A podcast is any digital media file that is released in episodes or timed increments. The most common digital media file format is the MP3. The .wav file is also popular, and is for video podcasts, often called vidpods or vodpods.

The first podcasts were in 2004, but it was only after the iPod was produced. Podcast is just the combination of the words iPod and broadcast. That same year, many companies, with the root word ‘pod’ in it, attempted to obtain a trademark. None of them were successful, with the exception of Podcast Ready, Inc. Apple Corporation was unable to obtain a trademark for the acronym ‘pod’ simply because it is an acronym.

The good thing about podcasts or vodpods is that you can spend as little or as much money on it as you wish. A web feed, called an RSS, is automatic, free and is downloadable in text format. Rather than an independent website, podcast presenters can host their radio talk show or video show on a podcast-capacity website, such as BlogTalkRadio and TalkShoe. The ready-made podcast is totally connectable to the social websites Facebook and Twitter. If you do have your own blog or website, these podcast hosting websites furnish script to place a widget for the podcast on your own pages. With the embeddable widget script, no other software is required to create an original website around the theme of your own podcast.

A movie about animals may be filmed at a sanctuary for wild animals or even at a neighborhood park where squirrels or other small animals live and routinely go about in search of food while interacting with the other animals. A two person movie might consist of a couple on a first date that goes comically wrong. With a bit of imagination, the right movie plot will come to mind. The best movies will be about the things that the filmmaker knows the most about or has done the most accurate research about.

Many completed films are done by what would be called amateurs or someone who just wanted to give filmmaking a try. If the film is good, it can be presented to a film festival for showing. Some of the most accomplished movies had their beginnings as a very inexpensively made film. Just because it didn’t cost much to make the movie, doesn’t mean that the movie can’t make money and end up a very lucrative investment. With movie making software, it’s rather easy to incorporate words on the movie screen, whether it is rolling script or stationary words. The title of the movie and the names of the movie’s producers, as well as the names of the actors are shown at the beginning of the movie. The end of the movie lists the actors again, plus the names of all who were involved with making the movie and the copyright credits.

If a filmmaker can get that far, it’s only a little bit further to get the movie into the media. IMBd, an Amazon company, has free pages for filmmakers to prepare the movie to be distributed via several types of media vehicles, the main one being via the internet with downloads from Amazon’s company, CreateSpace. The link site, Withoutabox, specifically for indie movie makers, enables the filmmaker to submit the movie to selected film festivals. Copying relevant portions of the movie to make a short trailer as well as creating a graphic picture for the movie renders the film ready for showing. There is also a PR and Press Kit section to let people who browse IMBd know about the new movie. Include a favorite movie review on the PR page. A good start with reviews for your movie includes possibly setting the tone for future movie reviews.

Even if your movie is only five minutes in duration, a filmmaker can still submit the movie to film festivals that accept five minute movies. Several of these film festivals carry a six figure prize for the movie chosen as the best. The duration of the film is a bit flexible, as the requirement is for no more than 7 minutes, yet last year’s winner entered a film of 20 minutes duration. It is a good movie and is perhaps the form by which all other indie movies are measured at The Doorpost. There are 7 possible topics for The Doorpost Film Festival: authenticity, sacrifice, identity, community, commitment, truth, hope.

It’s a good idea to attend some of the film festivals, especially the ones that are showing your movie. Start and keep a blog about the progress of your movie, in addition to your professional IMBd pages. You will see the reaction of your audience and gauge as to how you would change or improve your next movie.

Pivot 3 Stick Figure Animation Software

The animation can be enhanced by audio or sound effects which would give additional meaning to the stick figures’ actions, reactions, and interaction. Deciding the points that the audio or background sounds will be incorporated will make the animation fun to view. The creator of the animation should want the viewer of the work to know exactly what is going on with the story line. So the first step in creating the stick figure animation is writing out a story line.

Smooth story line and precise action will make your end product an original work that is a bit different from many other examples of stick figure animation. Too much violent action without a story line would make the end result have no meaning. So the finished animation should have a purpose, characters that have a personality or a specific function and a goal. The end of the animation is just like the end of a story. If the stick figure animation is really good, it can be displayed on a website.

The Japanese market is the largest and earliest video game market, funded mostly by a successful ‘manga cartoon’ market, starting from the early 1960’s. Programming courses specific to video games was introduced within mainstream education in both China and India. As early language translations were not as accurate as wanted, English speaking programmers from Australia the United States and Germany assisted with these early video game works prior to distribution in North America.

Video games basically have two forms: played on a free-standing electronic console devise or played on a TV or computer screen. The handheld joysticks or other handheld devices shaped in the forms of various types of steering wheels. Some console games utilize buttons or a mouse.

