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Creating Videos

There are a variety of ways of making videos. The easiest and most effective for this project is to create a screen recording.

Screen recording

If you’re on a Mac you can use Quicktime or Keynote to create a screen recording.

Quicktime

  1. Open up QuickTime.
  2. Go to File->New Screen Recording.
  3. It’ll give you the option to record the whole screen or just a part of the screen, and then start recording.
  4. You can record your screen and audio at the same time, and voila, you have a presentation on video!

If you’re on Windows: Check out this screen recording software.

Uploading to Vimeo

  1. Sign up for a Vimeo account following the instructions on their website.
  2. You will receive and email with a link to verify your account, after which you can upload a video.
  3. Navigate to the site, login and click the big blue upload button in the top right corner, you’ll be prompted to upload your video.
  4. After choosing a file to upload, you’ll end up at a page with all the details of your video. Format your title as the name of the project/company_homeworknumber, and make sure the privacy settings allow anyone to see the video.
  5. After uploading the video, Vimeo will tell you that it’s going through a technical process to format the video, and after that you should be all set!

Tips for Making a Good Video

  1. Write out a script for what you’re going to say. Practice saying it aloud several times to smooth out any places that you might stumble.
  2. Ensure that the visuals are a good accompaniment to your narration, and that they help reinforce it. A basic (if somewhat boring) way of doing this is to have slides with bullet points that highlight the main ideas of what you’re saying. If you’re more creative, you might select images that pair well with your narration.
  3. When you record your video, consider using an external mic instead of the one built in to your computer. Most computer microphones are cheap and do not record good sound. A USB microphone, or even an iPhone headset may provide better recording quality.
  4. Consider recording an initial version of your video, and asking a friend to provide feedback on how to improve it. You might ask them to consider the following questions:
    • Was the audio audible?
    • Did the visual component complement the narration, or was it distracting?
    • Was the video relevant to the important themes of the class?
      • Did it make it clear how crowdsourcing is used by the company?
      • Did it identify who make up the crowd, and how large it is?
      • Did it explain what incentives the company provides for people to participate, or what motivates the crowd to contribute?
      • Did it talk about how the contributions from the crowd are aggregated?
      • Did it make clear whether the crowd is comprised of experts or non-experts?
      • Did it explain how quality control is done?
  5. After you get feedback, make modifications to your video and re-record it.

We have provided some examples of good videos from last year’s company profiles. Click on the 1 sentence description of the company or project to see its full profile and the video.