All posts in Tell

Happy Tuesday, pals! I spent a long weekend in my hometown surprising my mom at her 50th birthday party. I love a good, well-planned surprise party. She literally screamed. It was amazing. Since I stayed a bit longer (how could I pass up making pancakes for my sister yesterday morning??), my Tuesday is like my Monday so I’m playing catch-up.

Anyways, just a quick post on Haute Blog. We launched exactly a week ago and the feedback has been amazing. Here are some updates:

• Tickets are now on sale for the Columbus event on May 19. Only 10 spots left. Act quick!! 
• We chose the giveaway winner last night! Congrats Catriona!
• We brought on a partner/sponsor for future events. Hint: they will help you make money blogging!
• This week we will be booking our NEXT venue/city. Any guesses on where Haute Blog will be headed?
• We are still looking for a 3rd and final destination for this summer. Pitch your city!

If you want to see us come to your city, if you’re interested in sponsoring or if you’d like your goodies to be featured in our swag bags – contact us here and we’ll respond quickly.

Today’s HERE WE GO post is brought to you by Rachel of Harmonious Homestead!

The renaming of my website Hounds In The Kitchen to Harmonious Homestead required as much patience as growing the tomato seedlings pictured above from two-year-old saved seeds. I wanted to change the name for a long time as my blog and the classes I teach expanded beyond cooking food to growing and preserving it. The ‘Kitchen’ felt limiting and I very rarely posted about my dogs anymore, though they are never out of sight if food is around. I had a good story in the name Harmonious and thought Harmonious Homestead better communicated my lifestyle.

I started by buying the domain and waited through house-selling and moving before the time was finally right to re-brand. During this period, I became disenchanted with my former web host because they were expensive and controlled some things internally that I would prefer to control myself. I decided that I needed to switch hosts too.

A moderately experienced blogger, I muddled through the process. I often put off the change but with a little help from friends I finally made the switch in February of this year. If you are considering a virtual name change, perhaps you can learn from my experience the six steps necessary to switch your blog name and URL.

1) Carefully consider the change. Think about where your name shows up now – social media profiles, ad and affiliates, business card/print materials, logo, etc. Does a new name fit in each of those scenarios? Are you prepared to make changes in all those places? Are you really certain that the new name is better than the old? As you’ll see below, you don’t want to do this more than once. Time: a few weeks of off and on thought. Frustration: None. Cost: None

2) Secure domain and URLs. Even if you’re just considering a change, grab the domain and custom urls for facebook, twitter, gmail address, etc. as soon as you can. It’s ok to leave these inactive, but this prevents you from getting your mind set on something that someone else grabs in the meantime. Time: fifteen minutes. Frustration: Only if you don’t do this. Cost: $8-15 per domain/domain variant

3) Set up new domain on a host. Most people advise not switching hosts at the same time as domain but I wanted to get it all over with. You’ll need to map your domain to the host, done through DNS controls. Then, install WordPress (or your desired software) which most hosts do with a fairly simple wizard. Install a template and copy widgets and plugins from your old site to this new site. Time: thirty minutes to several hours, depending on whether you’re copying from your old blog theme or setting up a new one. Frustration: A little. Cost: $15-50/month depending on your host choice.

4) Update logo and header. I wanted to save money and love my logo, so I asked my designer, Allison Lehman of this very blog, to update the words. She did this for no cost, thank you Allie! If you are changing more drastically, you may want a new logo entirely. Either way, you’ll need to update or create a header featuring the new logo. Time: thirty minutes to several hours, depending on whether you’re designing yourself and the complexity of your header. Frustration: Minimal. Cost: $0-1000 depending on whether you design your own or pay someone.

