How to Create Videos for Your Web Site

You can capture your own videos to post on your website. There used to be a lot of things to think about when doing this, but now YouTube offers tools to “wash” your videos into an acceptable format and size, store and present them to you, and provide you with HTML to embed in your web page.
YouTube accepts .WMV (Windows Movies), .AVI (common Windows format), .MOV (QuickTime Video), MPEG (platform standard), and .MP4 formats.
Here are some tips on capturing a high-quality video for use on your YouTube website:

• Set the shot up in bright light: LCD monitors are a step back in terms of picture quality and clarity from CRT monitors. Also, your video can be viewed on the mobile phone or in poor lighting conditions. Light is one of the secrets of the video industry.

 

• Get light on the faces of people (and animals) and on the foreground of interesting objects: If the background is lit but not the foreground, the camera will compensate to make the bright background acceptably dulled, making the dark foreground almost invisible. Although this can be uncomfortable, your subject should turn toward the light (if indoors) or the sun (if outdoors).

 

• Try to capture several seconds of the scene before and after the main event occurs: Having a few seconds of “intro” and “conclusion” allows the viewer to get used to the scene before anything happens, and relax afterward before it ends.

 

• Try to keep the movement slow and within a small portion of the frame: Fast movement or movement across the majority of the frame can cause visual distortion when playing.

 

• Spend more time and effort on audio: If you’re going to use audio captured while shooting, consider using an external microphone.

 

• Try rehearsal before filming the real thing: Have your kids run on the grass and film them a few days before the big soccer game. Have someone stand on stage behind the stage and try to film it for five minutes a few days before the big speech.

 

• Think carefully before using a webcam: Most YouTube videos are shown with a person’s head tilted downward to talk to the webcam on a computer; YouTube makes this very easy with the Quick Capture feature. But most of us don’t look very good from a shooting angle pointing halfway up one’s nose.

 

• Don’t spend a lot of time on production: you can’t add quality to your video after you’ve captured it; You can only clean it up a little bit. (Well, if you’re a professional or a talented amateur, you can clean it more often, if time and budget allow.)

 

• Enjoy yourself: It’s easy to forget, after worrying about legal, technical, and creative concerns, but video is the most natural form of media, and putting a video on the web and playing it should be fun. Spend some time worrying about the “cleanliness” issues described here, but then just relax and enjoy yourself. Any feeling of joy and joy you bring to your efforts will show in the result.