artist assignment to create a version of "Starry Night." Here is the original version...

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

In this next video titled "Starry Night" by Tim Koen I used a combination of Camtasia Studio and an AI video tool called Avatar Builder to animate the scene. It features twinkling stars, a lunar ecclipse and artificial intelligence to create the character and voice over. Check out this video animation...

Starry Night by Tim Koen

Avatar Builder and Camtasia Studio makes animation reltively easy, at least for me that is. Do you have an idea for an animated spokesperson video? Check out my animated avatar spokesperson service...

One day there was a thunderstorm and then a power outage and then my computer wouldn't work properly. It surprised me that my backup UPS (uninterruptable power supply) failed to kick in. The whole system shut off, and then did not restart correctly when the power came back on.

Why You Need a UPS

A UPS can save your computer from dying suddenly or a slow death. When power goes out and your hard disc is spinning at the same time, the abrupt stoppage can cause the harddisc to experience a crash. Overtime this can lead to a complete failure. Also most UPS's have a surge supressor built in. This device protects against power spikes when the power does come back.

I made a note to check the UPS for maintainence purposes and kept on working. A few days later I noticed my computer was really slow. I figured it was due for some maintainence as well. I programmed a defragmentation of the hard drive and the a full virus scan. That took 3 days.

To make a long story shorter I ended up shopping on Amazon to replace my hardware. I got a new refurbished computer, a backup disc drive, new batteres for the UPS and a new solar powered calculator. Here are 10 steps you can take to solve common computer problems when you have them.

Tim & Terry's Excellent Adventure or what I did on summer vacation. I went to some interesting places and brought my cameras with me. I had a Blackmagic Design 4k Cinema Camera and a Samsung smartphone with a camera. Between the 2, I captured still and motion pictures. The following video is what I saw...

Tim & Terry's Excellent Adventure

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1. This video was shot and produced in Ultra High definition or 3840x2160px. I used this frame size because it gave me the largest picture size without using more disc space than I wanted to use. The larger size compared to 1080p allows for wider camera angles and more resolution. And since this video is for memory preservation I produced it at 2160p. If it were for Internet marketing I would have produced it at 1080p instead.
2. Use a still camera for consistency. While point and shoot vacation footage doesn't usually require any reshooting, other video productions like on camera talent presentations, can benefit greatly from the preservation (still photos) of a scene or set.

   If you ever need to recreate a look or setting you would know a still photo shot of the original captures a lot of useful information. Lighting, object location and framing can be recreated. For vacation and family event footage still photos can be used to help organize your video footage in post production.

3. Google maps is a great source for content creators. In this video I used Google Maps to create a route plan with stops and hightlights. Then catured it with a screenshots and screen captures. Which I used as background and action scenes in the video.
4. Screen captures are better on a 4k monitor. Screens with a resolution of 4k are perfect for screen captures. Technically speaking it's not the monitor's resolution, but the resolution the computer is set to. The image capture itself comes from the output of the video card, not the output of the monitor. You use the monitor to set the framing and cropping, so it should match the size and resolution the computer is set to.

Looking for video creation help? Try my fiverr service for professional video creation...

3d Animated Avatars could be your solution for video marketing. How would you like to have a personal spokesperson that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? And you don't need to feed or pay expenses for? You get intelligent professional presenters with the BWT animated avatar family. We use cutting edge technology to promote your product or service efficiently and quickly.

Let BWT build your own animated avatar tailored to your specifications. We can create that special spokesperson just for your niche, brand, business, product or service. Change outfits, colors and hairstyle to convey mood, age and ethnicity. Choose between voices and languages.

Our 3d animated avatars can translate and speak over 60 different languages and dialects. As a matter of fact our avatars can say just about anything, Simply provide a script and they can "auto-translate" into most languages.

Our team has created many explainer videos for many niches. These 3d animated avatar videos are the culmination of years of development. Check out some of the marketing videos in our library?