Screencasting has come a long long way over the last three
years since it’s existence sprang in to existence.
Back then the term screencast
didn’t
exist at all.
In the same month that the medium comes of age, I have made the
commitment to professional screencasting as a full-time career.
Udell coined the term (with
a little help from his blog community) and basically (re)invented the
medium while he was at it.
It’s surreal to think that on the
month that
screencasts turn three I have made the final leap to full-time
professional screencasting after working with a great bunch of clients
this last year. A lot has changed in a short space of time.
So obviously
I have a lot to celebrate, and to thank Mr. Udell
for. Beth Kanter –
whose awesome screencasting primer and commitment to sharing her
findings on screencasting has made a huge difference to me –
has put together a birthday screencast to
mark the occasion.
As always, it was cool to hear Beth’s
reflections on
her experiences with this fledgling medium and much of what she talked
about in the screencast, and in her accompanying blog post sparked my
interest.
Screencasting as Micro-Media
Beth has a lot to say about
Jing, and
the great impact it has had in turning screencasting into something
everyday people can pick up and use to teach each other, share issues
they’re having, and a lot more besides.
Jing cuts out the
trimmings –
the extras that are only really going to be of interest to that small
percentage of technically minded pros – and makes it really simple to
create satisfying chunks of just-in-time micro media that get the job
done. Period.
At the moment I’m teaching my folks some social
media
tricks, and it quickly become apparent how useful Jing is at just
getting the simple task of relaying information quickly, and visually
in this sort of situation.
Professional Screencasting
On the other side of the coin I find myself
using
Final Cut Pro Studio 2 in
my professional work, in spite of its obvious unfriendliness to the
task of screencasting, for a couple of reasons:
- The non-linear editing environment is something
I’ve long been
familiar with, since my background is in film and video. It’s
really
tough to let go of the ability to make precision edits and use my
favorite little tools, especially when making revisions for clients
that might otherwise mean completely reshooting footage - I find my own work moving into a fusion of screencasting
and
something closer to motion graphics. I’m calling it
“screencasts ++” or
“enhanced screencasting” for want of a better
phrase. Final Cut helps
me get there. - I just love grappling with software updates that introduce
fresh bugs and demand new and imaginative workarounds.
Future of Screencasting
Reading Beth’s and Jon’s posts,
I got to thinking about the future of screencasting.I think, just as
with web video at large, we are seeing an interesting and highly
complementary split in the road for screencasting.
I see more people
using screencasting in a professional capacity – as teachers, Internet
marketers, and even screencasters-for-hire like me, and expect to see
this trend take a sharp upturn in 2008 and onwards.
I also see
screencasting steadily merging with other genres – motion
presentations, animation, motion graphics, video blogging to name a few
– to create new and interesting hybrids.
Then on the other side,
screencasting seems to be becoming steadily more accepted as another
way for people to easily communicate something visually – helped along
by end-to-end solutions like Jing that make capturing and
publishing screencasts as easy as sending an email or making an iTunes
playlist.
I’m really looking forward to the results of the
meeting
between this super-fast way of making screencasts, with the Twitter
like speed and informality of Seesmic. That
could be a tipping point I think.
Originally written by Michael Pick, a professional screencaster, web video maker and blogger. Some Rights Reserved.
