Julian On Film

published: Thu, 26-Jun-2008   |   updated: Sat, 16-Aug-2008

From the scary but true department: I've been recording a whole series of videos for DevExpress.

Scary? Well, yes. You know how when you listen to yourself in a recording it sounds weird to you? Watching yourself on video, especially in a formal interview style or "talking head" video rather than at cousin Jennie's wedding bash, is the worst. Every little nuance, every little giggle, every tug at the ear or touching of the nose, every time you use your hands expressively and continue to do so even when there's nothing to be animated about, grates on the nerves.

It's getting better though, thank heavens. The more I do, the more I relax into it. Today's sessions were a little more difficult though: we started recording the ones where I introduce our new DXGrid for WPF beta and program some simple tasks with it. So two recordings were being done: the main one on Jeff's rather expensive super-duper Panasonic video camera (Jeff is our videographer), and the second a Camtasia screencast on my PC. Jeff then takes both recordings and edits them to switch from the talking head to the code, and back again. The end result is pretty professional I must say.

If you want a taste, check this one out: a kind of chat between Mark Miller and myself about a feature in CodeRush. We've just made our DevExpress TV channel public, so you'll be able to search for just those videos with me in.

In order that you can avoid them of course...