Today the iPhone 4S by Apple (pictured above) launched, and what a beautiful looking product it is! I’m personally not going to buy the iPhone 4S as I already have the iPhone 4,  but I’m anxiously awaiting for the projected iPhone 5 later next year.

I have shot numerous videos on my iPhone 4 including my Spidvid team’s enchilada video embedded below, and really enjoy the experience of using a simple yet powerful device fully equipped with a 720p HD video camera.

How To Make Chicken Enchiladas from Jeremy Campbell on UnleashVideo

The new iPhone 4S video camera is 1080p HD that has stabilization built right in for steadying shaky shots, and video editing can be done in a native way on the device as well.

3 of my favorite iOS apps for mobile video production are:

- ReelDirector: Full editing suite to add titles and credits, cut scenes, add music, and add transitions.

- 8mm: Has a few various lenses to shoot source video with including; 60s, 70s, Sakura, XPro, Noir, Siena, and 1920.

- Movie Looks: Select already filmed clips and select the look  you want including; Black and White, Cold Day, Face Light, Mojito, Pop, Soft Faded, Sunset, Vintage Color, Bleach Bypass, Bronze, Cinematic, Cold Beauty, Cross Process, Grunge, Warm Beauty, White Diffusion, Crime Scene, Curahee, Epic, Hughes, Neo, Night Vision, Ohio, Warm and Fuzzy, Auto Art, Blue Note, Crush, Gold Tone, Hi Con Glow, Platinum, Selenium, Sepia, Action, Connor, Garber, Jake, MC, Optimus, Resident, and War. 40 different looks in all, very cool!

Perhaps the most important thing to my video shoots is my little, trustworthy tripod as pictured below. Steady shots are key and this product provides a wonderful solution.

Mobile video production is ever improving as the tools and technologies are paving a path for new filmmakers and video creators to explore, and prosper from. It will be interesting to see where these products go in the future. Perhaps by 2015 or 2020 the top mobile devices will have RED quality cameras come standard.

Side note: RIP Steve Jobs, you truly changed the world with your passion, vision, and execution. You will be truly missed.

Where do you see mobile video production going? The comments are yours!

Jeremy Campbell Production Tool, product 1080p HD, 720p HD, 8mm, camera, film production, iPhone, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone production, iPhone video, iTripod, mobile, mobile camera, mobile film production, mobile production, mobile video, mobile video production, new media, production apps, Reel Director, smartphone production, smartphone video, steve jobs, tripod, video, video apps, video editing, video production

Because we are an influencer, innovator, and evangelist in the filmmaking industry we were sent a copy of the new book “Mastering Celtx” by Writers Guild of America member Terry Borst. Celtx is the top product for managing your film and video pre-production, and also any kind of other professional writings you may do.

This fantastic book includes: The Evolution of Pre-Production, Getting Familiar With Celtx, Project Navigation, Creating and Editing Production Film Scripts, Script Breakdowns, Reinventing Project Scripting, Storyboards, Sketches, Calendaring and Scheduling, Sample Projects, Creation and Admin, User Interaction, Sketch Images, Celtx Community, and other related topics. The book is also very visual with lots of great Celtx screen shots, which was a good idea so readers can learn very easily.

We have read it over, gotten value from its contents, and now want to give the book away as a gift to one of our Spidvid members. If you want to win this book, be sure to get a Spidvid account, and then let us know why you deserve this book more than anybody else. You can tweet us, post on our Facebook page, email us, or comment below to enter. Tell us a story and emotionally engage us to maximize your chances of winning! We will announce the winner tomorrow on July 26th so enter NOW!

P.S. We will throw in a few Spidvid stickers (as modeled below by this little guy) inside the book as well!

If you are a Spidvid member you should be using Celtx for your collaborative projects. Celtx is the perfect pre-production tool to complement your Spidvid projects, and any other film project you want to successfully bring to fruition.

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For those of us who don’t live in beautiful climates year round such as Los Angeles or Miami residents do, July is a month we truly treasure up here in Toronto aka Hollywood North. It’s the perfect month to gather a crew, get outside into the sun, and shoot video entertainment. Perhaps not the type of content that Spencer and Heidi (Speidi) were filming above, but rather, content that people actually want to watch!

If you have a video entertainment project that you want to develop but need to build a team to accomplish that goal, then why not post your project on Spidvid and find partners and collaborators who can add their unique value to take the project to successful completion. If you don’t yet have a Spidvid profile then get one now so you can either lead a project, or join video creators to be part of their teams.

Enjoy your weekend everyone, and cheers to your summer video production success!

Like this post? Then get future Spidvid posts delivered to your email inbox, or through RSS.

Jeremy Campbell community building a team, collaborative video, collaborators, film production, film projects, global production, new media, new media model, new media production, open video production, partners, social media, team building, video collaboration, video production, video projects

See this odd design above? This is called a Quick Response code, or QR code for short. The code has a white background with black squares placed based on a particular algorithm that ultimately when scanned by a QR scanner, will take the user to a desired destination based on the code creator’s choosing.

This particular one above leads to guest blogger’s site rookievideopro.com! The one below leads to our site spidvid.com! Take a second and scan them both when you get the chance, it’s pretty fun.

