Nothing is ever that easy.

The folks over at TechCrunch wrote a profile piece about Videolicous a while back, and their head of video production decided to hand us a challenge. TechCrunch was getting ready to kick off their massive Disrupt conference. This Mecca of technology was going to showcase over one hundred hot new startups, and their video production team was loaded for bear. They were all set for a high end live streaming event, what we in the business call “a big remote.”

An event like this requires truckloads of gear, including switchers, lighting systems, HD cameras, and live streaming broadcast equipment with lots of blinking lights and shiny buttons. Setting all of this up requires a team to spend huge amounts of personnel hours, and usually limits a video team to covering the stage event, dozens of formal interviews, and some limited “person on the street” interviews.

TechCrunch wanted to show some real love to the startups at Disrupt, and wanted to produce short video profiles on each company, but using traditional video production techniques would have made this impossible. Their team wanted to know: can the Videolicious team produce these profile videos? In two days? After all, there were only a hundred or so.

I gave them my most confident grin and said “Sure! No problem! I can make over a hundred videos in two days, shot on an iPhone and edited automatically — piece of cake!”

I then went home and had a good cry.

Afterwards, I went about assembling a mobile journalism rig for the iPhone. To pull this off I needed to overcome a few things. First, I needed to improve the already excellent iPhone lens, and make it possible to add a light to the system to help bring some dimension to the flat lighting on the convention floor. I needed a great microphone that would get good audio in a noisy environment, and I needed to improve the battery life of the phone.

The core of the mobile journalism rig is an excellent camera dock marketed by Action Life Media: the OWLE Bubo. This device comes with a bumper case for the iPhone, which allows it to lock into an solid aluminum camera body with a wide angle lens that expands the field of view of the iPhone’s native lens. The OWLE adds some weight to the phone and forces you to hold the rig away from your body, which enhances your ability to hold a steady shot. The body comes with four pre-drilled holes for attaching a tripod plate and other accessories (more on that later) and is also machined with a cold shoe mount. Best of all, it looks really cool.

The cold shoe mount made it possible to locate a portable lighting solution. We decided to go with a low cost LED light by Bescor. LED lights are very power efficient, which means we could shoot all day with four AA-sized batteries. Cheaper LED lights are a little inconsistent with color — but fortunately I am the Zen master of all things lighting. I taped a little color correcting gel over our lights to ensure consistent color for all of our videos.

Audio is critical and often overlooked element to video production, and the iPhone’s native microphone suffers from a few limitations. The internal mic is great for phone calls, but is very omnidirectional — meaning that all of the sound at the bustling Disrupt conference would drown out the audio of our interview subjects. The iRig handheld microphone provided us with a low cost directional microphone adapted to the iPhone audio input / output jack. This very high quality mic ensured that our videos would sound every bit as awesome as they looked.

Our final obstacle was the battery life of the iPhone. The internal battery is great for a day of phone calls and light web surfing, but just a few hours of chasing eager startups and processing videos was sure to run us out of juice. Since time was such a factor we really couldn’t afford to hang out backstage and graze the catering table while our phones recharged. A high capacity compact external battery was the only solution that made sense, and Just Mobile’s Gum Plus battery pack met our requirements perfectly. Just one of these little batteries, connected to the iPhone via USB, was enough to keep our rig up and running all day and then some. All I needed to do was somehow mount the battery to the OWLE camera dock.

The bottom of the OWLE, with its conveniently pre-drilled holes, took care of half of that battle for us. To finish off our sweet mobile journalism rig, all I needed to do was make a trip down to the hardware store. I picked up a metal plate with its own pre-drilled holes, a couple of screws, and some professional strength Velcro. The plate was screwed to the bottom of the OWLE, and the Velcro was lovingly attached to both the plate and the battery.

Armed with three of my creations, our team took the Disrupt conference by storm. The science-fiction-cool looks of our mobile journalism setup caught many an eye, which was awesome, and our mission was a success. Most production teams would have spent days in the editing suite, but with Videolicious and our super sweet custom iPhone rig, we had over one hundred videos shot and automatically edited, right then and there.

ArtWorks, the Naomi Cohain Foundation, is a non-profit in Englewood New Jersey, and they’re on a mission. They connect with local hospitals and provide art supplies and contracted professional artists to pediatric care units, specifically for children with chronic and terminal illnesses. This no cost access to art supplies and guidance by professional artists allows these children to express themselves creatively, providing a much-needed change of focus. A child suffering through a serious illness can concentrate on creating a compelling work of art, rather than focusing on their fears and the discomfort of treatment.

