yep, no laptops included.
travelling lightweight.
iPhone and wireless keyboard!
LET’S GET INTO THIS POST!
Been wanting to get this post written and out there for ages but life just got in the way between everything. I’ll be making a course around this very topic because I think it can become a black book for the mobile content creator — software and hardware may change but the processes you step through stay relatively the same even as quality of equipment and connection improve — it’s mainly about optimising time so you can be part of the event or conference more as a human being (instead of having ya head stuck in a phone) yet always be considering the remote audience as well who might not be able to attend.
hardware I will be using
- iphone 6 (yay, I finally have a phone again after years!)
- apple wireless keyboard
- anker powercore battery charger x 2 (because live streaming?)
- monopod or tripod for super steady video and cinema graphs
if not stated some of my photos are from unsplash a free site for images, also you can grab some cool images from nomad.pictures a site i run with @dayleeo to get pictures out of the camera roll and onto the web
software and social sites we will using
- textexpander - for auto completing for fast output and production
- alarmed for reminders - setting per hour reminders for content creation
- giphy cam - making animations on the go
- what3words - for referencing places that were cool and where they are
- bear app - for markdown writing on the go (has text expander integration)
- cloudapp - to be able to upload images and link them in bear
- mixer for live-streaming - because live streaming in real time.
- stream labs live-streaming - because might want to have the overlays
- instagram - because that’s where i post pictures doing any trip.
- twitter - everything is kinda linked there so I use that to share.
- discord chat - just a few ways to keep in touch while there
- rocket.chat - another channel I can be reached at while there
pre building graphics and macros (power tip!)
I’ve talked it before but bear app and text expander are my mobile blogging gold — they work fantastic together and it just means that a lot of the pretty work to do with footers and headers can be taken care for each post, I don’t have to remember them or switch out to copy and paste I just need to remember the innovation text for each block — trust me, once you get into making them you will love it and it saves time. Time for you to get back into another conversation with someone else.
power and connectivity considerations
That anker powercore life, you need that battery kit if you want to keep your phone going all day long that’s for sure — the super weird thing was when @dayleeo got here to the uk she had the SAME brand and had only just bought it, we never discussed it, it just happened — I got the smaller 10,000M/ah hours one and she got the longer twice as much power one so we are totally set in terms of backup power on the ground at the event!
We also got the internet connectivity hook up by booking in advance SIM cards to pick up at the airport that give us 30 gig of internet for the week while we are there, I’m gonna burn through that if I do too much live streaming so I’ll see how I go — don’t want to use wifi if I can help it and you know I’m gonna be using my VPN on all connections, especially posting anything to the steemit blockchain while I’m away!
As a rough rule of thumb remember that 1hr of streaming content is about 1 gig of data depending on the quality you use. I suggest that you try to stream less than HD because sending hd video over a mobile connection, especially on the move can be demanding — I’m going into a 4g/3g connection zone so I have no idea how resilient the network is gonna be especially when you have so many mobile phones in the same place at one time it tends to put a big demand on the network in general, also expect the network or steemit website to be overloaded as well — always write and design for the offline experience.
capturing AND enjoying the moment
It can be the hardest thing to achieve but that’s why I set the timers to remind me at least a few times an hour, it may seem impersonal but if I can just excuse myself, do the task and jump back in that means that I get to have the local and remote audience catered for and it makes it easier for making the media during the day and later on in the evening no matter what state I’m in — something about being back in the room late at night writing a blog piece, recording a blog and reconnecting the events in the day, I kinda have to do it these days so it’s easier on my brain! :)
pre-prep you can do for interviews
Let me share with you a power tip I came up with for another project — cue cards. They might not work so well at an event like steemfest which is more a festival rather than a conference but the idea behind them applies and instead of giving them to the person you interview you can use them yaself to remind them what you wanna ask them.
I’m always interested in the journey story behind how someone got to where they are in life and some of there recent roadblocks they got through so others can learn from them, not sure why but I seem to have like an ESP that tractor beams me towards certain people and their stories.
it’s like the universe just wants to connect me with them because it’s relevant, like we all carry a part of the grand answer and it’s been spread across the world ready to be put back together again, I feel steemfest will be very much that kind of event! :)
basics for video shoots and audio capture
so I’m not doing any streaming or anything that requires me to have a steady or fixed shot for zooming or switching between people on a panel but I do want to get steady shots for instagram stories, cinema graphs and for making gif animations — I just keep away from windows so we don’t have blown out shots, interesting creamy and delicious bokeh style backgrounds to the videos away ideally from high traffic areas and always away of noise if I can help it.
it can be the difference between an awesome interview or one where you can’t hear anything of the person you are interviewing — also, don’t forget to shoot some b-roll around the shot too, can be useful for cutting away, weird eye angle, distraction, pauses or just referencing other things while chatting — a nice wide of the room for instance works really well when people are talking about the people in attendance, a cut away just makes the video a little bit more engaging and interesting.
