First presentation, a video, and the green screen. Maybe we can call it a success?

Last night I made my first presentation to adults who are interested the field of genealogy. Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous.  That must be because I was speaking on a subject I enjoy, I am passionate about, and had worked very hard on since I was scared to death of making a mistake.  The only thing that went wrong, which was not my fault, was that the projector made everything appear on the screen with a green tint.  That I could work around.

The talk was given to the Fredericksburg Regional Genealogy Society (FRGS) at their monthly meeting held in the Salem Church Library.  A little over 20 people came to hear me discuss the ins and outs of blogging and social media.  I even made three videos to demonstrate how easy it is to make a blog and write your first post.

Making the videos was a last minute addition.  Originally I was going to do each step on a slide and after I started I became very frustrated.  In fact I was unable to continue doing nearly 2 dozen plus slides to show the process, it was becoming too much.  This is when I decided to make a video.  That was Monday.  Yes, Monday.  Thankfully I found free software and figured it out on Monday, made the videos on Tuesday, and had it all put together Wednesday Morning.  Nothing like working up to the last minute.

The software I used was Microsoft Expression Encoder 4.  Like I said I was able to download a free version, and while it didn't have all the bells and whistles that the paid version has, it got the job done.  If you want to see a few videos on how to use the software I would check out YouTube.  There are quite a few videos out there like this one.

Without further ado, because I am in awe of myself, here is the first video I have ever made:

Wasn't that cool!  Okay, it was not an interesting topic, and most of you bloggers out there who use Blogger knew this information, but I am quite proud of myself.  What's even weirder is that once you listen to yourself a few dozen times your voice no longer sounds odd.

The really, really bad part of this...now I want to make more videos.  I have some crazy notions in my head right now so watch out.  There may be some new and interesting things coming your way soon.