Their signature program is called Surprise Supplies. Artworks provides portable supply carts (designed by pop-artist Ed Heck — check out his work, it’s awesome) filled to the brim with art supplies. These carts cost money — and that’s where Videolicious came in handy.

Pepsi has a program called Refresh Everything that’s dedicated to providing funding to worthy non-profits such as ArtWorks. They’ve issued a challenge: create a short video about your non-profit and post it online. The public can log into the Refresh Everything site and vote on which non-profit should receive funding. ArtWorks aims to win some of these funds and use them to create five new art carts for the Surprise Supplies program.

The Problem: A deadline for the contest was coming up, and ArtWorks needed a very short (under one minute) video — fast. Fortunately for them, they had Videolicious on their side!

I showed up to the ArtWorks office and got ready to tack on some much needed points to my personal Karma.

First the easy part. Artworks has a great archive of photos, and since I was limited to one location for the video, I decided to use a couple of these stills, which were produced at different locations, to make the video feel a bit more expansive. I settled on a shot of the three ladies who work so hard to make this foundation worthwhile, as well as an adorable picture of a child holding up her own little piece of art history.

Now time for a profile of the star of the show — the art cart itself. I wanted to show off the incredibly hip stylings of Mr. Heck, so I got very close with the lens top of the cart, rolled, and then backed away and swung down, allowing the fun designs to sort of reveal themselves to the camera as it passed over them. Next, Executive Director Daniela Mendelsohn volunteered to pack the cart full of art supplies while the camera rolled. I rocked back and forth with the lens, complimenting the movement that was already in the frame.

Hanging in the office was a very compelling piece of mixed-media art titled 8 Heads are Better Than Six, created by a child using paints and some of his CAT scan images. It was huge and inviting, but hanging in an area with unflattering lighting. The lighting situation was easy enough to fix — I just moved the piece into well lit spot, and rolled on the iPhone. For this shot I stepped into the room and moved forward and to the side, panning left as I moved right to give the audience a nice tour of the work.

Finally, I used the front facing camera for the Step Two Master Shot, and made my pitch to the public for their votes. It was a really special opportunity to use Videolicious to help out the folks at ArtWorks, who in turn bring a little light into the lives of these children.

It was one of those smells, drifting into my undefended nose during a mad dash into the closing doors of a 6 train, that convinced me of something. I was feeling a bit crowded and needed some nature. The dilemma – further vacation time was out. Videolicious was now public, and was climbing up the charts as a certified hit. No more traveling for this kid.

How to escape? My answer, ironically, was in The Bronx. Who knew?

I packed up the family and headed to the Bronx Zoo. I was floored when I got there. Some creative landscaping had turned its acreage in to an oasis of nature in the middle of one of the most urban urban centers in the country. Seriously, this place makes you feel like you’re nowhere near the City. To illustrate the point I grabbed my iPhone 4 and grabbed a cute shot of The Bean checking out a waterfall. I held the camera at her level, rolled for a few seconds, and then lifted it up as I took a step towards the waterfall. Settling on a foreground element, and then moving past it like this is often called a “bump shot,” and is a great way to introduce that elusive third dimension to your two-dimensional frame. To seal the deal, and to give me more time in the edit to talk about my point, I added an additional shot from the top of a hill. No big trick here, I just took my time and did a slow pan to help illustrate that there was nature all around us. No taxis, buses, or 99 cent stores in sight.

What else to show off about the zoo? Using my encyclopedia-like mind I quickly accessed all of my zoo related information. It was a stretch, but I was able to determine that most zoos contain animals. I figured this was a good start.

We started at the bird sanctuary. I combed the place looking for our next Videolicious Idol and settled on this blue and green fellow that didn’t turn his back on the camera. I took this as implied consent to be filmed. Our new feathered friend didn’t move much at all, actually, so I started rolling and then drifted from side to side a bit. A shot always looks better if there is movement in the frame (hence the term “Motion Picture”) and if your subject isn’t providing it for you, you should. Next up – the polar bear.

It was immediately apparent that this guy was not exactly a showoff. Furthermore, he was pretty far away, and I didn’t feel inspired to climb any fences to get closer. Under most circumstances, I would pass on this shot and move on. Videolicious, however, is fully compatible with still images – which are at a higher resolution than HD video – and adds a really neat “Ken Burns” motion effect to them in the final sequence. This effect keeps that “Motion Picture” thing going for you, and the higher resolution still made for a much more detailed shot of the bear than would have been possible with video. One click, and this bored polar bear was preserved for posterity.

