WordPress.tv Needs You

If you’d like to submit a screencast, video presentation or WordCamp video to WordPress.tv, here a few guidelines as to what we’re looking for. In all cases, the key is to sharing quality content that our users might find useful in learning about WordPress and how to do awesome things with it.

WordCamp Videos

If you’re going to attend a WordCamp and would like to record some video, or have recently recorded some WordCamp content, we’d love to see it. While we’re thinking it’s better to have *some* coverage, rather than no coverage, your video has more chance of being posted if:

-The audio is clear and doesn’t make it difficult to understand. Consider using a shotgun microphone, or even better, ask permission to source audio from the soundboard being used for the event’s PA. If you’re using a built-in mic, try to get as close to the action as possible and check that your input/gain levels are set appropriately (if you plug your headphones in you’ll get a good idea).

-Consider using a tripod, monopod, gorillapod, or any other way of keeping your camera steady – shaky camerawork can make people feel seasick

-Think about the position you’re going to be shooting from. Can you get close up to the action? Any chance of showing the speaker *and* slides (teaming up for this works wonders)

-If you get chance, adding simple titles for the different speakers or at the head and tail of your video is great, as is dividing the video by presentation

-If you decide to edit the video, try not to cut out chunks of the presentation

Screencasts

We’d love to share your screencast tutorials. The most important things to think about here are:

-Keep it concise. The longer your video, the less chance you’ll have of retaining interest

-Keep it clear – is the narration easy to hear? Is it easy to read the text or see what’s happening? Blurry wide-angle shots kind of defeat the object of showing us your screen

-Keep on track – we link back and credit all of our sources, and feel it’s more useful to share videos that aren’t chock-full of personal promotion (aka video spam), rants or your potted life history. Personality is good, boring or spamming people isn’t

-Keep it current – to avoid confusion, we’d rather share content of the current version of WordPress.com or WordPress.org (2.8+)

-We won’t be sharing videos that promote proprietary (AKA “premium”) themes for the simple reason that they’re in direct contravention of WordPress licensing – let’s keep WordPress open

Vodcasts and other video-based content

If you’ve put together a video podcast or other WordPress focused, relevant video – let us know about it. Interviews, reviews, animation and anything else you think might be useful for WordPress users are all things we’d love to check out.

The guidelines above all apply, and it goes without saying that we’d like to stay clear of hateful or defamatory material. Let’s all keep our clothes on, too.

Submissions

If you’re ready to submit, head over to the Contact Form and let us know where we can find your video and a line or two on what it’s about. We’re looking forward to checking out what you’ve been working on.

Keep your eyes peeled for more hints and tips in the WordPress.tv blog.