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Permalink Reply by J.J on July 14, 2008 at 7:35pm

It's really something i would like to know. I think that a computer with Final Cut with help, but i have no idea of the cameras needed and the other equipment.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Atwood on July 14, 2008 at 8:18pm

you just need editing software on your computer or atleast something to allow you to upload onto youtube or some other site. and of course your creativity. thats all!

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Permalink Reply by J.J on July 14, 2008 at 8:26pm

I was just chatting with a friend that is a film director (in the making) and he says exactly that. Once you have the camera and the software you just need to be creative. For software i use Sony Vegas, but i really like Final Cut.

I'm thinking on buying a camera is there any that you know that has good quality for posting online. Any qualities that it has to have.

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Permalink Reply by Jordan on July 14, 2008 at 8:31pm

well see, that's the real problem. I don't even know where to start with editing software.
I don't even know what's available, let alone which programs are good and which ones suck =O

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Permalink Reply by Dale on July 14, 2008 at 9:01pm

I have my new show hopefully coming out later in the week. I've been going through all of this recently.

Camera - sourced one off Ebay for relatively cheap. I got a standard def DV camcorder as it wasn't too expensive and for you tube uploading should be fine. I do want to get a nice HD one at somepoint but at the moment don't have the money to do so.
Editing - I already have a macpro which I use for my music production so i have uber amounts of hard drive space and 2 quad core cpus to have fun with. I went with Final Cut express as it was pretty cheap and has all the features I need. I can use the sound plugins i run with my music within the FCE as well which is handy. It also comes with Live Type which is really handy for doing intro sequences and graphics.

What I do with both of these programs is have FCE on one monitor and Live type on another and then use one to edit clips together and the other to do graphics.
I render the graphics out of live type and then just over lay them or insert them into what ever i am working on.

Sound - I have a couple of good microphones for recording and am saving up to buy a nice Shure Lapel microphone which I can use to input into the camera which should get me much better sound quality.

Other than that an original idea or just something cool.
Oh and total cost i think was around 500 USD

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Permalink Reply by ksawyer on July 14, 2008 at 10:31pm

One absolutely invaluable site is Tubemogul. It serves a single and perfect purpose - uploading your video to just about every video site out there so you don't have to. So instead of manually uploading your video to youtube, google, myspace, blip, dailymotion, etc, you just upload your video to Tubemogul, create accounts for the places you want to upload it to, and hit "launch". The other awesome thing about it is it'll track hits from every site and place it in graphs, so you know exactly when you're popular.

If you want a show like Epic Fu, though, you've got a mountain to climb. You'll quickly find that the amount of time and effort that must go into every episode of Epic Fu is astounding. Not only is there several dozen cuts in the 5 minutes they usually run, but consider the research time to get every story, the communication for every interview, and obtaining permission rights for every video and image they use (I assume they do this, though it's possible they don't).

One bit of absolute gold for that exact issue is Creative Commons. Learn to love it. The absolute best addition in Firefox 3 is the ability to switch your Google search to a CC search, so you'll only get search results that you can use in (often, but not always) non-commercial work.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Woolf on July 15, 2008 at 1:03am

CC is a godsend for a show like EPIC FU.

I want to point out that we do not actually obtain permission rights for the images and video we use during the news portion of the show. This is because they are considered fair use -- if you are making commentary and reporting a story, you can use certain pieces of media from their original sources. It is always good form to credit them and offer linkbacks, of course.

We always obtain releases for the interviews, though.

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Permalink Reply by ksawyer on July 15, 2008 at 5:16am

That's what I was getting at about permissions rights. So long as there's a line of legitimate legal logic going on it's all good.

Hey, while I've got your attention, I was wondering if this has ever happened to you. Our first episode of our music show Soundloading got tagged by Universal Music Group for using 30 seconds of a video from one of their artists. Now our Youtube page says that part of our video belongs to them. I mean, that's fine and all, but has this ever happened to you guys?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Woolf on July 15, 2008 at 1:00am

Luckily we're in a time where there are so many fast and cheap ways to get your show up and running. A webcam attached to a computer is perfectly fine. Free editing tools like iMovie or Moviemaker are more than enough.

The main thing about starting a show isn't the equipment or the tools. It's doing something that you stick with and allow to grow. The beauty of the web is that it's the last place where you can fail at making something and have enough time and freedom to change it, reinvent it, and keep moving forward.

We're the perfect example of that. We started as The Jet Set Show. That transformed into JETSET, and that transformed into EPIC FU. Luckily for us we found awesome viewers like the people on MIX to support us, but that didn't happen until we'd been making shows for a long time.

So I wouldn't worry about your equipment. The Ask a Ninja guys started with a broken camera and an iBook G3 (no shit). Ze Frank had a crappy little camera and an old Platinum G4 Powerbook. Anything is possible, as long as the content you are making is good and you're connected to the community.

Break a leg and let us know how it goes! Start making stuff!

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Permalink Reply by J.J on July 15, 2008 at 11:36am

I just contacted one friend and we are starting some video projects. I'll post them when they are ready. This shows could be the FU Generation shows. Originating from Epic-FU viewers.

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Permalink Reply by ksawyer on July 15, 2008 at 12:37pm

You could definitely count Soundloading as one of those. I found myself wondering "What would Epic Fu do?" many times during the development stage.

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