As far as podcasts and interviews — make sure the mic ain’t too hot and blown out, make sure you are as wind covered as possible if outside with a muff that protects the mic or if inside make sure you pass the microphone back and forth between interviews! :)
need to remember people? photo and email!
Meeting new people for the first time, take a photo of them together with you and get them to put in their email address to send it too, that way they remember who you are and you have an email address for them that you sent that email out too — a great of remembering people you meet, I always have this problem at events, remembering the name of the person!
telling a transmedia story
I’m going to be using the platforms that I understand well. I suggest you do the same, be careful with experimenting on demand at events if you NEED to get content out, make sure you have a copy somewhere in the cloud of your photos you take locally on your phone, backup into the cloud whenever available you really don’t want to lose anything.
I’ll be using a bunch of platforms to tell a remote digital story, not just one platform but many — including live streams, tweets, photos and videos — this is how I normally go about doing that — I make sure all of the platforms I use send a message to twitter when I go live or when I post any content to them so people can see those updates easily.
I tend to tweet throughout the day while at an event and try and do an update live stream video when I’m in transition between venues, it’s got an interesting remote audience energy to it that you feel that you are taking the viewer from one place to another place and they might be watching and see people in your stream view and want to say hello to them! :)
At the end of a live stream I tend to do instagram stories too, some pictures and a few video clips of what’s happening, especially food, speakers, and tell people what I’ll be doing next and on what platform, that way they transition with me to the next platform and this is the essence of a transmedia story, you are carrying that storytelling across different platforms with different audiences that might not even follow your steemit blog yet, they might even sign up right?
Podcasts are easy to do with anchor, it’s a power app for those wanting to do audio interviews on the go and give little audio snippit updates, it might be easier to do audio than video depending on the situation and people you are with, try and be respectful of their wishes, don’t just start streaming or throw a camera in peoples faces. Always ASK!
I always try and keep the conversation going in the chat room aside from the live streams and the instagram stories by having a backchannel, for this event I’m going to be using our own discord channel for hosting comms so feel free to drop in and say hello, if I don’t get back to you through comments and streams you know I’ll be checking up on this every few hours or so, please drop me a message and say hello or if you want me to connect with someone while there!
Also for this event I’ll be using dtube for little videos where I want to use a certain audio track that I know youtube will copyright infringe me — just some tracks are perfect for a vlogging style video but you don’t get to use them, with decentralisation I feel I can at least put it out in the form I wanted too and side step that a little, it’s just a vlog, I’m not out to make money from it, it’s just a little video geo blip from sharing a real time memory — we need a new eco system for vlog/music anyway, maybe we can start that conversation with artists and creators alike.
conclusion
I always try and break down each and every hour of an event when I’m ‘ontheground’ and capture that for a remote audience, that’s why I set reminders for myself on my phone and keep that charged — I’m there to meet people, it’s a balance to communicate that experience to people remotely too. i always try my best to be respectful for the local over the remote and I suggest you do the same — if it’s a no stream allowed situation don’t try and side step that, be super respectful of the media making rules, not everyone will want to be on the internet and hyperlinked!
I hope you will follow along with our trip, it’s gonna be a lovely break around some lovely, passionate and creative people. I can’t really ask for anything more to round out the year, feels like I’m pulling it back for the rest of the year because I’ve not had any vacation or break. I’m gonna enjoy it and fill my face with all of those creamy and delicious pastries! :)
What are you power tips for travelling with your digital cut? What things do you do to make sure that your digital side of the content creation process is as painless as possible? I’d love to hear your power hacks! :)
Lots of love and hugs,
Teamhumble xx
<3
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LIFE!
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I'll try to post from my phone, but it probably won't be video. I'm debating whether to take a decent camera as I plan to travel light. Apparently roaming is included on my plan, but I'll use whatever wifi is available.
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roger that! :)
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