Help/FAQ/Resources
FAQ
Help & Resources
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is this site all about?
This is an "Open Content" Web site featuring raw footage shot
for NOVA's
Car of the Future documentary.
You can download our clips to use in your own film on
tomorrow's cars, environmental issues, or any topic you want.
Feel free to mix the footage with other footage you shoot or
obtain elsewhere, such as from other Open
Content sites.
What is "Open Content"?
Open Content is material that anyone can use, free of
charge, with only a few
restrictions.
Do I need to register to use this site?
No, but you will need to register to use the
Filmmakers' Forum. You can do this for free.
How can I view your clips?
You can use the "Search clips/browse clips by" box in
the upper right of this page to search or browse our video
collection. To watch video previews, you'll need a copy of
QuickTime
or
Windows Media Player, which may already exist on your computer. Both programs are
available free of charge for Windows and Mac users.
Once you've read our Open Content
guidelines, you
can download our clips. These clips are available as MPEG-4
files, which are viewable with most video software and editing
programs.
I want to make a video, but what if I need help?
Check out our how-to guides below. These
guides include resources that should help you throughout the
filmmaking process, from capturing your first shot to sharing
your final creation with the rest of us. If you would like to
exchange ideas with other documentarians, you can visit our
Filmmakers' Forum.
What kinds of videos can I make?
Your videos can be about any issue that's important to you,
from tomorrow's cars to the environment. You can create these
videos for display on this site, for school or community
projects, or anything else that comes to mind as long as you
follow a few fair and simple
rules. You should
familiarize yourself with these rules before you download our
clips.
Your clips have all the material I need. Do I have to shoot
new footage?
No.
Do you have any other footage that I can use?
NOVA does not currently have any other Open Content footage
available, but if this experiment appears to be useful to a
lot of people, we will try to find the resources to do similar
projects more often.
Can I contribute new footage to your collection of stock
and interview clips?
Not at the moment, but your finished video can include as much
or as little of your own footage as you like.
I'm done with my video. Now what?
When you're done with your video, you can
share it with the
rest of us. But you'll need to find hosting for your creation
first. YouTube or any
other site that provides upload capability is fine—just
send us the link.
How can I help support "Car of the Future" Open Content?
Glad you asked! You can help support innovative new media
projects like this one through your
local PBS station
or by making a
one-time gift.
What if I still have questions?
Our how-to resources below should help answer any lingering
questions about shooting, editing, and sharing your film. If
you've reviewed the FAQ and resources on this page and still
have questions about our Web site or suggestions for new
resources we could add, please send us some
feedback. You can also use this form to
report any technical glitches on our site.
HELP & RESOURCES
Car of the Future
Before you start working on your own video, you might want to
familiarize yourself with NOVA's
Car of the Future documentary,
which you can watch online. The "Car of the Future" site also
offers an extensive list of
resources with
useful information on important topics such as fuel emissions
and what car companies are doing to improve the future of
personal transportation.
How-To: Start filming
If you want to shoot your own footage but you don't
have a camera, you can start looking for one by reading
product reviews, which can be found all over the Web at sites
like
CNET.com and
Amazon. If you would rather rent a camera, check with your local
retailers. Many schools will also lend video- and
audio-recording equipment to teachers and students.
Some sites that might help you along the way include:
Current: Essential Gear
current.com/make/training?section=gear
If you're still not sure how to find the best
equipment, Current TV Executive Director Evan Stone has a few
helpful suggestions.
OurMedia: Video
www.ourmedia.org/learning-center/video
OurMedia is an Open Content site that allows filmmakers
to share their work with others. This help page includes a
variety of easy-to-use tutorials on shooting video like a
cinematographer, making sure you've got the best lighting, and
much more.
Basic Filmmaking Tutorial
www.surreyfilms.com/filmmaking/tutorial
Surrey Films offers helpful tips for novice filmmakers
on getting the right angles and framing when shooting video.
Inside Indies: Learn from the Pros
www.pbs.org/independentlens/insideindies/learn/index.html
PBS's Independent Lens offers video interviews with
seasoned filmmakers who give the inside scoop on how to create
a compelling story.
