This one is an old gem. Could not resist sharing it though:) Hail all my Mallu brothers. I wish I could talk like this the next time a call center fellow calls me randomly.

It’s fun creating short videos for web. They are no serious stuff, no one would expect a Spielberg or Lucas stuff from you, yet you may have something small and nice to share with others. A pocket camcorder like Flip, Creative Vado or KodakXi8 are ideal cameras for making really cool and candid videos while you’re traveling or on the streets on a weekend. I use a Creative Vado for my videos. You can read a review of this camera here. I will try to document my method and work flow for creating short internet videos using Vado in this post.

Equipment

The clips that I shoot on the Vado are mostly of maximum 1-2 minutes duration. This allows me to do a simple 180° handheld pan-shot or still frame.  For longer duration, it is advisable to mount the camera on a mini tripod. I use a Gorillapod for this purpose. The opening sequence in the following movie is shot with the Vado fixed on to a Gorillapod, wrapped around the side guard of the bike. But if the camera needs to be held at the eyelevel while shooting, and needs constant repositioning to frame the subject (like while shooting a street procession or a festival where many interesting subjects are present in one shot and you need to change compositions frequently), I use a monopod. I generally don’t carry a big tripod, as the monopod and the Gorillapod serve me sufficiently in even clicking pictures on my DSLR.

Framing, Scene Selection etc

When it comes to framing, follow some simple rules.

Do not chase the subject- Frame the subject appropriately and keep the frame static, no need to pan every time. The subject may enter, or leave the frame. This causes less distraction on the scene, provide smooth in and out points while editing and keeps things simple. But make sure you have a complete sequence in one clip.

Shoot filler clips that could set the mood- This is an important element while you sit with the footage on the editing table. Often, the story/main subject may get an enhanced treatment if you present intercuts that set the ambiance. So shoot interesting elements from the scene, they may not make much sense as independent clips but while editing, they can change the whole presentation. In the above video, I have used this technique a lot, especially in the beach sequences.

Take multiple views of the scene- This will create really dramatic effects when presented smoothly while editing.

Create candid moments- One of the biggest advantage of having a tiny camera is that people around you will not be intimidated by the presence of you filming them, as they may think of your act as a casual capture on a mobile camera and can act quite naturally. Make complete use of this and liven up your footage with moments filled with joy and life:)

Editing

In my opinion, your whole effort either makes or breaks at your editing table. Right from importing the file from your recording device, assembling them on the suite, choosing the right transition techniques and the sound manipulation, editing should be done with the utmost care and visual/audible sensitivity. The editor should have the knowhow and sensitivity of a director and the cameraman. There are many editing suites available. I use Adobe Premiere or Adobe Aftereffects based on the type of editing required. The Vado outputs the videos in .avi format with the H.264 encoding. You may need to install the complete KLite codec pack for these videos to get rendered in Premiere.

When it comes to transitions, I try to use simple timed intercuts. I make dramatic scene changes in sync with a particular beat in a soundtrack (for eg. From a less contrasting scene to a bright one) or choose scenes which may go well with the mood of a particular piece of audio background. Use of sounds is also a matter of taste. I tend to use less trippy numbers as I don’t want the music to act as a layer of distraction.

Output

To get the best quality footage, I export as Quicktime Movie (mov) format with the H.264 video compressor. I keep the pixel aspect ratio as square pixels and the frame size as 1280x720, the same size as the Vado captures the video. I also use the De-interlacing option on before rendering. This will avoid those interlacing lines around high contrast edges.

The .mov format makes the file size really huge. Before uploading to services like Vimeo or Youtube it needs to be compressed to a smaller size and streaming format. I use the freeware tool Handbrake to the conversion from .mov to a compressed .mp4 format. For best settings for Vimeo, check this screenshot. You can also use the new Sorenson Squeeze software to create compressed files. But I feel the time it takes to compress the files is way too long.

Where to upload?

Between video services, Vimeo is my choice simply because I feel it has a classy design and professional community. Vimeo is the Flickr for video. The free upload limit of 500Mb,one HD upload per week is sufficient for me. You can create your own channels too. Overall it’s a well designed tool. Youtube is of course the Picassa:) Facebook video is also quite nice, but the video upload feature sucks big time.

