Tools of the Trade - The Video Camera

At first, I wasn't sure that a video camera would be useful to me. I'm only likely to interview a few people, most of whom will be of peripheral importance to my project. And this is academic research, not a documentary (although now that I think about it, a mockumentary about academic research would be a hit . . . in the academic community only).

But then I had an interesting conversation with a patronage scholar in New York (Sylvia Kahan) that convinced me of the utility of a video camera. If ever I'm granted permission to photograph a larger number of documents (as is possible in a private collection, but unlikely in a public archive), it might make more sense to video the collection so I don't have to pause every time I turn the page to take a picture. As long as the video camera is stable, and as long as I turn the pages appropriately, I could pull screen shots from a video later on. That way I'll waste time outside of the collection, not while I'm there.

With that in mind, let me introduce my new friend: the Flip Video Camcorder. (If you go to that website, beware the loud, corny music and ADD-inspired animation.) I've actually already "reviewed" this camera on my other blog (so dorky!) so I'll just re-embed that video.

(We all know that this camera is really most useful for taking video of Panda leaping about in the snow, or going on a bike ride, or playing with Sophie - but I can dream about using it for professional purposes, right?)