Miss last night's speeches? YouTube can help

YouTube's politics channel is streaming and saving the speeches from the Democratic National Convention. Here are Tuesday night's speeches by San Antonio mayor Julian Castro and First Lady Michelle Obama.

The Google-owned streaming website also has speeches from last week's Republican National Convention and other political videos at youtube.com/politics.

How to shoot video that doesn't suck

Steve Stockman, director of commercials and films (including Sally Field's 2006 terminal-disease chucklefest "Two Weeks") gets the award for Most Entertaining Tech Book Title to Cross My Desk Recently. "How To Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck" -- that's his new book -- isn't just memorably titled, it also seems to be just what so many have been longing for: practical, non-technical help for all those wannabe YouTube stars clogging the internet with lame videos. (I'll admit, I've contributed to the problem a time or two. But to my credit, I did NOT go to YouTube with my 15-minute iPhone video of my 10-year-old starring in the church Easter play. You can thank me later).

Won't try to summarize the whole book, but Stockman offers a 12-pack of beginner tips that might make your next family vacation video a little less excruciating:

1. Think in shots. (In other words, shoot deliberately. Don't just run the camera nonstop, like I did at said Easter play).
2. Don't shoot till you see the whites of their (your subjects') eyes.
3. Keep your shots under 10 seconds long.
4. Zoom with your feet (not with the zoom function -- it produces shakier video).
5. Stand still! Stop fidgeting! And no zooming during shots!
6. Keep the light behind you.
7. Turn off the camera's digital effects (leave "night-vision," posterization and such for the editing process).
8. Focus on what really interests you.
9. Don't use amateurish titles.
10. Keep your video short. (The average time spent looking at a web page, he notes, is 15 seconds).
11. Use an external microphone.
12. Take the quality pledge (Pretty funny, but long. It begins by asking you to "promise not to inflict lame video on my friends, relatives, customers, or complete strangers who might find it on YouTube because I put something about sex in the title.").

So, there you go. A quick guide for shooting non-sucky video.

Michael Jackson clone struts his stuff at Bobcats game

If you've ever been to a professional sports event of any type, you know what happens when they crank up a "fan-cam" segment during a break in the action. The cameras rove around the audience, showing people's pictures on the Jumbotron as they dance, kiss or do whatever the prompt of the moment might be. Most people just look goofy. But every once in a while, somebody wows the crowd with some display of raw charm or talent. Like this kid at a Bobcats game, doing the best Michael Jackson routine I've seen in a while. (You've gotta wait until near the end, but he's worth the wait). The guys at CLTblog were wondering who this kid is. So am I after watching him in action. Anybody know who this is??

What's the most mispronounced name in Charlotte?

One of the best things about social networks (or worst, if you're a Facebook-hater) is the ability to take funny little "things that make you go hmmm...." snippets of everyday life and share them with the world. The folks at Wingate University recently had a little fun by making a YouTube video poking fun at the fact that people can't settle on one correct pronunciation for their school's title, and for the town it's named after. Is it Win-GATE or Win-GIT?



When I first moved to the Charlotte area, I lived in Rock Hill, where I quickly got reprimanded by locals when I pronounced the name of nearby town of Sharon as if it were the popular woman's name. Nope, they told me, it's SHAY-run. When I pronounced the name of nearby Lancaster County as you would the actor Burt Lancaster, I got corrected again. It's LANK-a-stir, they told me.

There's a ton of similarly weird name spellings/pronunciations around the region. Which ones are your favorites?