I have always been less confident about singing songs from other languages, because without knowing the real meaning and emotions associated with the lyrics its very difficult to extend any soul to the rendition. Yesterday on my way back home I heard this song on the radio at the local tea shop. I have heard this song before, but it was the first time i listened to it carefully. Maestro Ilayaraja and SPB at their best and it was no surprise that it was one among the numerous Mohan hits that the duo have come up with. So I decided to pen down the lyrics in Malayalam and give it a try. Its still very difficult to get the pronounciation correct as many words mean and sound similar in Malayalam and Tamil. This always creates confusion as I tend to mix up the pronounciations and overall the song gets into a mix of tamil and malayalam phonetics!

This was a simple song, yet very difficult for me to sing. There are mistakes at many places, and i have not been able to reproduce some 'sangathi's' that well. Thanks to my smoking habits and years of no practice! May be i will give it another try later.

If there is one song that evokes such dense emotions, romanticism, and shaped up a generation, this is it. A masterclass from P. Bhaskaran and Devarajan from the movie Pareeksha. This is still a hot favorite for contestants in music reality programs and one song that has remained timeless in the music minds of every Malayali.

Thanks to Bala, I am quite inspired these days to sing again. Today was great, it rained so much in Chennai and I had a good day at work too. So i decided to end the day with recording a song. Thanks to the wonderful job done at this Karaoke site I managed to find this really melodious soundtrack i have been looking for. This is a very nostalgic melody, reminding us of the days of old Malayalam songs by Vayalar and Baburaj. The original version is sung by K.J Yesudas in all his irreplaceable vocal expertise, and here is a humble attempt by yours truly:)

Movie Name: Nottam (2005)
Singer: Yesudas KJ
Music Director: Jayachandran M
Lyrics: Ponkunnam Damodaran
Year: 2005
Director: Sasi Paravoor
Actors: Jagathy, Nedumudi Venu, Samvrutha, Sathi Margi

pacha panam thathe
punnaara poomuthe
aahaa..aa....aaa...aaa
pacha panam thathe punnaara poomuthe
punnellin poonkarale
pacha panam thathepunnaara poomuthe
punnellin poonkarale

uchaykk neeyente kochu vaazhathoppil
onnu vaa ponnazhake
pacha panam thathe punnaara poomuthe
punnellin poonkarale
nee onnu vaa ponnazhake

theyyannam theyannam paadunna paadath
neeyonnu paadazhake
koyyunna koytharivaalinu
kikkili peyyunna paatt paad

pacha panam thathe punnaara poomuthe
punnellin poonkarale
aaha...aahaa...
aahaa.aa...ahaa...ahaa...haa

neelacha maanam vithaanichu minniyaa
ninnilam chunadaale
ponnin kathirkkula kothiyeduthu nee
pongi parannaalo
akkaanum maamala vetti vayalaakki
aariyan vitherinje
akaaryam ninte omana pattinte eenamanen kiliye

pacha panam thathe..hoi..
pacha panam thathe punnaara poomuthe
punnellin poonkarale
uchaykk neeyente kochu vaazhathoppil
onnu vaa ponnazhake
ahaa.ahaaa.ahaha....ahaa
nee pattonnu paadazhake

The month of Aadi (End of July and beginning of August) is of great religious and cultural significance in the Tamil Nadu. This is the time when the farmers prepare for the next crop and the Sun god –Surya changes his direction from North to South. Aadi is considered inauspicious to plan marriages or any other important ceremonies as it is believed that the ceremonies will not have the blessings from the god during this season. However, the month is of great significance in terms of commercial businesses as lot of discount sales and big shopping happen during this time. The Fridays of the month is considered very special and women observe Vrata (fasting) for the well being of the family. While most of the religious beliefs are connected to the devotion for “Amman”- the mother goddess, there are rituals which are performed to appease other gods as well.

Aadi Krithgai, a festival for the Lord Muruga also falls toward the end of Aadi month. Devotees carry flower Kavadi on the Aadi Krithigai day. It is celebrated in a grand way with various rituals in Murugan temples across the world. While carrying the Kavadi, the devotees often turn fervent and attains a state of trans.

Devotees carrying Kavadi from Anand A Nair on Vimeo.

