Are we becoming satisfied with mediocrity I wonder? Yeah, yeah I know, harping again.

Everywhere I look around me it seems we are, especially in the area of creativity. Have a look at the ‘net to see this is so. Even people who should know better appear to be happy to post photos online that are poorly lit, grainy, badly composed and in short, awful.

The same applies to video on YouTube etc.

In the haste to ‘capture the moment’ as the PR spin keeps explaining it as, we have lost all pride in the workmanship to make the ‘moment’ a magic one as against a mediocre, forgettable one – before we take the next ugly shot or clip.

The frustrating thing is that the steps necessary to go from mediocre to excellent are so simple and basic. Turn the flash on, make sure the subject is not backlit, use the camera ‘scene’ settings, use something to stabilise the camera and frame the subject.

Most importantly though, and where a huge leap in quality can be gained, is don’t be in such a bloody hurry to post the image to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter or whatever. It’s doubtful indeed there are people waiting breathlessly for your next photo to magically appear that they can coo or ‘cor!’ over.

So spend some time after the fact to use the tools available to tweak the photo, remove red eye, perhaps crop it or resize it; you don’t need to be a Photoshop whizzo you know! The software that probably came with your camera will do most of the basic things, and even the freebie apps in Windows and on the Mac are better than rudimentary and have Wizards to make these tasks easy.

Finally, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, get up close and personal with your camera or (gasp) smartphone’s manual.

Right now, NAB is on in the US. For those not necessarily in the “know”, this is the one big show of the year that all major (and minor) vendors deem it fit to announce their new product line ups for the coming year.

NAB stands for “National Association of Broadcasters”, and in true US form seems to make out that all of the good stuff is United States of America-land sourced. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For example, Australian company Blackmagic has announced no less than 25 new products ranging from a new cinema camera to switches, video cards and converters.

Similarly we also have in Australia the world renowned RØDE Microphones which also creates the Event series of studio monitors.

Germany is well represented with the range of ProDAD video editing package plugins including Adorage, Mercalli and Heroglyph that work with most major editing packages including Edius 6, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere and others.

If you want to keep up with the waterfall of product announcements, at Auscam magazine we are setting up a special NAB section during the course of the day, so feel free to pop by at http://www.auscamoinline.com

One thing that frequently disappoints me is the lack of ambition in people when it comes to video making. While there are many people doing video editing and making movies – with footage from smartphones to sophisticated prosumer camcorders – so many do not go beyond the basic cut scene and such themes as “Baby’s First Steps” or “Our Day at the Beach”.

It is important to document these occasions of course; my friend and colleague at AFTRS Mike Jones calls them “Family Documentaries” which is a marvellous term. However I wonder how much latent talent these is tucked away in the minds of the people who lovingly put these together for their family and friends and what may be produced if they put these very minds to a bigger and more expansive task?

It doesn’t take a Kubrick or Stone to learn the basics of fade cuts or adding music to a series of clips with the most basic of software – even the freebie iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. Take a step up to something such as Corel VideoStudio, Premiere Elements or Vegas Movie Studio and something magical can happen!

Add a smattering of imagination and who knows what the results may be? The art of making a short film – as against the aforementioned Family Documentary – is simple. Tell a story that has a beginning, middle and an end. And the end doesn’t have to be conclusive either. It can be a lead into a second film, or ask a question that requires thought for example, but it is imperative that a story is told.

A good place to start is to read the manual for the editing software and see what its capabilities and features are as this alone can whet the creative juices. And then think of the audience and what they would like to see. Grab a sketch pad and do some “storyboarding’ – simple sketches in doodles of a basic story line and once you have the idea of what you are after, go and shoot some scenes from different angles.

Most of all, enjoy the process and also don’t forget that you do not need the biggest and best camera or computer to get a result that pleases. You can still laugh out loud to a silent, grainy Charlie Chaplin film and enjoy it immensely! The story is the key.

So go on. Do it! Post the results to YouTube (or better, Vimeo) and let me know where it is. I look forward to an enjoyable watch.

For those that know me, you will understand my interests include motor sport and fishing as well as video. And they all intertwine as I love taking video of both and have many, many (unedited) hours filed away on tape, HDD and SD cards of various race tracks, car classes, boats and fishing from trout to marlin.

Of late I have also become a fan of the TV show ‘IFish’ on Channel 10 (and am hoping to have a feature story on the making of the show and an interview with the host Paul Worsteling very soon) and following on from an interesting story on fly fishing, I decided give it another go.

My old fly gear is still boxed up in WA, so I went to the local fishing store (which is very well known around these parts!) to have a look at some gear and get some advice.

Upon asking the question as to what sort of rod I needed, I got a bored “depends on the reel” answer. The owner of the store was sweeping the floor close by and chipped in with “Why do you want to persecute yourself with that, fly fishing I mean?” Assistant number one then said “We don’t carry much fly gear anyway”.

When I asked if he could suggest anywhere, all I got was a shrug of the shoulders and a “Nope”. Mr Owner, still sweeping, then said something like, “Saves you the trouble of the pain then”. And walked away.

So did I.

I am still gobsmacked that a shopkeeper who supposedly has a good reputation treated a potential person with money in his pocket like that. I’ll never go back there, and will tell everyone who’ll listen of the experience.

Sadly, this attitude seems to be pervasive into all sorts of industries, and the electronics/gadgets/camera sector is no stranger to it. The lack of service and general product knowledge is in my experience horrific. And I maintain this is why a lot of people are buying off the ‘net.

They might do some research in a store (kick the doors and slam the tyres so to speak) but then buy online so the customer is still within reach of the sales staff, but after many years in retail I learned from experience that once they are out of the door, 95% of the time you’ve missed the sale.

I’d like to hear your experiences? Is this one reason you shop overseas or at least, via online?

In the world of video editing, in Australia-land at least, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, Apple FCP and to a lesser degree I suspect Pinnacle, are known across the board as the major video editing software packages. And there are ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ versions of most depending on your needs.

This weekend however, I had the chance to play with a package I knew of, but had not really seen as a major player. But now I have had that play, I am surprised it is not better known here, and used more by pros especially.

I am not going to go into technical details here – that is more for the full review in Auscam magazine to do (I need to make a quid after all!), but as Molly would say, do yourself a favour and nip over to www.grassvalley.com and download the trial version of EDIUS 6.

It mimics the ‘old’ way of doing things very well with the preview window and playback window analogy, a multitude of ways of editing and trimming clips, support for just about every video format on the timeline at the same time (including playback without needing a re-render) and bucketloads of other features and functions an enthusiast and professional alike will appreciate.

To learn the basics and get into the package, Grass Valley has set up the “Grass Valley University” and there are 36 tutorials that in short video clips (max 7 minutes in a clip) you are run through the wherewithal of the package to get you up and running.

For more detailed tutoring, my writers at Auscam tell me that On2DVD has a brilliant DVD tutorial taking you to the upper echelons of knowledge of EDIUS at an affordable price. Ask for Mark apparently and he’ll look after you