I am using Sony Vegas Pro and am working with a lot of HD material. Those FLIP cams are cheap, work good and are great for working at 720P. Plus they are compact and hook up easy, making file swapping a snap(well, except for file sizes!). But a word of warning: Cisco lost interest in the Flip cams. Typical for Cisco, they lose interest in most things they do after 2 years in the consumer market place. Major stuff: 3 years. Core stuff: 5 years at best.
I like the Andre style tutorials. He steps you through it, but the problem is that he’s fast, and even when he slows it down, he just can’t slow it down enough in my opinion. Plus, the “one take, one shot” thing leaves a bit to be desired. I will give him credit for pulling it off, it takes some serious practice and there must be tons of bad shots. But with the lack of angles and slow-mo, I have a hard time following a lot of it, but as a beginner, literally, this is my 1 month of getting into yoyos today, I got tons to learn, so maybe it won’t be so difficult for me later when I get some real skills!
I’d like to create more of a class-room type lesson but without the formality or stuffiness. I don’t want it sterile, I want it more like a guy is showing a few friends some tricks. We’d take the Andre style approach, but then break it up with some cards and muilti-angles. Seeing the trick from the front, side and top helps. I think the slow-mo from above coupled with freezes and voice over would round it out. Since we’re mainly doing it from a top-down angle, that’s the “money shot” right there for learning, but it’s also critical to see the front angle because that’s what the judges will see, and the side angle helps one make corrections to many mechanical mistakes on tricks involving the break-away and most using front/back movements. That’s what I like about yours is the multiple angles. The cards with the break-downs could be cut down with voice over and some minor effects. Things would flow a lot better in my opinion. I do like how you start:
Walk in, throw it, walk off. It’s kinda got an attitude about it, but it’s not a bad one. It’s like “Here,I am, here it is, there it was, there I go”. In my opinion it doesn’t come off cocky, it’s just no frills. “Here’s the trick, let’s break it down”.
I’ve found watching multiple tutorials at this point is helping me. The more points of view the better.
I think what would be cool is that you take the best contest entries and use it to compile a teaching DVD or downloadable files. I’d love to make DVD’s of most of the sites I’m visiting for training(including here and the yours), get the raw files and then compile them into DVD’s. But, short of that, you might see me swing by your site and order a full set of your DVD’s soon. If anything, I also have full duplication services at my location, including on-disc printing! When I like what I see, I like to support those doing the work.
Maybe I could develop a cost-effective 3D rig and could create 3D HD yoyo training videos. Man, that “foward pass” is gonna literally come at you!
In the meantime, I’d have no issue recommending people to also check out your training vids. Again, the more videos we watch from more people trying to provide training, the better off the community is. I just hope one day to help MAKE some videos. No, not be IN them, help shoot, edit and create them. Either sell the DVD’s for cheap and/or give away the videos through my web server.