Since I realized that my Nikon D80 cannot shoot video (Yes, it was a blind buy, suited the time and budget so I went for it as usual), I wanted to shoot video! But the whole idea of having to carry another MiniDV camcorder remained so not cool especially when every Tom has one these days. So when I saw this Vado review from Chris Pirillo, I added it to my gadget wishlist immediately, I mean see the video - the guy just freaked out!

So I pickedup one Creative Vado HD pocket camcorder at Amazon for $135, and thanks to Brijesh who smuggled it together with numerous other dutiable goods, I have one with me now. I have been a big fan of Creative products for quite some time. I had a Creative Zen V Mp3player a Zen Vision Wide portable media player and SD card reader and have been enjoying the glorious sound from the cheap 1.5 speakers I have on my PC. So As a brand I could trust Creative. But for all its goodness, creative products sucks big time in terms of product design, ergonomics and feel good factor. They are often built like brick blocks, poor cousins of Chinese electronic goods. The Vado is no exception. It’s in the size of a classic iPod and comes with a protective rubber cover that is so difficult to put on and so ugly to see. One might mistake the Vado as an old handheld transistor radio too!

The Vado shoots video in HD+ format (1280x720p), HD format and as regular VGA in AVI video. The 8GB non expandable memory can store upto 2 hrs of HD+ footage or 4hrs of HD footage or 8Hrs of VGA. The built in USB socket and software bundle allows plug and transfer to any PC without the need for external software (I have not tried it on a Mac yet). The software also lets you upload your videos to Youtube/Photobucket or Box with one click. But I found this feature not much of use as the filesizes of individual clips of 1 to 2 minutes was hitting 60-100Mb in size. So I prefer converting the AVI with a better compression codec before uploading from my 512kbps line.

Video Tests

In this footage I am trying to see how the camera adjusts to varying light conditions and the footage is taken in bright sunlight, pointing skywards first, and then moving to indoors. You may notice the light falloff at shadow regions and its expected from a commercial lens and low end camera, but the Vado still does a decent job. The footage below shows the low light performance of Vado

I have just started test shots with Vado and will be posting detailed review on lighting conditions on another post. But the initial tests prove that the camera is excellent in diffused daylight and indoors. The camera does am OK job when it comes to capturing shadowed scenes. Against very bright backgrounds, the subject may not get correctly exposed, and one may even spot a radiant glow against the darker profiles. The color reproduction tends to go into the cooler spectrum of colors. So the indoor shots with warmer lights may not turn as pretty as you would have expected. But for exteriors the color reproduction is right for my taste.

The Vado is a very light in weight. This demand for a steady hand or a mini tripod if you want videos that don’t look like Blair Witch Project.

Vado is excellent to shoot candid moments and its wide lens makes it ideal for shooting parties and landscapes, and befitting the HD format. It also shoots LCD screens quite well and I see one of my major uses will be in documenting onscreen behavior of users, Contextual inquiry documentation and web screen casts.

It is difficult to make such a strong comment against a previous employer, but i wish perhaps the bing+yahoo! would bring us a better search engine than something that Yahoo! alone can ever come up with. I use Google to search even while i was an employee at Yahoo! but i was quite regretful about that fact, for i knew how hard the company tried to gain back its prominence in the search market. From smart widgets, integrated video, the recent improved image search... Yahoo! is trying everything. But are they? Just wondering.

Today I searched for "Murali" from my office in Chennai. A well respected Malayalam actor, national award winner for best actor, winner of 3 state awards, a former Lok Sabha campaigner and chairman of th Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academi, Murali passed away yesterday and I hoped to find some tributes and special features on the net and for some reason, i opted to search from the new yahoo india homepage.

I got everything except what i was looking for. The person i was searching for was not an insignificant figure by any means as you could rightly read from his resume, and many regional dailies covered the news already. Yet, the new and improved Yahoo! search could only give me a sponsored Castro Cricket Ad. and truck loads of importance to Muthayya Muralidharan, the Srilankan Cricketer who is not even playing any matches this week.

I switched to Google and let me put both the search engine screens together.