Shortly thereafter, while filming the cutest little baby alligator alive, I noticed that The Bean was getting a bit antsy. I swear, she acts like such a four year old sometimes. The Bronx Zoo, however, thought of everything – even how to keep our hyperactive little ones entertained. Nearly every exhibit has some sort of interactive area, which gives our munchkins plenty of stuff to touch without getting in trouble. I decided to showcase this parental stress reliever with a couple of shots, starting with Maya opening and closing panels on a display that shows what certain animals eat. This is an easy shot to make interesting – no worries about a lack of movement here. All I needed to do was circle around her with the camera. The next shot shows us a more sedate Bean hanging out on a lizard statue. I made again with the drifting side to side for some motion, and headed to my big finale shot.

For six days in the early part of this year, New York was a city in fear. Mia, an Egyptian cobra, had escaped her luxurious digs and disappeared in the Reptile house. For those of you who are unfamiliar with her exploits, check her Twitter feed – it’s hilarious. No visit to the Bronx Zoo would be complete without a visit with everyone’s favorite traveling serpent. I decided to pull another bump shot, this time of the sign (identifying her as, yes, that cobra) and then swung the camera down to say hello.

Finally, it was time for my signature one-take Master Shot. I picked a nice woodsy background for over my shoulder and proceeded to conduct myself in my usual eloquent fashion. Maybe for my next video I could embed a counter that ticks up every time I say the non-word, “uh.” Oh, well. I’m sure Brando had days like this, too.

I went on vacation.

Of course, work follows me wherever I go. I needed to make a sweet Videolicious video to keep the beasts at bay. Fortunately, I knew exactly where to go to get some awesome footage and nab a hot, juicy burger while I was at it.

In my hometown of Brandon, FL, nestled comfortably in a strip mall at the corner of Brandon Boulevard and Parsons Ave, is an oasis of great American culinary delight: Tadpole’s. I go way back with the owner, Terry Haley, having been the very first Tadpole’s employee many moons ago, when I was a strapping 17 year old degenerate. I was also the very second Tadpole’s employee ever to be fired. I made the mistake of taking an ill-timed vacation. Well, assuming that one can accurately sum up the phrase “decided to blow off the Friday night dinner rush” by using the word “vacation.”

Either way, Terry and I remained friends afterwards and he was excited to let me use his place to take Videolicious for another test-spin. We decided to make a quick commercial.

When we use video to tell a story about a specific location like this, we first need to establish for the viewer exactly what and where that location is. I had to think creatively. Fortunately, Terry had a huge sign that established exactly what and where his restaurant was. I decided to use this to my advantage.

For my next shot, I decided to focus on something that Tadpole’s has always done well – hire beautiful girls. After getting the requisite permission from my wife, I decided to ask our waitress if she’d like to share her cheerful good looks with the rest of the world. She graciously agreed, so I positioned her at the hostess station by the front door and had her give me her friendliest Tadpole’s greeting. I settled on a nice shot of her and rolled on the iPhone camera. I gave it about three seconds and then moved in, letting the audience see, through the camera’s eyes, the friendly atmosphere that was waiting for them when they walked in the front door.

Then it was time for a shot of Terry, who is not a beautiful girl. He is, instead, the consummate “Gentleman Restauranteur.” He and I put our heads together and decided to film him in his natural habitat – behind the bar.

Terry had an impressive liquor display that would make for a great background- but there was one problem. All of the bottles were lit from underneath, and Terry didn’t have enough light on him. This presents a dilemma – if the iPhone camera adjusted to the level of light on the bottles, Terry would be severely underexposed, and if there is one thing my good buddy cannot abide, it is a lack of exposure. If, however, the iPhone had adjusted to expose him properly, the glorious alter to all things alcohol would have been way too bright or, “blown out.” Fortunately, Terry had some track lighting behind the bar. I was able to swivel one of those around and focus it on his angelic face. Time to roll.

Again, I waited a few seconds before moving in. This is important with Videolicious, because the app trims your shots automatically to layer it into your Step Two Master Shot. You want to allow a bit of “pre-roll” before starting a camera move to make sure that your masterpiece of lighting and composition is beautifully represented in your final video!