5) Import content with attention to URLs. If you haven’t been blogging very long, you can probably use an import tool to do this. Alas, with 900+ posts, my import file was too large. I read tutorials about database import methods with WordPress but nothing I tried worked. Eventually I gave up and looked for help. My host, Media Temple, offers this as a paid service for $150. I asked around locally and hired my friend Dawn Friedman because I trusted her communications and methods. No matter how you import content, pay attention the URL format and keep it the same from old site to new site. Time: at least a few hours. Frustration: High for me, less if you are adept at database management or have a smaller site. Cost: $0 – $150

6) Switch to the new site. Use DNS controls to forward your old domain to the new site. Be patient and clear your caches to see the new url. If you did step 5 correctly, all the old posts and pages will now show up with the new address! Beware that you will also need to update everything that had your old name/url: email or how you access it, Facebook page, social media profiles, email signature, and more. Time: up to 24 hours for DNS updates. Frustration: Minimal. Cost: $0

It’s now two months after I made the domain and host switch. I lost approximately 20% of my monthly page views initially compared to previous months at the old address, though this statistic is slowly rising. One contributing factor must be that I had to create a new Harmonious Homestead Facebook page because Facebook does not allow pages to change their name. The old page had 1600 fans and the new one is not even at 300 yet. I know these numbers will rebound eventually and the smaller audience is very engaged, though I miss the reach of the bigger fan base.

I love that Harmonious Homestead better represents what I do than the old name and couldn’t be happier with Media Temple as a host. I hope to never switch again – the above steps took me almost two years from start to finish!

Today’s HERE WE GO post is written by videographer Andy Newman. Check out his most recent film: Portrait! It’s amazing.

Christopher Nolan (Director of The Dark Knight and Inception) used a particularly good trick on his first film, Following. Since he knew the camera work and audio production weren’t going to be exceptional, he shot the first key scene at his school. He used their professional grade audio and stabilization equipment to establish a level of quality, and to give him time to suck the viewer in with the story. Once you’re drawn into the story, which happens during this scene and in the first 10 minutes, you’re much more forgiving of the rest of the movie for some shaky handheld camera work and not-so-perfect audio. Don’t be shy about using any trick you can dream up to make your video better.

Aside from audio, the other tips are a bit more simple and straightforward.

Consider your lighting.

You don’t need a professional lighting kit to make a video look great. In fact, so many cameras like the Canon DSLRs are ridiculously good in low and natural light, so take advantage of it.

If you have a big window, sit your subject in front of that window. The would be known as your “key light.” Make sure it’s at a slight angle so they don’t squint from the sun shining in their eyes. Also, be on the lookout for shadows. Unless you specifically want the look of hard shadows on your subject’s face, it’s best to avoid it. What you can do is add another light source on the opposite side of their face, known professionally as a “fill light” to soften the shadows. A small lamp is perfect for this. I’ve even used an iPad at full brightness before.

If you’re looking for something a little more concrete, the outstanding video production team stillmotion put together a tutorial on how to light an interview for $26.

Finally, the last point is stabilization.

A shaky shot can turn people off, and even make some people suffer from motion sickness. Once in awhile, this can be used to great effect, and is often most associated with movies like The Bourne Ultimatum. Chances are you don’t want your video to look like an action thriller.

Place the camera on a table or counter. Find items to stack under it to raise its height, just make sure you hold it with both hands so it doesn’t tip over. A cheap tripod from Amazon can work wonders. Anything that increases your points of contact with your body and stable surfaces like a table or the ground will improve the image quality. If you must shoot handheld without any type of camera support, tuck your elbows as tightly into your sides as you can, and avoid moving too much.

For now, those tips should help you get started. Technical details will come later. If you know basics of photography, most of those details translate. ISO, shutter speed, aperture, frame rate. I’ll mention one more thing. Of those, there’s one in particular you need to look out for and it’s shutter speed. It should be as close to double your frame rate as your camera settings will allow. For 24p (24 frames per second), shoot at 1/50 (ideally 1/48) shutter speed. If you’re shooting at 60p, set the shutter speed to 1/125 (ideally 1/120).

I’m always willing to answers questions as best as I can, so tweet me or email me with any you might have.