Experimenting with programming, getting inspired from other programmers’ homemade 3D games can help you in formulating strategies for your video game characters. Many homemade video game characters are made in Milkshake. Download this program and play around with it, and see if it’s a good program for your video game. There is a lot of game art to choose from as well, with books detailing how the artwork is incorporated into your homemade video game.

Adding sound effects and additional backgrounds and items onto your game platform is easy enough with software. Not all homemade video game efforts require extensive knowledge of programming. If interested in further knowledge about programming, free online courses in C++ may prove worthwhile. Lots of video games have a basis in C++.

It’s not that difficult to make your own video game if you know the basics. Game making software makes it very easy to organize your effort into a complete video game and walkthrough that can be introduced on YouTube or another video-sharing platform. Your own website and brand can display your homemade video games, for free giveaway or for a price or donation.

While you’re on that vacation, or at any time really, you can use your camcorder to make a documentary video, a daily diary of sorts. Footage that usually goes into your own personal computer for your viewing can easily be edited and uploaded as an indie movie short. The royalties from users downloading or viewing your movie creates passive income all year long.

With your video editing software, put background music and voiceovers into your video. You don’t have to be an expert filmmaker, producer or writer of screenplays to create a documentary movie that others will be happy to watch.

Some of these online independent movie “theatres” will display your movie as a free movie, but you as the filmmaker, will continue to garnish the royalties. Other indie movie websites will allow you to charge a fee for users viewing your movie, and your royalties will be much higher. The usual agreement is that you continue to own your movie and when you enter into a non-exclusive agreement, you can also upload your movie to YouTube to increase viewer awareness of your movie short.

Making an indie movie short is easy. Even without formal training in a film school, your indie movie can win in a film festival. Making a 5 or 10 minute movie won’t take that long; maybe a few days or a week at the most. Everything you need for production can be found on the internet: sound clips, background music or editing software, for example.

Everything around you is a prospect for your movie genre and theme. Your friends could provide you with ready actors if they can say a few memorized lines from your screenplay pages. A little coaching might be in order for those that have never tried acting before. Not looking into the camera is one of the most important lessons for any new actor.

The first few seconds of the movie should be interesting and present the story line in an exact manner so that the audience doesn’t get confused or is left wondering what the story is all about. The first minute of the film is the most important – it’s when viewers will either be interested enough to continue watching or lose interest in the film.

The new movie producer can get an account with YouTube to showcase the short indie movie. Lots of producers, actors and singers have been spotted from YouTube and have garnered the attention of people looking for new talent. YouTube is a free platform that the new movie producer can use to refer and direct a new audience to an indie movie.

The indie movie short can win at film festivals, both nationally and at international film festivals. Getting a page at IMDb, an Amazon company, can get your short movie on the map. From there, you can also submit your film to as many film festivals as you want. Sundance is one of the major film festivals. There are many in all sections of the country. Try choosing some of the film festivals where you can attend to see your audience’s reaction to your movie first-hand.

The holiday time is here now and the kids are out of school for the holiday vacation. The holidays are less exciting as people grow older, but it’s of supreme excitement to young kids. While anticipating Christmas day, kids can get awfully bored. Alternating between writing projects and crafts projects may be the no-cost answer to you child’s boredom.

How about writing Santa a letter and sending it to the North Pole? Just print out a few pages of Christmas writing paper and half the work is already done. Just find an envelope and pop it into the nearest mailbox. Your child may want the Santa writing paper, or may prefer to have the Nativity scene writing paper or an Angel or Sled. The alternative is to draw your own writing paper or let the child draw their own personalized writing paper.

Origami (折り紙) is an old Japanese art form. It works with paper and when folded this way and that, is made into a work of art.

Some Origami paper works are fairly easy. The Origami paper rose is one of the easiest and with the green leaves and stems, will work great as a bouquet of paper roses. There are more difficult origami crafts and ebooks on the subject can be found online. Some really great artwork can be created using toilet paper and the dollar bill. Toilet paper roses in a dollar bill vase may be just the present someone is looking for. Children may like an entire menagerie of dollar bill creatures in a basket. Grown-ups like dollar bill trinkets, too and a dollar bill origami sculpture will be treasured as priceless.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa or Hanukkah, there are activities for children’s crafts that are very easy, so that even small children or adults can put the Origami candle and candleholder together, or cut out the paper dolls and clothing. There are several ethnicities and several wardrobes of paper clothing. The candle can be used for all three holidays. Children will love spending time with these arts and crafts and the projects will keep them busy while waiting for that special Christmas morning.