QR codes have the ability to store all sorts of information whether it be a website URL, text, a phone number, and even SMS. QR codes have been around since 1994 but have been mostly popular in Japan where they were created, so you likely haven’t heard of them until the last year or two.You might find these codes on the next bottle of medicine you purchase, or even on food packages at retail stores. I happened to pull my desk drawer open the other day and saw that my bottle of Tylenol had one on it. Here is a great explanation of what some of these little black boxes are:

As you can see, quite a bit of information can be saved in just one little area. So how could this be used in video you ask?! While I’m sure you can come up with plenty of creative ideas, here are a few I could think of off the top of my head:

• Being able to give your viewing audience information, or a site URL that they can visit without them having to write anything down.
• Automatically creating a text message for users to opt into your text messaging service to receive new content.
• Content branding.
• Secret messages and promotions.
• Access to unique content.
• Invitations to special events, like a release party.

Now at this point you’re probably wondering where to find an application to scan these codes, and the answer is probably right next to you, in your hand, or in your pocket. If you have a mobile phone, you can get access to a free QR scanner. Most smart phones have apps that can scan QR codes and tell you exactly what information is embedded in them.

Below is a list of 11 iPhone Apps that will scan QR codes:

• SocialWayne QR Code Reader [ itunes link]
• NeoReader [ itunes link]
• Optiscan [ itunes link]
• StickyBits [ itunes link]
• Barcode [ itunes link]
• QuickMark [ itunes link]
• TagReader [ itunes link]
• Redlaser [ itunes link]
• ScanLife [ itunes link]
• Mirascape [ itunes link]
• Best Buy [ itunes link]

Have an Android phone? They’ve got applications for QR scanners as well!

If you want to generate your own QR code(s) then head over to either Kaywa or Qurify and create one in less than a minute! Happy scanning!

If you like this post by guest blogger, Zephan Blaxberg, founder of RookieVideoPro.com please visit our website, the online source for video production tips, tools and gear. Follow Rookie Video Pro on twitter at@rookievideopro for the latest updates and information.

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The most important part of a collaborative video production is the planning phase. Planning out exactly how you are going to begin writing a script, drawing storyboards and finally getting into the production it will prepare you for any unforeseen obstacles and ultimately lead you to success. Seeing as Spidvid is a global social platform for video creators and filmmakers, it is important to explore ways in which collaborators can communicate and share ideas through different time zones and locations. This is where Dropbox comes in; an online cloud based storage system that creates a folder on your computer capable of syncing with any other computer or mobile device that gets authorized. No matter the file type, you gain the ease of dragging and dropping your scripts, audio files, and even large videos right into this folder to be shared.

The Dropbox service provides a free “Basic” package with 2GB of space that you can use for as long as you like, but provides the option to upgrade to 50GB of space for $9.99/month and 100GB of space for $19.99/month. 2GB of space is a lot of scripts, documents and media though, so the free package is fine for most users.

Most email systems today provide the ability to attach a file to your email and this is ok unless you are attaching a file larger than 20MB. Gmail, the free email provider owned by Google won’t allow the attachment of a file any bigger than 20MB. Well, what if you need to share a video concept? Sure you could go through the hassle of converting it to the right video format and compressing it. Then you’d have to wait for the file to upload to YouTube and depending how long the video is, you’ll add another twenty minutes to two hours just in processing time. Ok so let’s assume you did all of that and just spent a good two or three hours of your day. Not a very efficient use of time and if anyone understands time management, it should be a video production team.

Let’s consider the same scenario with the Dropbox application. Dropbox places a folder on your desktop (PC) or in your menu bar (Mac) where you simply drag the file and ‘drop’ it. That’s all. No waiting for processing or converting it to the right format; It simply is ready for your team members to view. Depending on your Internet connection there will be some time spent uploading but you gain the advantage of cutting out the converting and processing times, and you just gained back two hours of productivity. Not bad at all for a free program.

Now I’m going to let you in on a little secret- the 2GB limit is not necessarily a limit. There are multiple ways of increasing your space and they don’t cost a penny. Here are three simple and free ways of increasing Dropbox space:

1.     Complete the Dropbox ‘Getting Started’ List - The website offers 250MB of space on top of your initial 2GB just for completing their getting started list. There are 7 items on the list, so completing them all gives you an extra 1.75GB of space.

2.     Refer your friends - If you use your email at all you’ve most likely gained a hefty list of contacts. For each referral to Dropbox, you gain an additional 250MB of free space. You can extend your space up to 8GB with this.

3.     Share a Dropbox link on your social media profiles - Many people use social media networks for pleasure and for Internet marketing; now you can use them for Dropbox space. Complete all the tasks and yet again, your space will increase.

So now that you’ve created an 8GB Dropbox cloud sharing service, you not only can use it for sharing, but storing files to edit them on the go. Dropbox has expanded its product to be compatible with most mobile platforms too. Simply download and install the app, and start using your files from anywhere.

If you like this post by guest blogger, Zephan Blaxberg, founder of RookieVideoPro.com please visit our website, the online source for video production tips, tools and gear. Follow Rookie Video Pro on twitter at @rookievideopro for the latest updates and information.

Jeremy Campbell Guest Post, Lists, Production Tool Dropbox, file sharing, film production, media, new media, online video, platform, Rookie Video Pro, RookieVideoPro, technology, video, video production, video sharing, web video