I’m currently taking the Coursera Public Speaking class.  It’s a nice supplement to Toastmasters.  In the class, we create 4 videos.  I’ve never recorded myself on a webcam before, so this is interesting.

Setup

I used PhotoBooth.  I liked the narrower field of view than QuickTime player because it meant I didn’t have to move anything in my home to get a decent view.  I shifted the webcam up a bit to get papers behind me out of the way.  If I was recording something important, I’d fix this to get a better background.  Interestingly this turned out to be a lot easier than cropping a video from youtube.

Recording the video

Photo Booth is really easy to use.  You select video and click to start.  It gives you about 3 seconds to get in position before starting.  Then you export it at the end.

Cropping

Photo Booth takes care of the problem of leaning over to the computer to start the video.  It doesn’t for the end, so this takes cropping.  Which I did in iMovie.

1. In iMovie, create a new project and import the video.  A 4-5 minute video took about a minute to import/
2. iMovie automatically splits the video into short thumbnails.  Drag the one(s) you want to the top.
3. Then mouse over the last video segment until you see yourself leaning over.  It’s frame by frame so easy to find.  Select the parts you want to remove and then just cmd-X to cut.
4. Share > Export movie.  It took about 4 minutes to export.

Uploading to YouTube

1. Upload > video manager
2. Close the box about creating a channel on google plus.  I don’t want one and I’d like to not be prompted every time.
3. Drag the video in.  (The first time I made in smaller so people with slower connections could see, but then I learned youtube shrinks it for you.)
4. Choose unlisted access to the coursera students/peer evaluators can view.