Your Videos

Making Videos

You'll need to have a device that can capture digital movies—this could be a camcorder, digital camera, or even your cell phone! You copy the movies to your computer, and then you can either upload them as-is or edit them with software such as iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to add titles and special effects. For more detailed information, read the Making and Optimizing Your Videos section. But, first of all, if you don’t have an account, you will need to register. Click here to register.

For some types of cell phones and mobile devices, you can also upload to LivingConversations directly, without copying the file to your computer first.

Making and Optimizing Your Videos

Living Conversations is designed to make sharing your videos with other survivors as easy as possible. You probably have the tools to make a video already, even if you don't have a camcorder. Web cams, digital cameras, and even cell phones often have video recording features-many digital cameras even have a simple switch to choose between stills and video.

So take a look at what you already have—you may be surprised! Most of these devices record in either the .AVI or .MPG formats, both of which Living Conversations supports, and the video shot with them can be uploaded directly from the device or after being copied to your computer.

Digital and Analog Camcorders

If you already have a digital camcorder (one that captures in Digital8, MiniDV, HDV, or any of the DVD formats), then you're ready to start shooting your masterpiece. Your camcorder will need some kind of direct connection to your computer, either to the USB or FireWire ports or by inserting the DVD you've recorded. Once you've downloaded the video from the camera, you can upload it to Living Conversations or bring it into an editing program to play with it some more.

If you have an analog camcorder (one that uses VHS, VHS-C, SVHS-C, 8mm, or Hi8 tape), you can still get your videos onto Living Conversations. It will require an extra step and some additional equipment, though, since these camcorders are not usually equipped with computer connections. You will need to digitize the video with a converter box, which will convert the analog signal from the camcorder to a digital signal that the computer can understand. After the video has been digitized, you can manipulate it further or upload it.

Editing and Improving Your Videos

If you want to be a bit more hands-on with your video, most new computers come with basic video-editing software installed (like Apple's iMovie or Windows MovieMaker). Once you have copied the video from your camera, or camcorder to your computer, you can bring the video into these programs. Most allow you to not only edit the video, but also add effects, titles, and music to make your video look and sound more interesting.
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Tips and Guidelines for Making Your Video Story

LivingConversations is a site about life, living and the power of survival, a discussion among all women who have been touched in some way by breast cancer. And through this video forum, we can combat our fears, share our joys and lift our spirits—together. For where there is hope, there is life.

To make your video, just set up a video camera in front of you and tell your story to it. It’s that simple. Maybe have a family member or friend work the camera for you. If you have a webcam with your computer, that will work, too. YouTube has millions of videos uploaded to their site. LivingConversations.com works very similar to YouTube. If you need some technical assistance, chances are you know someone who has uploaded a video to YouTube you can get help from!

The video doesn’t have to be long, maybe five minutes, or so. The maximum allotted time is ten minutes.

Below are some possible questions you can use as a guideline to assist you in telling your story of survival for your video.

Your name, first name only is okay.
Age at Diagnosis
Biggest Fear When Diagnosed
How did you overcome that fear?
What got you through your cancer experience?
What advice would you like to pass on to others?
What would you like to tell other women who are either newly diagnosed or too afraid to seek treatment?
Best advice given to me by a Survivor?
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Uploading Your Videos to Living Conversations

Once you're happy with your final result, you'll need to save the video in a format that Living Conversations can accept in order to upload. Unless you're a professional video producer, we recommend that you save your videos as either QuickTime .MOV, Windows .AVI, or .MPG files- these are the most common formats and they work well within our system. We specifically recommend the MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format at 320x240 resolution with MP3 audio. Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your clips look better on Living Conversations.

After Uploading Your Videos to Living Conversations

After clicking "submit" and submitting your video to LivingConversations, we ask for your patience while your video uploads. Please do not navigate away from the upload page or your upload will be cancelled. Uploading videos should only take just a few minutes, depending on the size of the video. Once your video is being uploaded, you will be redirected to your video's new URL, where you can watch your video and leave comments. You can bookmark your video using social bookmarking services such as Digg and del.icio.us.