Update:

Thanks Praveen for pointing this out. The default web page, that appear when I type www.yahoo.com, the refurbished new yahoo metro homepage does not default its location to India. But the interface on its bottom left says Y! India with a small icon of Indian flag. Now in most websites its supposed to mean that the webpage is contextualized to that location. But in this case it is a link which takes me to Yahoo!'s more contextual Indian site www.in.yahoo.com. I did the same search there and the results were much promicing. But I am even more disappointed now. I had Yahoo India defaulted before the redesign, after I choose to upgrade to the new Metro site, why is it not taking my default options from the legacy product? So on seeing the flag, as a user i have been thinking that the site is customized to Indian news Which sadly is not (on closer inspection!)

Click here to download:

Artifacts.ppt (9.86 MB)

This was a small project done during my Masters course in Visual Communication at Industrial Design Center, IIT Bombay. A months vacation was well spent with visits to many elegant Tharavadu's (Traditional Kerala houses) with my mom and grandma and discovering priceless antique stuff like measuring vessels, lamps, knives and other unique metalware which was once artifacts of everyday use in Kerala. I myself have only vague memories of their uses in our day to day life, and I assume it will be even tougher to trace them back after ten years.

Many of these products have deep cultural or metaphorical meaning related to cast, profession, rituals, mythology or festivals. My personal objective for the study was to take it as an initial base of exploration to understand meanings of signs and symbols of everyday life and possibly take inspiration from them in contomporary design practice.

Of the last half a decade of my flirtations with designing and evaluating web based applications and products, I have been fortunate and unfortunate to engage in numerous discussions and debates on evaluating the visceral and experiential impact of web applications and services and how they are interconnected. While one can always come up with truckloads of cryptic analysis to substantiate the logical reasons for success or failure of user experience on products, no theories or factsheets ever convinced me in defining the visceral definition of a site aptly for an average user. The most grossly open definitions of this experience goes like—“it’s a cool-yippie site”, “its feminine”, “it should be like an ipod (duh!)”….

So, when I was seeing the clips of Thalaivar Rajinikanth movies on Youtbe, I remembered the blockbuster movie Padayappa (the only movie Rajini movie I managed to see on the first day of release) and one of the punch dialogues from the movie which induced the usual electric atmosphere in the packed theatre. It goes like this-

Scene: Rajini explaining women to his friends

“Kannaaaa, there are three types of women in the world, Satwikam (graceful), Prachodakam(glamerous/eye candy) and Bhayanakam(raunchy), its upto you to choose what your tastes are like”

The sexist in me tends to agree with Thaialvar, but the rational pseudo in me hates the theory. However, I do think that such a measure can be more aptly weighed against fleets of new web 2.0 products that keep popping up every day.

So, Thalaivar- “the” representative of the righteous common man, as he fulfills a hero’s duty of choosing between the two leading ladies in the movie, the natural-humble-homely Saundarya falls to the Satvikam category and incidentally his preferred choice (surprise! Surprise!) and the proud-glamorous-miniskirt clad Ramya Krishna becomes the candidate for Prachodakam or Bhayanakam (Thaialvar left that part for us to decide, very clever!). Now I thought Ramya aunty was pretty seductive as she haplessly tried to woo Thalaivar and so to me she was Prachodakam. The only item song in the movie was handled by Ramya so I could not find any other evil-raunchy-steamy character that might have fit the bill for Bhayanakam (Although Ramya did try to do a villainous makeover in the second half to come back all evil, she was still hot!). So I decided to move out of the Padayappa movie and pick the suitable profile.

Here is a pictorial capture Thalaivar with the final candidates!

Now, I am just borrowing Thaialvar’s immense knowledge of mankind and applying it to my day to day work. Here onwards I would use the characteristics of Satvikam, Prachodakam and Bhayanakam to classify the visceral effect of products that gets pumped onto my web browser every day. For lack of any better symbols, I will use the reference to those 3 ladies on the picture while making this classification.

Here is a work-in-progress draft, feel free to pitch in

Satvikam :)

• Twitter
• Gmail
• Basecamp
• Amazon
• Youtube
• Redbus
• Posterous
• Vocaroo
• Shelfari
• Blogger
• Blip.fm
• Mozilla

Prachodakam :P

• Vimeo
• Last.fm
• Cleartrip
• Facebook
• Virb
• Scrapblog
• Tumblr
• Wordpress
• Justin.tv
• Flickr
• Netvibes
• Squarespace

Bhayanakam :( !!!

• Delicious
• Backtype
• Digg
• Myspace
• Craigslist
• Indian railways
• brightkite