Screencasts Come Of Age, I Turn Full-Time Screencaster

Screencasts Turn Three

A little over three years ago the term screencast didn’t exist at all. In the same month that the medium comes of age, I have made the commitment to professional screencasting as a full-time career.  Jon Udell coined the term (with a little help from his blog community) and basically (re)invented the medium while he was at it.It’s surreal to think that on the month that screencasts turn three I have made the final leap to full-time professional screencasting after working with a great bunch of clients this last year. A lot has changed in a short space of time.So obviously I have a lot to celebrate, and to thank Mr. Udell for.  Beth Kanter - whose awesome screencasting primer and commitment to sharing her findings on screencasting has made a huge difference to me - has put together a birthday screencast to mark the occasion.As always, it was cool to hear Beth’s reflections on her experiences with this fledgling medium and much of what she talked about in the screencast, and in her accompanying blog post sparked my interest.

Screencasting as Micro-Media

 Beth has a lot to say about Jing, and the great impact it has had in turning screencasting into something everyday people can pick up and use to teach each other, share issues they’re having, and a lot more besides. Jing cuts out the trimmings - the extras that are only really going to be of interest to that small percentage of technically minded pros - and makes it really simple to create satisfying chunks of just-in-time micro media that get the job done. Period.At the moment I’m teaching my folks some social media tricks, and it quickly become apparent how useful Jing is at just getting the simple task of relaying information quickly, and visually in this sort of situation.

Professional Screencasting

 On the other side of the coin I find myself using Final Cut Pro Studio 2 in my professional work, in spite of its obvious unfriendliness to the task of screencasting, for a couple of reasons: 

•  The non-linear editing environment is something I’ve long been familiar with, since my background is in film and video. It’s really tough to let go of the ability to make precision edits and use my favorite little tools, especially when making revisions for clients that might otherwise mean completely reshooting footage
• I find my own work moving into a fusion of screencasting and something closer to motion graphics. I’m calling it “screencasts ++” or “enhanced screencasting” for want of a better phrase. Final Cut helps me get there.
• I just love grappling with software updates that introduce fresh bugs and demand new and imaginative workarounds

Future of Screencasting

 Reading Beth’s and Jon’s posts, I got to thinking about the future of screencasting.I think, just as with web video at large, we are seeing an interesting and highly complementary split in the road for screencasting. I see more people using screencasting in a professional capacity - as teachers, Internet marketers, and even screencasters-for-hire like me, and expect to see this trend take a sharp upturn in 2008 and onwards. I also see screencasting steadily merging with other genres - motion presentations, animation, motion graphics, video blogging to name a few - to create new and interesting hybrids.Then on the other side, screencasting seems to be becoming steadily more accepted as another way for people to easily communicate something visually - helped along by end-to-end solutions like Jing that make capturing and publishing screencasts as easy as sending an email or making an iTunes playlist. I’m really looking forward to the results of the meeting between this super-fast way of making screencasts, with the Twitter like speed and informality of Seesmic. That could be a tipping point I think.

What’s Next?

 I’ve been working hard on some great new client screencasts (++) and am in the midst of setting up my own micro-studio website, video podcast and an increasing amount of motion graphics work.