Now it was time to really showcase what fine American cuisine is all about. Pairing a fine wine with delicately roasted fowl may be a delight, and I can absolutely dig on some lo mein with a crab rangoon for dessert, but nothing can recapture the mystical powers of a hot burger partnered up with an ice cold beer. We set up in his kitchen which had good light, and got a great shot with the burger hot off the grill next to an icy mug of frothy bliss. Yum.

Next step – the Step Two Master Shot, using the front facing camera of the iPhone and my incomparable on-screen charisma. One take and less than a minute later, Tadpole’s had it’s free commercial, and I had my free lunch. Your classic win-win.

I had a great time that day, brandishing my iPhone 4 and grabbing some shots, keeping in mind the whole time the type of story I wanted to tell.  I decided not to worry too much about the technical quality of the video, so I used the iOS camera app, which is fully automatic.  This left me free to play fast and loose with the camera, and focus on having a relaxing day with the family.

Letting your story come together in your head is a major part of determining what to shoot. In this case, I knew that I wanted to poke fun at myself for my uncontrollable passion for questionable carnival food. I handed the iPhone off to the wife and had her take a quick shot of me biting into one of the gnarliest (and therefore, most delicious) hot dogs I’ve ever had the pleasure of wolfing down. Next, it was time for my daughter to shine, so it was off to the carousel.

Most folks in this case would probably stand on the sidelines and try and catch her on camera as she zipped by. This usually results in not being able to tell your kid apart from other, less attractive, children.  My child, of course, is a stunning beauty (she takes after her dad, after all) and the camera loves her.  So I decided to hop on the carousel and take the horse next to hers, getting a nice close up her face as she urged her new plastic friend, “Flower the Princess Unicorn Superhero” to go faster.  This made for a much more personal shot that really captures the joy on her face.

Another great opportunity for a shot came up when my wife decided to join Maya on a mad dash up the stairs of the Super Slide.  Hanging out at the bottom of the slide, I followed them with the camera as they zoomed down, letting them race towards the lens. I didn’t worry too much about moving the camera, because there was already plenty of movement in my shot, and I wanted to capture a sense of speed.  As you can see, my wife was the clear winner of the race to the bottom, igniting a temporary blood feud between her and The Bean (my daughter’s nickname). After a few hotly contested rematches, we decided to visit the pony ride.

Little girls are genetically predisposed to love pony rides (scientific fact).  In this case, I started recording a few seconds before the ride began, then walked backwards with the pony for a few steps and then stopped, and swiveled around to keep her in the frame as she passed by.  I consider it a great personal victory that I did not step in any Pony Express special deliveries while getting this shot.

Finally, It was time to use Videolicious to tell my story and put all of these shots together.  Using my considerable on-camera talents, I was able to put the story together in one take, on the spot, and Videolicious edited the video automatically in under a minute.  I wanted to give a little bit of love to my neighborhood for the introduction and then went right into telling my story. You’ll notice that I spend just a few seconds commenting on each shot. This helps keep the pacing of the video nice and snappy, changing the shot every ten seconds or so.  This quick pacing keeps your friends and family engaged in the video, which will make them more likely to invite you to share more videos, and less likely to disown you and make you cry.

The resulting Videolicious-powered video, edited together in seconds, is a fun little story that showcases my community (really, stuff like this pops up all the time in Jersey City) and a little of my personality.  I look forward to reading your fan mail…

As mobile devices get better and better video cameras, we all have the opportunity to film countless video clips of our friends, family, adventures, and daily observations. But what do we do with all of that raw video footage? Raw footage is not that fun to watch later – it is often hard to watch after the first few seconds, and it’s not that interesting to share with others. There’s great manual video editing software out there, but who has the time to use it for every interesting video clip they create? If you happen to film a few clips from a fun night out, would you really have the time to manually produce a short video production about it? This is one of the main reasons that the majority of footage we film with our mobile devices does not get watched or shared. We hope to change this with Videolicious.

The Videolicious brand of automatic video editing is designed to deliver you the highest quality result in the shortest amount of time. After all, if you could create a video production of that night out in seconds, it might empower you to automatically edit all of your experiences into documentaries that really tell your story. With a rich collection of tightly edited videos, you end up with something that can document your life in a way that full motion video can only convey. The story telling style can work for everything from travel videos, to video status updates, video restaraunt reviews, to video fashion editorials – check out how one of our launch partners Lucky Magazine is using it:

In this blog, we’ll be sharing tips on how to make great videos with Videolicious. From camera tips to exposure tricks, shot concepts to storyboards, we want to help you get the most from Videolicious and tell the stories of your life in the most compelling and entertaining way. Cheers!