How-To: Edit your video
Most new computers come with basic video-editing
software, like Apple's
iMovie or
Windows
Movie Maker, that will allow you to create your film. If you don't have
either of these programs or want to use something else, you
can check the Web for other user-reviewed products.
Download.com might be a
good place to start looking for free and pay software.
OurMedia: Multimedia
www.ourmedia.org/learning-center/multimedia
Editing is about more than just cutting and pasting
scenes together. In order to keep your audience engaged, you
need to tell a story. OurMedia tells you how.
One-Minute Movies: How to Edit
www.bbc.co.uk/films/oneminutemovies/howto/edit.shtml
This BBC-created tutorial offers useful information on
how to organize your clips and edit your video like the pros.
YouTube: Making Videos
www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/topic.py?topic=10521
YouTube's Help Center presents a lot of useful
information for recording and editing video. It also tells you
how to optimize your video for easy uploading.
How-To: Share your work
When you're done with your film, you can
show it off to
the rest of us. But first you'll need to find hosting for your
video.
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com
YouTube is one of the biggest resources of free,
streaming video content on the planet. You can upload your
finished video here.
Yahoo! Video
video.yahoo.com
Yahoo! users can upload their videos for others to
watch, rate, and share with others.
Internet Archive: Moving Image Archive
www.archive.org/details/movies
This digital library contains thousands of free
user-uploaded videos. Submitting your video here will give you
the option of letting other users download it to their
computers.
Four-Eyed Monsters: Distributing Your Videos
www.foureyedmonsters.com/distributing-your-videos-on-the-web
The creators of the feature film
Four-Eyed Monsters offer a quick tutorial on how to
spread your video all over the Web and get more exposure.
Share Your Videos
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/car/open/share.html
Once you've uploaded your video to YouTube or another
site, please submit it to our
Share Your Videos
page. We may select your video to be featured on our site,
where other users can comment on your creation.
Filmmakers' Forum
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/car/open/filmmakers.html
After you've shared your video with us, let people know
about it on our Filmmakers' Forum.
Other Open Content Sites
Interested in finding more Open Content on the Web? There are
a number of other sites out there that might prove useful.
Creative Commons
www.creativecommons.org
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that
provides free tools that let users easily mark their creative
work with the freedoms they want it to carry. Creators of
original works can use the CC like we do—to change their
copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights
Reserved."
Blip.TV
www.blip.tv
This is a video sharing service that provides content
creators with free hosting, support for a variety of video
formats, and distribution using technologies like RSS. Blip.TV
is ideal for users generating ongoing content with multiple
"episodes."
Internet Archive
www.archive.org
The Internet Archive maintains extensive collections of
digital media that are either public domain or licensed under
Creative Commons or similar licenses. Users can upload their
own content here.
Kaltura
www.kaltura.com/index.php/corp/company
Dubbed "Wiki meets YouTube," Kaltura is striving to
create the world's largest distributed video network. Kaltura
enables sites to integrate rich-media functionalities,
including video searching, uploading, importing, editing,
annotating, remixing, and sharing.
Media Rights
www.mediarights.org
MediaRights.org helps showcase important social-issue
documentaries and puts media makers in touch with educators,
librarians, and nonprofits. Together, they use the
documentaries to generate discussion and encourage action on
contemporary social issues.
MIT OpenCourseWare
ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has begun an
initiative to put all educational materials (including video)
free of charge online. Subjects include but aren't limited to
environmental engineering and Earth sciences.
MOD Films
www.modfilms.com
MOD creates "remixable" film content for potential use
in digital videos and games, and as source material for online
communities.
OurMedia
www.ourmedia.com
OurMedia allows users to discuss home-brewed media,
store their work online, and share their creative efforts with
a global audience.
Revver
www.revver.com
Revver is a YouTube-like Web site that supports the
free and unlimited sharing of user-generated videos across the
Web.
Sandbox
lab.wgbh.org/sandbox
This Open Content site, created by WGBH in Boston,
allows users to download clips on a broad variety of topics
and then edit and mix them together to create their own
videos.
Wikimedia Commons
commons.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Commons is a repository of free images,
video, and other multimedia files. All of the content is
either in the public domain or released under licenses such as
from the Creative Commons.
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