My gosh, is it true what they say? The older you get, the faster time flies? It’s already time for the end-of-the-week gratitude post!
One of the advantages of having a blog is that when you tell your readers that you will do something, you’re making yourself accountable. If a number of your readers (or clients or associates, etc.) tell you that they are looking forward to whatever it is that you said you’d do, then the pressure is on you to meet their expectations. At that point, it becomes a priority to make sure you get the job done because it’s now a matter of integrity. If you say you’re going to do something but you put it off or not do it at all, sooner or later others will start to say, “Yeah, right, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Last week I purposefully told you a few times that I was going to make my first video this week because I knew if I did that, I’d find a way to work through my techno-phobia and make it happen.
It was no small feat, trust me, but the funniest thing is that making this video (with subtitles to boot!) turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. I’m so grateful I took the necessary steps to take our level of communication to a whole new level.
After a week of looking around for a camcorder, I purchased one on Sunday, February 10, 2008. The very next day, I practiced playing around with it, read the instruction manual and charged up the internal battery. So far, so good.
On Tuesday, I took a deep breath and began taping myself. I must have gone through 10 retakes before finally settling on the one you’re about to see. It’s only 2 minutes and it’s pure, raw footage because I have yet learned the fine art of editing. One step at a time, right?
It was strange talking to a small camcorder instead of a live person. That took getting used to. Then I had to learn how to begin and stop recording, a challenge because all the buttons were located at the back. That meant my fingers had to feel its way around to the start and stop buttons. For some reason, it took several clicks to start recording and another several clicks to get it to stop. That was rather annoying - I may return it if I continue to experience this inconvenience.
But the nice thing about this camcorder (and one of the reasons why I bought it) was because of its rotatable viewfinder. I was able to flip the viewfinder 180 degrees so that I could see myself throughout the recording process. That made things considerably easier compared to the flip camera that was made famous on the Oprah show.
Once I was finished, the video file was easily transferred to my hard drive through the use of a CD and USB cables that came with the camcorder. After that, I had to find a way to subtitle it so that everyone on the planet could be included. Eventually, I was led to a free do-it-yourself captioning website. It took me over 2 hours to subtitle a 2 minute video - I’m not kidding - but it was nothing I couldn’t master. In fact, it was a lot of fun and the next time I do it, it’ll be considerably easier.
Here’s the subtitled video (NOTE: If you are an RSS or email subscriber, please click on the title of this post to see it because this video won’t show up in your feed):
Well, what did you think? Feel free to leave comments and tell me what you thought of it. I know it’s not perfect because for one thing, the video ended a bit abruptly. I probably could have relaxed and smiled a little more. But the fact that I finally did it makes me very proud. If I can do this, so can you!
If you’re interested in a full step-by-step article about my experience, I will write one up over the weekend. Once again, even if you’re scared of technology, you can do this. You really can. Trust me, you’ll be so proud of yourself, because you won’t believe you could have mastered something like this!
While I was experiencing some of the challenges associated with the making of this video, a new subscriber sent me an email reminding me of a very familiar phrase. Can you guess what it was? Look at the very top of this page - what does it say?
Transform Adversity into Success!
And now for some gratitude:
- I am grateful that I finally pushed through my fears despite my technically challenged nature. I ended up having a ball and can’t wait to make another video. In fact, long-time subscriber (Sharmaine Hobbs) alerted me to a video contest that I will be entering in hopes of winning a prize! That would have been unimaginable a month ago!
- Thanks to Karen Putz and Mike McConnell, I was made aware of Overstream, a do-it-yourself-subtitling website. While the learning curve was definitely present, due to Overstream’s easy-to-follow tutorial, I was able to add subtitles on my first attempt!
- While the jury is out on this one, I am grateful I made this video with SONY’s MPEG4 Net Sharing Cam. I say the jury is still out deliberating because I had trouble getting it to start and stop. At least I have another 27 days to play with it and decide whether I want to keep it or get something else.
- I am very grateful to Michael Werner for teaching me how to create some space around images in my posts. Until now, I had no clue how to do that. Here’s what he told me: 1) go to the editor for your WP post, 2) select the image, 3) click on the green tree button on the visual editor menu, 4) a popup box will appear, showing you a horizontal field - put a value of 10 in there. Voila! You’ve got some space around your images. Thank you Michael!
- I’m grateful that the store that I bought the camcorder from has a liberal return policy. Because of that, I am free to play with this camcorder for a little while longer.
- And of course, I’m grateful for YOU because you continue to keep this community vibrant through your value-added comments. I’ve made many new connections through the world of blogging and it’s given me opportunities that might not have come to me otherwise.
Food for thought: What are you grateful for this week?
This post (see link back below) was written and copyrighted by Stephen J. Hopson at: Adversity University Blog
End of the Week Gratitude Theme #15 - First Video Post!
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