There was a time when far less people had jobs that had financial room for gift-giving. The holiday season would be a time to give gifts that don’t really cost much money, but would be valued by the gift receiver.

Presents had to be hand-made and inexpensive to make. Parents ensured that their children would receive holiday presents, even if they had to give handmade gifts. Children and teenagers could also make great gifts for the people they cared about with very little effort and money.

Making homemade sugar candy is one of the most old-fashioned and easiest holiday gifts. Just by mixing little bits of water into a cup of sugar and vanilla flavoring until the consistency is moist but thick, and then spooning the mixture onto a plate, a great holiday gift is easily created. A dot of food coloring can turn your creation into a rainbow work of art. Setting the plate in the refrigerator for a day will make the candy solid. The candy can then be placed into a little candy tin.

Opting to make a tin of homemade cookies has always been an old-fashioned holiday favorite. The cookies should be baked no more than two days before the day you will give your home-baked gift. A batch of no-bake or easy bake cookies such as chocolate chip or peanut butter makes a tasty holiday gift.

Another inexpensive gift is a crocheted scarf. Even if you don’t know how to crochet, you can learn in a few minutes how to make the basic stitches to make a scarf. You will just need a crochet needle and yarn. Variations of the scarf, including a hat-scarf combo by stitching up a portion of the scarf or making a very large scarf to be used as a shawl or wrap for the cold weather, would make a nice holiday present. The recipients of these homemade gifts will treasure and value the items for many years.

A homemade potpourri sachet is easy to make, and material stores will carry a variety of gauze material, satin ribbons and bows that can be sewn or tied around the dried perfumed leaves or herbs. Sachets can also be made with regular kitchen ingredients, such as cinnamon sticks, sage leaves, ginger or dried fruit peels.

If making a present for children, both boys and girls may like a poppet or rag doll. A very easy rag doll can be made just by sewing edges together and stuffing the doll with cotton. Jewels or buttons can be sewn onto the doll’s face for eyes and mouth and the hair can be made from slices of material sewn onto the doll’s head. The doll’s clothing can be made easily also, with a free pattern that can be printed out. The dolls can be made with felt, muslin, old T-shirt or fabric remnants.

Think of all the things that we use in our everyday lives that could become a holiday gift. Look in the supermarket also. For instance, for parents or adults, a can of ready-made eggnog can be used as a base to make a holiday beverage jar. Just add ¼ brandy or rum to ¾ eggnog, place a few cinnamon sticks in the jar and sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg powders. The mixture should be refrigerated until you are ready to give the gift. If you take a strip of aluminum foil and wrap it around your finger, it will mold a nice swirl to be twisted into a holiday bow for your jar.

After the holiday, you will be satisfied that you were able to make someone happy with your homemade gift.

Samsung SC D382 Mini DV Camcorder

Young filmmakers and new filmmakers have many venues from which to show their work. With the internet and computers, entire movies can be viewed entirely online. It’s easier than going to a movie theatre, particularly if you get the urge to watch a movie in the middle of the night. Pop your own popcorn and you’re all set.

You’ve watched a myriad of movies. You’ve seen all of the good ones, and some of the not-so-renowned ones as well. Like never before, independent movies are very accessible. There are websites that are showing film festival-quality independent films online at a very affordable price. So you think you could write a movie of your own? You can certainly test out your skills without spending a whole lot of money in the process.

If you aren’t really sure about how professional your filmmaking would be, there are several free internet filmmaker schools that have a wealth of information for the new filmmaker. Some free filmmaker schools can also give you feedback on your screenwriting efforts.

You basically know the format, but actually putting your writing into that format can be a daunting task, especially when you are limited as to equipment and funds for expensive software. Write your screenplay online and store it there, for when you want to get back to it.

The biggest expense for the low-on-funds-but-brilliant filmmaker is the movie camera. Webcams usually can’t do lighting and dimension, as well as zoom to any degree. One of the most inexpensive, but professional camcorder you could buy is the Samsung SC-D382 MiniDV Camcorder. You will also need a tripod for you camcorder to make your little movie have the dimensions, stability and realism of a professional movie.

If you don’t have the money for a movie camera, you may consider free animation software. You can still create your movie, but would want to do your own voice-overs.

Many new filmmakers don’t host their movies on their own website. With a non-exclusive clause contract, filmmakers can filter out indie movies to several internet movie distribution companies and split the revenue every time a customer purchases a downloadable movie or DVD.

There are lots of video hosting websites where short clips (such as movie trailers) can be viewed for free. That’s good advertising, too, and helps get the word out about your new movie.

If you do a really neat, orderly and interesting movie, your self-produced little effort may be the start of something really lucrative and renown.